From 9a6c9d47e79ba7b9c22a308dc3b1ceca8a40deb0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: slbalbinot Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2020 23:04:05 -0300 Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?#3=20continua=C3=A7=C3=A3o=20da=20reestrutura?= =?UTF-8?q?=C3=A7=C3=A3o?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit --- Data/Config.xlsx | Bin 25677 -> 25681 bytes ...nch_arquivo 1_2020-02-02 16_51_02_2574.txt | 130 ---------------- Process.xaml | 98 ++++++++++-- _Test.xaml | 140 +++++------------- 4 files changed, 124 insertions(+), 244 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 Data/Status/techcrunch_arquivo 1_2020-02-02 16_51_02_2574.txt diff --git a/Data/Config.xlsx b/Data/Config.xlsx index 602138125c6c2c5330232e6d3790d5daf88581f1..e15c68c0e99f28ac05c972675082875830328bf5 100644 GIT binary patch delta 3550 zcmc&%c{J4P{~r@dBKu5ZZ5tsGF$!AE4e$VHzP*FKg^vhQJL zDk0l+C9*WAFv>+51~bh3-21z~dw=J9zW;vD_c`aiJg?{Ven0PX-se2${q(&N>VG3t zwIV9=cFofMH;^l;1bE#T)s>6Rs}uOFqwSQ`5-4P-dxMRKOS!jBy5<)+-k@54OvBkl zz^m9scHsP0E#0b-7}w<(EB*M)rJs(-L=p8@xbQu;m#oAO zM#kkme_7I2>23eW2E%x8>m)?YE-u9X+3>1FPo#BUdTEnz58(OrzB~L|!VS&7E0=>A z0q56nQYT}q6JGn@aRY=c`dD#G`t9HD+qQ`Ix8^I%W_db4vD6wlHEC0-I@e7oErZ~Z zJ8^l64)<&nybl+>3w4bh(|Tv2B|+c8KM;$&hJ_BibS(C9-(%2t3Nl}5t-6MV=A}`k z$|MQjj}}!_t^;6Tc+;igLcvA(fa(I2u1pjnCAJPx{#vS4aB?o-c|t^l9!!MpVGHXo zZ7wQqc?vCzLlAStdTNDL+Z?pl$L~};3)0?MMZz`8`T$K2*$=JuI ziQ?Xt3*+wX?5Qt$gndw#-BLXqhhSu(<&R4QvNUHpGFK$36%3f#vT@fmK+ONRB>&Nmv_soSik5y*6F*`E! zVDhT3YM#(y0M&ip%{$9aSC(0Qj|t*zJMt~l>}CD!<281!-Y=+WjQESj$lW^1dTQ~0 zrkq!P2;dge5wqMuz0#?8r#~Z9zb)v6K@~bxC$GqW+jL zV!v{W)3T*iws*_iiSY`~7*oPwwL$UKs-jiLcj{nH&R~v}y0(s$xMbvn!E2V@fgb{fq}}2AJHwo;o#j}`y??})dzc^ z$A?AuZtpe{!Ny%)()BSWp3L{t%Xn&k@X@-$bV=}_ggx-2_T^n;fiGJyjYG|GP7&Q1 zzG3yHN3z;HBb&amzkDjeA?$s}Y*IS~=P%t;9Gd1u5~1P6zdsJ^S_{x_(L#E=ooQ?z zZF5m&GIToHbqaX`<*CIdn|h@k{uM)7bp|E1m-#ePEm(5U(Q2cW zXL%o5t^kY{`1RFl0lST#TWPTwfNnaZQ_`3`Q|7**OZThz5yK?cnw=y>FI6qKd|RlT z-k5g*VXUE%`O>G4#vVmo9Q9N7iZazXSDXFy;{eds8n*Dd%zX+yQyD+qNuEYkAL)aAbvgLn^uG3? 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WeWork That’s just what it has done, too, according to a new story from the WSJ that says the company, which was famously forced to pull its initial public offering last fall, has settled on Sandeep Mathrani as its new top banana. new story Mathrani, has spent the last 1.5 years as the CEO of Brookfield Properties’ retail group and as a vice chairman of Brookfield Properties. Before joining the Chicago-based company, he spent eight years as the CEO of General Growth Properties. It was one of the largest mall operators in the U.S. until Brookfield acquired it for $9.25 billion in cash in 2018. Mathrani also spent eight years as an executive vice president with Vornado Realty Trust, a publicly traded real estate company with a market cap of $12.5 billion. (Brookfield is slightly smaller, with a market cap of roughly $8 billion.) Mathrani will reportedly relocate to New York from Miami, where according to public records, he owns at least one high-rise apartment that he acquired last year. He’ll be reporting to Marcelo Claure, the SoftBank operating chief who was appointed executive chairman of WeWork in October in order to help salvage what Claure has himself said is an $18.5 billion bet on WeWork by SoftBank. SoftBank Specifically, Claure told nervous employees at an all-hands meeting shortly after his appointment, “The size of the commitment that SoftBank has made to this company in the past and now is $18.5 billion. To put the things in context, that is bigger than the GDP of my country where I came from [Bolivia]. That’s a country where there’s 11 million people.” bigger than the GDP of my country where I came from Claure — who earlier spent four years as the CEO of SoftBank-backed Sprint —  was reportedly trying to hire T-Mobile CEO John Legere for the CEO’s post. Legere later communicated through sources that he had no plans to leave T-Mobile, yet just days later, in mid-November, Legere, who joined T-Mobile in 2012, announced that he’s stepping down as CEO after all, though he will remain chairman of the company. (According to the Verge, his contract is up April 30.) trying to hire no plans stepping down as CEO after all, Sprint and T-Mobile were expected to merge, though 13 states, led by the attorneys general of New York and California, are suing to block the deal over concerns that the merger would hurt competition and raise prices for users’ cell service. Either way, Mathrani is a stark contrast to WeWork’s cofounder and longtime CEO Adam Neumann, who was pressured to resign from the company after his sweeping vision for it as a tech company that enables customers to seamlessly shift from one WeWork location to another while also paying for software and services, was met with extreme skepticism by public market investors. Adam Neumann, Indeed, though SoftBank marked up the company’s value over a number of private funding rounds — all the way to a brow-raising $47 billion — public investors began raising questions about its real value, and WeWork’s governance, as soon as WeWork publicly released the paperwork for its initial public offering. Between the in-depth look its S-1 provided into the company’s spiraling losses; the degree of control held by Neumann (not fully understood previously); and a series of unflattering reports about his leadership style, including beginning with the WSJ; it didn’t take long before the company was forced to abandon its IPO dreams. beginning with the WSJ No doubt it’s now Mathrani’s job to eventually resuscitate those. According to the WSJ, SoftBank has already established a five-year business plan that it expects will get the company to profitability and allow it to be cash-flow positive by some time next year. Part of that plan clearly involved layoffs; it cut 2,400 employees in late November, shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. It has also been selling off companies that were acquired at Neumann’s direction but are seen as non-core assets. What WeWork does not intend to curtail, reportedly, are its efforts to open new locations, even if it acquires them at a slower pace than in previous years. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:52:05 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KLfSBbKDdeyWEAtx2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701915/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f02%2f01%2freport-wework-has-a-new-ceo-and-hes-a-real-estate-not-a-tech-exec%2f/RK=2/RS=Xv313pTbIRr54gVS3Ew91CCbFDM- -Newly funded Legacy, a sperm testing and freezing service, conveys a message to men: get checked January 31, 2020 Legacy, a male fertility startup, has just raised a fresh, $3.5 million in funding from Bill Maris’s San Diego-based venture firm, Section 32, along with Y Combinator and Bain Capital Ventures, which led a $1.5 million seed round for the Boston startup last year. Legacy $1.5 million We talked earlier today with Legacy’s founder and CEO Khaled Kteily about his now two-year-old, five-person startup and its big ambitions to become the world’s preeminent male fertility center. Our biggest question was how Legacy and similar startups convince men — who are generally less concerned with their fertility than women — that they need the company’s at-home testing kits and services in the first place. Legacy’s similar startups “They should be worried about [their fertility],” said Kteily, a former healthcare and life sciences consultant with a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. “Sperm counts have gone down 50 to 60% over the last 40 years.” More from our chat with Legacy, a former TechCrunch Battlefield winner, follows; it has been edited lightly for length. former TechCrunch Battlefield winner TC: Why start this company? KK: I didn’t grow up wanting to be the king of sperm [laughs]. But I had a pretty bad accident — a second-degree burn on my legs after having four hot Starbucks teas spill on my lap in a car — and between that and a colleague at the Kennedy School who’d been diagnosed with cancer and whose doctor suggested he freeze his sperm ahead of his radiation treatments, it just clicked for me that maybe I should also save my sperm. When I went into Cambridge to do this, the place was right next to the restaurant Dumpling House and it was just very awkward and expensive and I thought, there must be a better way of doing this. TC: How do you get started on something like this? KK: This was before Ro and Hims began taking off, but people were increasingly comfortable doing things from their own homes, so I started doing research around the idea. I joined the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. I started taking continuing education classes about sperm… TC: Women are under so much pressure from the time they turn 30 to monitor their fertility. Aside from extreme circumstances, as with your friend, do men really think about testing their sperm? KK: Men should be worried about it, and they should be taking responsibility for it. What a lot of folks don’t know is for every one in seven couples that are actively trying to get pregnant, the man is equally responsible [for their fertility struggles]. Women are taught about their fertility but men aren’t, yet the quality of their sperm is degrading over the years. Sperm counts have gone down by 50 to 60% over the last 40 years, too. 50 to 60% TC: Wait, what? Why? KK: [Likely culprits are] chemicals in plastics, chemicals in what we eat eat and drink, changes in lifestyle; we move less and eat more, and sperm health relates to overall health. I also think mobile phones are causing it. I will caveat this by saying there’s been mixed research, but I’m convinced that cell phones are the new smoking in that it wasn’t clear that smoking was as dangerous as it is when the research was being conducted by companies that benefited by [perpetuating cigarette use]. There’s also a generational decline in sperm quality [to consider]; it poses increased risk to the mother but also the child, as the risk of gestational diabetes goes up, as well as the rate of autism and other congenital conditions. gestational diabetes the rate of autism congenital conditions TC: You’re selling directly to consumers. Are you also working with companies to incorporate your tests in their overall wellness offerings? KK: We’re investing heavily in business-to-business and expect that to be a huge acquisition channel for us. We can’t share any names yet, but we just signed a big company last week and have a few more in the works. These are mostly Bay Area companies right now; it’s an area where our experience as a YC alum was valuable because of the founders who’ve gone through and now run large companies of their own. TC: When you’re talking with investors, how do you describe the market size? KK: There are four million couples that are facing fertility challenges and in all cases, we believe the man should be tested. So do [their significant others]. Almost half of purchases [of our kits] are by a female partner. We also see men in the military freezing their sperm before being deployed, same-sex couples who plan to use a surrogate at some point and transgender patients who are looking at a life-changing [moment] and want to preserve their fertility before they start the process. But we see this as something that every man might do as they go off to college, and investors see that bigger picture. TC: How much do the kits and storage cost? KK: The kit costs $195 up front, and if they choose to store their sperm, $145 a year. We offer different packages. You can also spend $1,995 for two deposits and 10 years of storage. TC: Is one or two samples effective? According to the Mayo Clinic, sperm counts fluctuate meaningfully from one sample to the next, so they suggest semen analysis tests over a period of time to ensure accurate results. KK: We encourage our clients to make multiple deposits. The scores will be variable, but they’ll gather around an average. TC: But they are charged for these deposits separately? KK: Yes. TC: And what are you looking for? KK: Volume, count, concentration, motility and morphology [meaning the shape of the sperm]. TC: Who, exactly, is doing the analysis and handling the storage? KK: We partner with Andrology Labs in Chicago on analysis; it’s one of the top fertility labs in the country. For storage, we partner with a couple of cryo-storage providers in different geographies. We divide the samples into four, then store them in two different tanks within each of two locations. We want to make sure we’re never in a position where [the samples are accidentally destroyed, as has happened at clinics elsewhere]. happened at clinics elsewhere TC: I can imagine fears about these samples being mishandled. How can you assure customers this won’t happen? KK: Trust and legitimacy are core factors and a huge area of focus for us. We’re CPPA and HIPAA compliant. All [related data] is encrypted and anonymized and every customer receives a unique ID [which is a series of digits so that even the storage facilities don’t know whose sperm they are handling]. We have extreme redundancies and processes in place to ensure that we’re handling [samples] in the most scientifically rigorous way possible, as well as ensuring the safety and privacy of each [specimen]. TC: How long can sperm be frozen? KK: Indefinitely. TC: How will you use all the data you’ll be collecting? KK: I could see us entering into partnerships with research institutions. What we won’t do is sell it like 23andMe. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:52:23 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KLfSBbKDdeyWEAuR2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701915/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f31%2flegacy-test%2f/RK=2/RS=XR5oh50J5mXa1oLb_h68o2e7Sxo- -Last day for early-bird tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 January 31, 2020 Today’s your last day to score early-bird pricing on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020, which takes place on March 3. If you want to keep $150 in your wallet, beat the deadline and buy your ticket here before the clock strikes 11:59 p.m. (PT) tonight! TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 buy your ticket here Our one-day conference dedicated to robotics and AI — the good, the bad and the challenging — features interviews, panel discussions, Q&As, workshops and demos. Join roughly 1,500 experts, visionaries, creators, founders, investors, researchers and engineers. Rub elbows, network and engage with current and aspiring leaders, as well as students poised to drive future innovation. We have a stellar line up, and just because we’re biased doesn’t mean we’re wrong. I mean come on — assistive robots, ethics and AI, the state of VC investment and robot demos. And that’s just for starters. Here are a couple of specific examples (peruse the full agenda right here): here And in case you haven’t heard, we’ve added Pitch Night, a mini pitch-off, into the mix this year. We’re accepting applications until tomorrow, February 1. This is no time for fence-sitting! Apply to compete in Pitch Night now. TechCrunch editors will review the applications and choose 10 startups to pitch at a private event the night before the conference. A panel of VC judges will select five teams as finalists. Those founders will pitch again the next day — live from the Main Stage. It’s awesome exposure that could take your startup to the next level. Pitch Night Apply to compete in Pitch Night If you love robots, you need to be at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 on March 3. And there’s no point paying more than necessary. Today’s the last day to buy an early-bird ticket. Buy yours before the deadline expires at 11:59 p.m. (PT) and save $150. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 buy an early-bird ticket Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:52:37 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KLfSBbKDdeyWEAux2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701915/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f31%2flast-day-for-early-bird-tickets-to-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=5tb6QV_ggxzJ2F70Y4AkPYkGns8- -Moda Operandi, an online marketplace for high-end fashion, raises $100M led by NEA and Apax January 31, 2020 Moda Operandi, an online marketplace that specialises in right-off-the-runway luxury fashion, accessories and home decor, is today announcing a high-priced event of its own: it’s raised $100 million, a mix of equity and debt that it will use to invest in its platform and technology as well as to continue growing business overall. Founded in 2010, it offers products from some 1,000 brands and designers and ships to 125 countries. Moda Operandi announcing “For the past eight years, Moda has disrupted the way people shop for luxury fashion,” said Moda Operandi CEO Ganesh Srivats in a statement. “This investment will enable us to build on that innovation, investing further in the client and designer experience and connecting more of the world’s best fashion to more people.” Moda Operandi The financing is being co-led by NEA and Apax Partners, both previous investors in Moda Operandi, with participation also from the Santo Domingo family (connected to Lauren Santo Domingo, who co-founded Moda with Aslaug Magnusdottir), Comerica Bank, TriplePoint Capital and other unnamed investors. Lauren Santo Domingo Aslaug Magnusdottir The company’s valuation is not being disclosed, but in its last round, in 2017, Moda Operandi had a post-money valuation of $650 million, according to data from PitchBook. It has raised $345 million to date. PitchBook High-end fashion might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about online shopping, but it has actually been a ripe market for the e-commerce industry. While those in the know (and in the money) might attend catwalk shows, and bijou boutiques in swish locales are likely to be around for many years to come, there is a massive population of people who have the income and inclination to shop for luxury fashion, but might not be in the right place, or have the time, to do so. For these shoppers, websites, mobile apps and, most recently, new channels like Instagram and messaging services have become a key route to browsing and buying, leading to the rise of huge businesses like Farfetch, Net-a-Porter and more. That trend has helped to buffer Moda Operandi up to now, but it’s also the one that will be interesting to watch down the line. We’ve written about the rise of direct-to-consumer brands and how that has played out specifically in the world of fashion, which in turn becomes a new group of competitors to aggregating marketplaces like Moda Operandi. Similarly, the growing trend of targeting consumers wherever they happen to be also represents a rival business model, with some fashion retailers now foregoing websites altogether in favor of using third-party messaging apps to reach their target customers. Will Moda Operandi change with the times to do more of this kind of selling, too? Like fashion, what’s in today might be out tomorrow, so even the best channels are moving targets. foregoing websites altogether In any case, Moda Operandi has most definitely shown that it’s prepared to evolve and upset the status quo. The company got its start in 2010 as part out of an aha-moment from Santo Domingo, a socialite, former model and former editor at Vogue. As someone who had worked for years in the luxury fashion industry, fully immersed as a consumer to boot, she knew that only a small, rarefied group of people ever got full access to a designer’s runway collection. Moda Operandi was her solution — a platform to broaden that out, giving access to a full trunkshows (as the runway collections are called) to a wider selection of possible buyers and improving revenues for designers and brands in the process, as they no longer had to rely just on more traditional channels, namely buyers for retailers. The site had some catches — for example, as we pointed out at the time, you could shop a runway look, but still had to wait months for the piece to actually arrive, as those items would have yet to be made; but it caught on with a loyal following. pointed out at the time Over the years, the site’s basic remit has expanded, covering not only runway collections but also extending into jewelry, accessories and home decor. (We asked what size the business is today, and whether Moda Operandi can share any details on how that has changed over time, but a spokesperson said the company would not be sharing these or other financial details today.) In any case, it has remained a compelling enough business to have brought in a hefty round of growth funding from its previous backers. “We continue to be impressed with the power of Moda’s brand and its positioning in the luxury market,” said Dan O’Keefe, managing partner of Apax Digital, in a statement. “Moda has been enhancing its technology capabilities as a world leading platform for fashion discovery and is led by a world-class team. We look forward to continuing to support their expansion.” “Moda Operandi has really disrupted the traditional ecommerce model, using technology to give people unprecedented access to fashion,” added Tony Florence, general partner and head of technology investing at NEA, in a statement. “It was a really big idea when we led the Series A, and today Ganesh and the team are executing on that data-enabled retail model at scale. We are thrilled to continue supporting the company in this latest round.” Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:52:51 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KLfSBbKDdeyWEAvR2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701915/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f31%2fmoda-operandi-an-online-marketplace-for-high-end-fashion-raises-100m-led-by-nea-and-apax%2f/RK=2/RS=JQW5y61mdxJJ9xz6vJIzWnR60vM- -Mammoth Biosciences aims to be Illumina for the gene editing generation January 30, 2020 In 1998, the startup company Illumina launched a revolution in the life sciences industry by developing technology to slash the costs of identifying and mapping genetic material. Illumina Now, a little over 20 years later, Mammoth Biosciences is hoping to do the same thing for gene editing tools. Mammoth Biosciences The company, co-founded by Jennifer Doudna, who did some of the pioneering work to discover the gene editing enzyme known as CRISPR, has just raised $45 million as it looks to bring to market products that can be used not only for disease detection, but are more precise editing tools for genetic material. Rather than get bogged down in the patent dispute that raged over the provenance and ownership of applications for the original CRISPR enzyme — the Cas9 discovered by Doudna and developed for clinical applications at the Broad Institute — Mammoth has joined a number of startups in identifying new enzymes with a broader array of properties. get bogged down in the patent dispute “From the very beginning of the company we’ve only worked with novel new enzymes to create these diagnostic products and the new novel diagnostic and editing,” says Trevor Martin, Mammoth Biosciences co-founder and chief executive. Chiefly, the company is touting its Cas14 enzyme, which the company says opens up new possibilities for programmable biology thanks to its small size, diverse targeting ability and high fidelity — meaning that there are no unforeseen side effects to edits made using the enzyme (something that has arisen with Cas9 applications). “There’s not one protein that’s going to be the best at everything,” says Martin. “For any particular product that you’re building, at Mammoth, we have the broadest toolbox.” The Cas14 enzyme can be used to make gene edits in-vivo, meaning in live organisms, instead of ex-vivo, or outside of an organism. The in-vivo use-case could accelerate the time it takes to conduct experiments or develop treatments. “Twenty years from now, when the umpteenth drug gets approved using Crispr and some nuclease named Cas132013, people are going to look back on this patent battle and think, ‘what a godawful waste of money,’ ” Jacob Sherkow a patent law scholar at New York Law School told Wired back in 2018. Jacob Sherkow Already, Horizon Discovery, a Cambridge, U.K.-based gene editing technology developer, is using the new tools developed by Mammoth Bioscience to create new CRISPR tools for Chinese Hamster Ovary cell line editing. Horizon Discovery That partnership is an example of how Mammoth is thinking about the commercialization of the new Cas14 enzyme line and its role in biological engineering. “You will need a full toolbox of CRISPR proteins,” says Martin. “That will allow you to interact with biology in the same way that we interact with software and computers. “From first principles, companies will programmatically modify biology to cure a disease or decrease risk for a disease. That’s going to be really kind of a turning point.” To achieve its vision, Mammoth has managed to nab top talent from the life sciences industry, including Peter Nell, a co-founder of Casebia (a joint venture between Bayer and CRISPR Therapeutics), who came on board as chief business officer, and Ted Tisch, a former executive at Synthego and Bio-Rad, who joined the company as chief operating officer. Bayer CRISPR Therapeutics), The company also nabbed $45 million of funding, including investment firms Mayfield, NFX, Verily (the Alphabet subsidiary) and Brook Byers, which was led by Decheng Capital — bringing the company to more than $70 million in funding. “There are a dozen or so products that are in clinical development with CRISPR,” says Ursheet Parikh, a partner with Mayfield. “Maybe that number would go up by five or 10 without Mammoth, but it will go up by one or two orders of magnitude with Mammoth.” To Parikh, Mammoth is the best positioned of the CRISPR development tools, because the company is building a whole platform that customers can license and use to develop products using gene editing. The thinking, according to Parikh, is as follows, “if this technology can power lots of applications, let’s basically ensure that lots of these applications can come to market and as that happens I get my app store cut.” “It’s an Illumina-like business,” Parikh says. “Just as anybody who is innovating with genomics needs an Illumina sequencer because they want to be able to do the sequencing… if someone wants to do editing… This gives them the access to do the right sequencing.” Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:53:06 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KLfSBbKDdeyWEAvx2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701915/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fmammoth-biosciences-aims-to-be-illumina-for-the-gene-editing-generation%2f/RK=2/RS=2QsYyDnwxsRZVMFQ9pnB87D49EE- -One day left for early-bird tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 January 30, 2020 No one ever wants to pay more, and that’s as true for well-financed companies as it is for early-stage startup founders on a shoe-string budget. So if you love robots and machine learning, why spend more on your ticket to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Prices go up on January 31, which means you have just one day left to buy an early-bird ticket. You’ll save a tidy $150 in the process. Sweet! TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 buy an early-bird ticket On March 3, roughly 1,500 attendees will spend the day delving into the future of robots, the AI that drives them and the people at the forefront. We’re talking some of the top makers, visionaries, founders, investors and engineers. Join your community for live interviews, panel discussions, demos, workshops, audience/speaker Q&As and world-class networking. We’ve posted the day’s agenda, and we’ll add a few more surprises in the coming weeks. Here’s a quick peek at just some of the engaging speakers and presentations you’ll enjoy: agenda In a classic “but wait, there’s more” moment, our Pitch Night finalists will present live on the Main Stage. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Read more about Pitch Night here, and hey — we’re accepting applications until February 1. Don’t wait — toss your hat into the ring. It’s free, and you’ll have a chance to introduce your early-stage startup to a group of heavy-hitting influencers. What’s not to love? Read more about Pitch Night here we’re accepting applications TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place on March 3. You have plenty of time to plan the day, but your opportunity to save $150 runs out in one short day. Prices go up on January 31 — buy your early-bird ticket today. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 buy your early-bird ticket today Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:53:18 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KLfSBbKDdeyWEAwR2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701915/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fone-day-left-for-early-bird-tickets-to-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=P6ZDA3waztzHbphpJNIqvhdWMBQ- -Stanford's Doggo quadrupedal robot and siblings Pupper and Woofer are coming to TC Sessions:... January 29, 2020 Animal-like, four-legged robots have been a crowd-pleaser since Boston Dynamics’ BigDog, and Stanford’s Doggo shows how the technology can be made open source, accessible and educational. Doggo’s creators will bring the diminutive robot, plus its smaller and larger siblings Pupper and Woofer, to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI on March 3. Boston Dynamics’ TC Sessions: Robotics + AI on March 3 P.S. Early-bird ticket sales end this Friday — book your tickets today and save $150. book your tickets today We first heard of Doggo last year when the Stanford Robotics Club showed off the highly capable design, which uses mostly off-the-shelf parts and can be assembled by anyone… as long as “anyone” has considerable experience building robots and a couple thousand dollars to spend. We first heard of Doggo last year Still, a couple thousand is an order of magnitude or two lower than most quadrupedal robots go for, and project lead Nathan Kau told TechCrunch they’ve seen a ton of interest. “I had no idea how many people were going to pick it up,” he said. “It’s complicated! But I get emails every day from people building this thing, from all over. The first team to get it running, to my knowledge, was in Sri Lanka.” In order to further push the lower bounds of who can build and experiment with a robot like this, the team is building a smaller, even less expensive robot called Pupper. They hope to get the cost down to the level where even high school clubs can afford one. “It’s less than $500 in development materials if you make it by yourself,” said Kau. “We imagine that if it becomes a kit and we have a partnership with the part manufacturers, it could be much less. We built it as a platform for learning, so it uses a Raspberry Pi and everything is programmed in Python. It’s about as complicated as building a drone, I’d say.” You’ll be able to see Doggo and Pupper in action at the event, and they’ll be joined by one more robot: Woofer, a jumbo-sized step up from the others. It’s earlier in development than the other two, but to keep things simple it shares much of its codebase with the others. Grab your tickets to the show today and get to see these awesome robots in person and hear from today’s leading minds in the industry. Early-bird tickets expire this Friday, January 31, so book yours today and save $150 before prices go up. Grab your tickets to the show today book yours today Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:53:31 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KLfSBbKDdeyWEAxR2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701915/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2fstanfords-doggo-quadrupedal-robot-and-siblings-pupper-and-woofer-are-coming-to-tc-sessions-roboticsai%2f/RK=2/RS=ClI8TZN3Be2oCR6BdM76hCHR5iY- -48 hours left on early-bird pricing to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 January 29, 2020 Just two days stand between you and serious savings on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020. This annual day-long event draws the most innovative and visionary technologists, researchers and investors from two game-changing industries — last year we hosted 1,500 attendees. Make a smart investment. Buy an early-bird ticket before prices go up on January 31 and save $150. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Buy an early-bird ticket Looking for exposure? We have two fantastic ways to put your early-stage startup in front of a highly influential group of VCs and technologists. Check this out. Apply to compete in Pitch Night. Ten startups will compete in a mini pitch-off at a private event the night before the conference. A panel of VC judges will choose five finalists to pitch again the next day from the TC Sessions Main Stage. All 10 teams will each receive two free tickets to the event. Submit your application here by February 1. We’ll notify selected startups by February 15. Pitch Night Submit your application here by February 1 Buy a Startup Exhibitor Package and demo at the event. You’d better jump on this opportunity, and fast — we have only two packages left. The $2,200 price includes four tickets to the event. Bring your crew and quadruple your networking potential. Buy a Startup Exhibitor Package Now let’s talk about the kind of programming you can expect. We’re talking a full day of presentations, panel discussions, world-class speakers, workshops, robot demos and plenty of time for networking. Here’s a sample of what’s on tap (you can check out the day’s agenda here): check out the day’s agenda here TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place on March 3, but early-bird tickets disappear in just two days. Remember the deadline: January 31. Get the most out of your startup dollars — buy a ticket now and save $150. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 buy a ticket now and save $150 Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:53:43 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KLfSBbKDdeyWEAxx2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701915/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2f48-hours-left-on-early-bird-pricing-to-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=XS2AeRjiSlGRbSgwIs6XIdR_imw- -Greylock's Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo to talk fundraising at Early Stage SF 2020 January 29, 2020 Early Stage SF is around the corner, on April 28 in San Francisco, and we are more than excited for this brand new event. The intimate gathering of founders, VCs, operators and tech industry experts is all about giving founders the tools they need to find success, no matter the challenge ahead of them. Early Stage SF Struggling to understand the legal aspects of running a company, like negotiating cap tables or hiring international talent? We’ve got breakout sessions for that. Wondering how to go about fundraising, from getting your first yes to identifying the right investors to planning the timeline for your fundraise sprint? We’ve got breakout sessions for that. Growth marketing? PR/Media? Building a tech stack? Recruiting? We. Got. You. Hoffman + Guo Today, we’re very proud to announce one of our few Main Stage sessions that will be open to all attendees. Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo will join us for a conversation around “How To Raise Your Series A.” Reid Hoffman Sarah Guo Reid Hoffman is a legendary entrepreneur and investor in Silicon Valley. He was an Executive VP and founding board member at PayPal before going on to co-found LinkedIn in 2003. He led the company to profitability as CEO before joining Greylock in 2009. He serves on the boards of Airbnb, Apollo Fusion, Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Microsoft, Nauto and Xapo, among others. He’s also an accomplished author, with books like “Blitzscaling,” “The Startup of You” and “The Alliance.” Reid Hoffman accomplished author Sarah Guo has a wealth of experience in the tech world. She started her career in high school at a tech firm founded by her parents, called Casa Systems. She then joined Goldman Sachs, where she invested in growth-stage tech startups such as Zynga and Dropbox, and advised both pre-IPO companies (Workday) and publicly traded firms (Zynga, Netflix and Nvidia). She joined Greylock Partners in 2013 and led the firm’s investment in Cleo, Demisto, Sqreen and Utmost. She has a particular focus on B2B applications, as well as infrastructure, cybersecurity, collaboration tools, AI and healthcare. Sarah Guo Zynga, The format for Hoffman and Guo’s Main Stage chat will be familiar to folks who have followed the investors. It will be an updated, in-person combination of Hoffman’s famously annotated LinkedIn Series B pitch deck that led to Greylock’s investment, and Sarah Guo’s in-depth breakdown of what she looks for in a pitch. LinkedIn Series B pitch deck that led to Greylock’s investment in-depth breakdown of what she looks for in a pitch They’ll lay out a number of universally applicable lessons that folks seeking Series A funding can learn from, tackling each from their own unique perspectives. Hoffman has years of experience in consumer-focused companies, with a special expertise in network effects. Guo is one of the top minds when it comes to investment in enterprise software. We’re absolutely thrilled about this conversation, and to be honest, the entire Early Stage agenda. agenda How it works Here’s how it all works: There will be about 50+ breakout sessions at the event, and attendees will have an opportunity to attend at least seven. The sessions will cover all the core topics confronting early-stage founders — up through Series A — as they build a company, from raising capital to building a team to growth. Each breakout session will be led by notables in the startup world. Don’t worry about missing a breakout session, because transcripts from each will be available to show attendees. And most of the folks leading the breakout sessions have agreed to hang at the show for at least half the day and participate in CrunchMatch, TechCrunch’s app to connect founders and investors based on shared interests. Here’s the fine print. Each of the 50+ breakout sessions is limited to around 100 attendees. We expect a lot more attendees, of course, so signups for each session are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Buy your ticket today and you can sign up for the breakouts that we’ve announced. Pass holders will also receive 24-hour advance notice before we announce the next batch. (And yes, you can “drop” a breakout session in favor of a new one, in the event there is a schedule conflict.) Grab yourself a ticket and start registering for sessions right here. Interested sponsors can hit up the team here. Grab yourself a ticket and start registering for sessions right here here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:53:58 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AF5KnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2fgreylocks-reid-hoffman-and-sarah-guo-to-talk-fundraising-at-early-stage-sf-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=EURshUZ.UQ8KKcJBcsrQcrZehTA- -Bird deploys the Bird Two scooter in San Francisco January 30, 2020 Bird is rolling out its Bird Two scooters, which the company first unveiled back in August, via Scoot in San Francisco. Scoot’s plan is to deploy up to 1,000 of these Bird Two scooters. San Francisco is now the first city to have a full fleet of Bird Two scooters.* Bird Scoot’s “With each new generation of electric vehicle we bring to San Francisco, fewer San Franciscans have a need to get in a car,” Scoot founder and Bird SVP of Cities Michael Keating said in a statement. “Bird Two continues this trend with industry-leading performance, range, and safety features, allowing our riders to replace even more of their car trips with micromobility.” What’s unique about the Bird Two is its self-reporting damage sensors that notify the company of any vehicle issues. While Bird is not the first company to come up with this idea, it’s the first one to deploy an electric scooter with this type of system. Superpedestrian, which has about $64 million in funding, has been working on self-diagnosing scooters for years, but it has yet to deploy those scooters. has been working on self-diagnosing scooters for years, but it has yet to deploy those scooters. To help circumvent theft and vandalism, the Bird Two also comes with puncture-resistant tires, anti-theft encryption built into the operating system and a minimum of exposed screws. Scoot, like other operators in San Francisco, was an early target of scooter theft. During the first two weeks of Scoot’s operations of shared, electric scooters in San Francisco, more than 200 scooters were either stolen or damaged beyond repair. To combat theft, Scoot added locks to its vehicles. Now, the city has made locks a requirement, but mostly to help control sidewalk congestion. With the Bird Two scooter, Scoot will have additional theft and vandalism protection. more than 200 scooters were either stolen or damaged beyond repair This deployment comes shortly after Bird acquired European rival Circ, while simultaneously announcing a $75 million extension of its Series D funding round. That total round size is now $350 million. Bird acquired European rival Circ, while simultaneously *An earlier version of this story said San Francisco was the first market to get Bird Two scooters. Bird first launched the Bird Two scooters in Los Angeles late last year, but its fleet is a mix of vehicles. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:54:09 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AGZKnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fbird-finally-deploys-the-bird-two-scooter%2f/RK=2/RS=wHMki7IMmgkhcr61xCVZmWutdOE- -Self-driving company Waymo teams up with UPS for package delivery January 29, 2020 Waymo will start delivering parcels for UPS using its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans in Phoenix as part of a broader partnership with the shipping and logistics company. Waymo The companies said Wednesday that Waymo will pilot autonomous vehicle package pickup in metro Phoenix — the same area where its self-driving vehicles already operate. The minivans will take packages from UPS store locations to a local UPS sorting facility for processing. The pilot won’t involve package delivery to consumers. Phoenix While this is a pilot, both companies said the goal is to jointly develop a “long-term plan for how the companies can work together.” Waymo chief operating officer Tekedra Mawakana added that the partnership will allow us to continue developing how our Waymo Driver can facilitate pickups. Today, Waymo has more than 600 self-driving vehicles in its fleet, the majority of which are in Arizona. Waymo is modifying some of its Chrysler Pacifica minivans for package delivery by removing the back seats. Chrysler The vehicles used in the Arizona pilot will drive autonomously with a Waymo-trained driver on board to monitor operations. This isn’t the first self-driving technology company that UPS has partnered with. TuSimple, an autonomous trucking company, runs two trips daily for UPS between Phoenix and El Paso. UPS announced last year that it took a minority stake in TuSimple, just months after the two companies began testing the use of autonomous trucks in Arizona. minority stake in TuSimple The size of minority investment, which was made by the company’s venture arm UPS Ventures, was not disclosed. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:54:20 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AG5KnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2fself-driving-company-waymo-teams-up-with-ups-for-package-delivery%2f/RK=2/RS=u8tT6PGrckp9FHW.vdYljJVjSHw- -How the world's largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions January 29, 2020 Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others. Instagram, Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted and monitored, but individual users have a lot more wiggle room. Social media is a challenge for a lot of so-called vicetech companies. Social media companies often use a heavy hand when it comes to policy enforcement, and ancillary sectors suffer. When Instagram banned vaporizer companies, businesses in the medicinal and recreational fields were also removed. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:54:27 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AHZKnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2fhow-the-worlds-largest-cannabis-dispensary-sidesteps-social-media-restrictions%2f/RK=2/RS=CRakh88ZklxrFXrTN7XOldLPn54- -GM adds automated lane changes to its hands-free Super Cruise driving system January 28, 2020 GM has improved its hands-free driving assistance system Super Cruise, adding a feature that will automatically change lanes for drivers of certain Cadillac models, including the upcoming 2021 Escalade. Cadillac This enhanced version of Super Cruise, which will include better steering and speed control, puts it back in competition with Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system (specifically the Navigate on Autopilot feature), which is considered the most capable on the market today. Tesla’s The improved version will be introduced starting with the 2021 Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans, followed by the new 2021 Cadillac Escalade. The vehicles are expected to become available in the second half of 2020. Super Cruise uses a combination of lidar map data, high-precision GPS, cameras and radar sensors, as well as a driver attention system, which monitors the person behind the wheel to ensure they’re paying attention. Unlike Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system, users of Super Cruise do not need to have their hands on the wheel. However, their eyes must remain directed straight ahead. GPS, The automatic lane change feature in Super Cruise will still require the driver to keep their eyes on the road. When the system is engaged, the driver can engage the turn signal to indicate a desire to change lanes. Once the system has determined that the lane is open, the vehicle will merge. Meanwhile, the gauge cluster will display messages to the driver such as “looking for an opening” or “changing lanes.” GM’s new digital vehicle platform, which provides more electrical bandwidth and data processing power, enabled engineers to add to Super Cruise’s capabilities. The company also improved its rear-facing sensors and software to be able to better track vehicles approaching from the rear, Super Cruise chief engineer Mario Maiorana said. The new version of Super Cruise will change lanes for the driver on highways where the feature is allowed. The user interface and hands-free driving dynamics have also been improved, according to Maiorana. Super Cruise, which launched in 2017, was limited to just one model — the full-size CT6 sedan — and restricted to divided highways. That began to change last year when GM announced plans to expand where Super Cruise would be available. A software update expanded the thousands of miles of compatible divided highways in the United States and Canada . Super Cruise is now available on more than 200,000 miles of highways. Canada The automaker has also started to make the system available in more models. GM is expanding Super Cruise as an option on all Cadillac models this year. GM has said the Super Cruise system will start hitting its other brands such as Chevrolet, GMC and Buick after 2020. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:54:38 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AH5KnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2fgm-adds-automated-lane-changes-to-its-hands-free-super-cruise-driving-system%2f/RK=2/RS=3sCBbEBPhb2ONcZGyIMh5cu6Uxg- -Just released: Last round of tickets to 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize January 28, 2020 If parties came with an alert system, this post would qualify as Def Con 4. Now hear this — we just released the final batch of tickets to our 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize, which heats up on February 7 in San Francisco. If you want to be there with more than 1,000 of Silicon Valley’s finest, act now with all due haste. Buy your ticket right here. 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Buy your ticket right here Hang out with your crowd and enjoy cocktails, craft beer and tempting appetizers. Branch out and meet new people in a relaxed, laid-back setting. Startuppers, you work hard, and now it’s time to let loose a little. Bust out your crazy karaoke skills and get ready for other party games, activities and photo ops. It’s also a chill way to broaden your network, see a handful of exhibiting startups (wow, those demo tables sold out fast) and maybe even meet a future investor, partner or mentor. Startup magic happens at TechCrunch parties. Is this your year for magic? Wanna know who else will be in the house? Check out some of the companies ready to meet, greet and network in a casual setting. Check out some of the companies Here are the party particulars: It’s just not a TechCrunch party without door prizes, and we will not disappoint. You could win TC swag or win tickets to Disrupt SF, our flagship event coming in September 2020. Speaking of Disrupt SF 2020, here’s another way to go gratis. It takes a big team to pull off a party of this magnitude. Volunteer to help us throw this party and you’ll earn a pass to our flagship Disrupt event. Pretty sweet. Volunteer to help us throw this party Startup fans, don’t miss out on one of the great Silicon Valley traditions. Buy your ticket to the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize, right now before they’re gone for good. Buy your ticket to the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Is your company interested in sponsoring the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. Galvanize? filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:54:50 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AIZKnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2fjust-released-last-round-of-tickets-to-3rd-annual-winter-party-at-galvanize%2f/RK=2/RS=W9TDCBBOTbkIbpOhwbTC6GhYhII- -With Tony Fadell's help, Advano is building battery components to power an electric future January 28, 2020 Using scrap silicon as its feedstock, a New Orleans-based company called Advano has raised $18.5 million to manufacture battery components to enable more powerful, smaller and longer-lasting batteries. The technology was innovative enough to earn the Louisiana-based startup a place in Y Combinator’s famed accelerator and has now attracted the attention of Mitsui Kinzoku, which is investing in the company as a strategic partner, and Tony Fadell, the famous product designer known as “the father of the iPod” and the founder of the smart thermostat company, Nest . Y Combinator’s Tony Fadell, Nest Alongside Mitsui’s SBI Material Innovation Fund, Fadell’s investment firm Future Shape, along with PeopleFund, Thiel Capital, Data Collective and Y Combinator, are investing $18.5 million in new financing to develop Advanos manufacturing capacity and take its silicon anode material to market. Future Shape, “Adding silicon to li-ion batteries can 10x their run-time. Imagine eliminating ‘range anxiety’: more EVs, less CO2. But no one has been able to solve four key issues concurrently: material expansion, cycle-life, cost, and drop-in manufacturing scalability,” said Fadell, in a statement. “Advano’s battery experts are the first to successfully tackle them all. In addition, Advano’s unconventional full-stack approach allows for the battery customization manufacturers require. Plus, they’re using sustainably-sourced silicon to combat the environmental effects of our transition to electric everything! Advano’s innovative work with silicon is the holy grail for batteries.” Advano reuses scrap silicon thanks to a novel materials science process that Advano founder and chief executive Alexander Girau first developed as a student at Tulane University. Other companies, like Sila Nanotechnologies, have raised significant amounts of money to develop ways to integrate silicon into the battery production. Sila Nano’s battery tech is now worth over $1 billion with Daimler partnership and $170 million investment Sila Nano’s battery tech is now worth over $1 billion with Daimler partnership and $170 million investment Basically, batteries consist of anodes, where current flows into a battery; electrolytes, which conduct electricity; and cathodes, where current flows out. In a lithium-ion battery, anodes are typically made using graphite, which has limitations related to how much charge it can store. By replacing graphite with silicon, batteries should be able to store more energy, requiring less material, thereby reducing cost and size, according to Advano. Girau began his studies in molecular engineering and initially started working on gene therapies. The initial technology that the executive developed focused on creating surface functionalization in nanoparticles, allowing those particles to behave in novel ways. The innovation was taking that research from biology and porting it over into materials science and battery development. The process typically requires several steps to create the functional nanoparticles and attach them to silicon, but Advano’s founder says his company has developed a single-step process. For Advano, the key is attaching a reactive nanoparticle to silicon scrap as those scraps are being crushed. Using that process, the company is able to produce functional silicon, according to Girau. “We can improve the performance of any lithium-ion battery,” says Girau. “We’re working with consumer electronic battery manufacturers first because the volumes are smaller and we can service those customers sooner.” Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:55:03 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AI5KnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2fwith-tony-fadells-help-advano-is-building-battery-components-to-power-an-electric-future%2f/RK=2/RS=uNhfCGASichYdrrLJBLGFNp8qh0- -Nutanix execs discuss how they built their 2016 IPO roadshow deck January 28, 2020 Bringing a startup from idea to IPO isn’t an easy task, but if you can build something successful, one major milestone is to go public. Before your Nasdaq debut, however, there’s a major step — building a deck and taking it on the road for investors. Cloud computing company Nutanix went public in 2016, so we spoke to CEO Dheeraj Pandey and CFO Duston Williams, both of whom were with the company for the big event, to learn about how a company should define itself for investors as it seeks to go public. Nutanix went public in 2016 Who are you? Building a roadshow deck is an exercise in communications as founders attempt to carefully lay out their company’s core purpose and how they built it, along with their ethics, aspirations, financials and value proposition. In a nutshell, an effective roadshow deck summarizes who you are, what you stand for and why your company will make a good investment. CEO Pandey says that in addition to investment bank Goldman Sachs, a number of people from the company helped craft the presentation. “Fifteen people across different functions were involved in building the deck. That included product and marketing, to finance and corporate communications, to legal. I think there were at least six different departments,” he said. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:55:10 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AJZKnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2fnutanix-execs-discuss-how-they-built-their-2016-ipo-roadshow-deck%2f/RK=2/RS=f4Q5X2QR0mqWsypFPY5xkqb81Ks- -LabCorp security lapse exposed thousands of medical documents January 28, 2020 A security flaw in LabCorp’s website exposed thousands of medical documents, like test results containing sensitive health data. LabCorp’s It’s the second incident in the past year after LabCorp said in June that 7.7 million patients had been affected by a credit card data breach of a third-party payments processor. That breach also hit several other laboratory testing companies, including Quest Diagnostics. 7.7 million patients This latest security lapse was caused by a vulnerability on a part of LabCorp’s website, understood to host the company’s internal customer relationship management system. Although the system appeared to be protected with a password, the part of the website designed to pull patient files from the back-end system was left exposed. That unprotected web address was visible to search engines and was later cached by Google, making it accessible to anyone who knew where to look. The cached search result only returned one document — a document containing a patient’s health information. But changing and incrementing the document number in the web address made it possible to access other documents. The bug is now fixed. Using computer commands, we determined the approximate number of exposed documents by asking the exposed server if a document existed by returning certain properties about the file — such as its size — but not the document itself. This allowed us to see if a document was on the server without accessing large amounts of patient information, and thus preventing any further exposure to the patient’s privacy. The results showed at least 10,000 documents were exposed. Of the handful of files we examined to understand what kind of data was exposed, the documents largely appeared to affect cancer patients under the laboratory’s Integrated Oncology specialty testing unit. The documents contained names, dates of birth and, in some cases, Social Security numbers of patients. The documents also contained lab test results and diagnostic data, a class of data considered protected health information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). A couple of the documents we reviewed contained a footer notice, which said: “This document contains private and confidential health information protected under state and federal law.” Running afoul of HIPAA can result in heavy fines. “This is a massive privacy issue — and one that could impact affected users and patients for years to come,” said Rachel Tobac, a hacker, social engineer and founder of SocialProof Security. “The sensitive nature of those documents and the leak of private medical status is a huge privacy violation for those patients for obvious reasons, but also sadly for some possibly less glaring reasons, as well.” Tobac, who reviewed our findings, said medical information can be “terribly useful” for criminals in identity theft, extortion and phishing, because the victim may be more likely to trust the sender “under the assumption that the message is legitimate because it contains information only their medical provider could or should know.” The vulnerability was found in-house at TechCrunch and was reported to LabCorp, which later pulled the server offline. Although the web address remains in Google’s search results, the link is now dead. “I can confirm that we have terminated access to the system,” said LabCorp spokesperson Donald Von Hogan. LabCorp’s Von Hogan said in a call that the company would not confirm the documents found on the exposed server “are in fact LabCorp information.” TechCrunch reached out to a number of patients to verify their information. Only one person confirmed by phone that the information in their exposed file was accurate, but expressed that they did not want to be named for this story. Two other people whose names were in the files had since passed away, according to obituaries. In a statement emailed after publication, LabCorp said it would notify affected patients “as may be appropriate,” but would not say if it would inform state and federal authorities under data breach notification laws. 7.7 million LabCorp records stolen in same hack affecting Quest 7.7 million LabCorp records stolen in same hack affecting Quest Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:55:23 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AJ5KnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2flabcorp-website-bug-medical-data-exposed%2f/RK=2/RS=9L4PpTtfIV82gcrCtZ.2UwWD6O4- -Five reasons you (really) don’t want to miss TechCrunch’s AI and Robotics show on March 3 January 28, 2020 TechCrunch’s fourth Robotics and AI show is coming up on March 3 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. If past experience is any guide, the show is sure to draw a big crowd (cheap student rates here!), but there’s still time to grab a pass. If you’re wondering why you want to take a day out to catch a full day of interviews and audience Q&A with the world’s top robotics and AI experts, read on. Robotics and AI show cheap student rates here It’s the software / AI, stupid. So said (in so many words) the legendary surgical robotics founder Dr. Frederic Moll at Disrupt SF last year. And this year’s agenda captures that reality from many angles. UC Berkeley’s Stuart Russell will discuss his provocative book on AI, “Human Compatible,” and the deeply important topic of AI “explainability” will be front and center with SRI’s Karen Myers, Fiddler Labs’ Krishna Gade and UC Berkeley’s Trevor Darrell. Then there is the business of developing and sustaining robots, whether at startups, which is where Freedom Robotics’ Joshua Wilson comes in, or at large enterprises, with Vicarious’ D. Scott Phoenix. So said UC Berkeley’s Stuart Russell Human Compatible SRI’s Karen Myers Fiddler Labs’ Krishna Gade Trevor Darrell Joshua Wilson D. Scott Phoenix Robotics founders have more fun. That’s why we have a panel of the three top founders in agricultural robotics, as well as another three on construction robotics and two on human assistive robotics, plus a pitch competition featuring five additional founders, each carefully chosen from a large pool of applicants. We’ll also bring a few of those founders back for a separate audience Q&A. Meet tomorrow’s big names in robotics today! three top founders in agricultural robotics three on construction robotics human assistive robotics Big companies do robots too. No one knows that better than Amazon’s top roboticist, Tye Brady, who already presides over 100,000 warehouse robots. The editors are eager to hear what’s next in Amazon’s ambitious automation plans. Toyota’s robotics focus is mobility, and Toyota Research Institute’s TRI-AD CEO James Kuffner and TRI VP of Robotics Max Bajracharya will discuss projects they plan to roll out at the Tokyo Olympics. And if that’s not enough, Maxar Technologies’ Lucy Condakchian will show off Maxar’s robotic arm that will travel to Mars aboard the fifth Mars Rover mission later this year. Tye Brady Toyota Research Institute’s TRI-AD CEO James Kuffner and TRI VP of Robotics Max Bajracharya Maxar Technologies’ Lucy Condakchian Robotics VCs are chill (once you get to know them). We will have three check writers onstage for the big talk about where they see the best investments emerging — Eric Migicovsky (Y Combinator), Kelly Chen (DCVC) and Dror Berman (Innovation Endeavors) — plus two separate audience Q&A sessions, one with notable robotics / AI VCs Rob Coneybeer (Shasta) and Aaron Jacobson (NEA) and a second with corporate VCs Quinn Li (Qualcomm) and Kass Dawson (SoftBank Robotics). We will have three check writers onstage Network, recruit, repeat. Last year there were 1,500 attendees at this show, and they were the cream of the robotics world — founders, investors, technologists, executives and engineering students. Expect nothing less this year. TechCrunch’s CrunchMatch mobile app makes meeting folks super easy, plus the event is in UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall — a sunny happy place that naturally spins up great conversations. Don’t miss out. Our Early-Bird Ticket sale ends this Friday — book your tickets today and save $150 before prices increase. Students can book a super-discounted ticket for just $50 right here. Early-Bird Ticket sale ends this Friday here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:55:37 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYldKDdeJW0AKZKnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701917/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2ffive-reasons-you-really-dont-want-to-miss-techcrunchs-ai-and-robotics-show-on-march-3%2f/RK=2/RS=_7tVsnVDXHe1U2rap8lvaza1jBo- -Persona raises $17.5M for an identify verification platform that goes beyond user IDs and passwords January 28, 2020 The proliferation of data breaches based on leaked passwords, and the rising tide of regulation that puts a hard stop on just how much user information can be collected, stored and used by companies have laid bare the holes in simple password and memorable-information-based verification systems. Today a startup called Persona, which has built a platform to make it easier for organisations to implement more watertight methods based on third-party documentation, real-time evaluation, and AI to verify users, is announcing a funding round, speaking to the shift in the market and subsequent demand for new alternatives to the old way of doing things. Persona The startup has raised $17.5 million in a Series A from a list of impressive investors that include Coatue and First Round Capital, money that it plans to use to double down on its core product: a platform that businesses and organisations can access by way of an API, which lets them use a variety of documents, from government-issued IDs through to biometrics, to verify that customers are who they say they are. Current customers include Rippling, Petal, UrbanSitter, Branch, Brex, Postmates, Outdoorsy, Rently, SimpleHealth and Hipcamp, among others. Persona’s target user today is any company involved in any kind of online financial transaction to verify for regulatory compliance, fraud prevention and for trust and safety. The startup is young and is not disclosing valuation. Previously, Persona had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Kleiner Perkins and FirstRound, according to data from PitchBook. Angels in the company have included Zach Perret and William Hockey (co-founders of Plaid), Dylan Field (founded Figma), Scott Belsky (Behance) and Tony Xu (DoorDash). PitchBook Founded by Rick Song and Charles Yeh, respectively former engineers from Square and Dropbox (companies that have had their own concerns with identity verification and breaches), Persona’s main premise is that most companies are not security companies and therefore lack the people, skills, time and money to build strong authentication and verification services — much less to keep up with the latest developments on what is best practice. concerns breaches And on top of that, there have been too many breaches that have underscored the problem with companies holding too much information on users, collected for identification purposes but then sitting there waiting to be hacked. While a number of services have arisen to help protect identity for repeat users of products — for example Duo and Okta on the enterprise front, or authenticators for online applications as a more secure alternative to two-factor authentication using text messaging — these don’t really fill the use case of verification for the kinds of companies that are typical Persona customers. The name of the game for Persona is to provide services that are easy to use and as wide as possible in their applicability. For those who can’t or don’t access the code of their apps or websites for registration flows, they can even verify users by way of email-based links. “Digital identity is one of the most important things to get right, but there is no silver bullet,” Song, who is the CEO, said in an interview. “I believe longer term we’ll see that it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.” Not least because malicious hackers have an ever-increasing array of tools to get around every system that gets put into place. (The latest is the rise of deep-fakes to mimic people, putting into question how to get around that in, say, a video verification system.) At Persona, the company currently gives customers the option to ask for social security numbers, biometric verification such as fingerprints or pictures, or government ID uploads and phone lookups, some of which (like biometrics) is built by Persona itself and some of which is accessed via third-party partnerships. Added to that are other tools like quizzes and video-based interactions. Song said the list is expanding, and the company is looking at ways of using the AI engine that it’s building — which actually performs the matching — to also potentially suggest the best tools for each and every transaction. It’s notable to me that the platform has been conceived of and built in part by an engineer from a payments company. API-based platforms taking out some of the extreme complexity of payment systems by doing all the hard work “under the hood” have been a building block of how a lot of financial services get integrated into workflows in cases where the business in question may rely on them but is actually not actually a fintechs (or payment tech provider) in and of themselves. This has been the premise of companies like Stripe, Adyen, CurrencyCloud and even Square to an extent, since its customers are integrating the tool that Square has built for them. Another key point with Persona is that it provides a way for its customers to access and use information for verification by linking up with other databases, meaning the data is then not kept by the customer itself. This is a moving target, and one that is becoming increasingly harder to focus on, given not just the rise in malicious hacking, but also regulation that limits how and when data can be accessed and used by online businesses. Persona notes a McKinsey forecast that the personal identify and verification market will be worth some $20 billion by 2022, which is not a surprising figure when you consider the nearly $9 billion that Google has been fined so far for GDPR violations, or the $700 million Equifax paid out, or the $50 million Yahoo (a sister company now) paid out for its own user-data breach. notes Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:55:50 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IATWqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2fpersona-raises-17-5m-for-an-identify-verification-platform-the-goes-beyond-user-ids-and-passwords%2f/RK=2/RS=7AvMboiSaPZOz1E5SwjBzyQNmcA- -Shipamax scores $7M Series A to digitise the logistics back-office January 28, 2020 Shipamax, the London-based startup and YC graduate that is helping freight forwarders and other logistics companies automate their back-office processes, has raised $7 million. Shipamax Leading the round is Mosaic Ventures, with participation from Crane Venture Partners, Y Combinator and other existing investors. Shipamax says it will use the funding to double in size over the months ahead, investing both in engineering development and “customer success.” Mosaic Ventures Crane Venture Partners Founded in 2016, Shipamax first set out to build an online broker for bulk shipping, before pivoting to a SaaS offering for bulk shippers. However, realising that the need for digitisation was real but that the market wasn’t large enough for a “VC scale business,” the startup pivoted one more time to develop a toolkit for back-office “process automation” for the global logistics industry. Shipamax a SaaS offering “We’d got some traction selling the SaaS solution, but saw the market was not big enough,” Shipamax co-founder Jenna Brown tells me. “We went back to the core of why companies were buying Shipamax and what we delivered for them. It became clear that the underlying data extraction technology we’d built was driving the core value. After speaking to a number of people in adjacent segments of logistics, we saw companies there have the exact same problem — so it was clear we should really narrow the proposition down and widen out the segments we serve to the entire logistics market.” The core Shipamax technology connects to any email inbox or unstructured data source and automatically extracts data from emails and attachments in real time. It then outputs a clean, structured feed via the Shipamax API. The startup says that’s very different to how logistics companies have previously tried to solve the digitisation problem, typically via optical character recognition (OCR) tools such as Abbyy. “The problem with OCR technology is that each company has to start from scratch — setting up hundreds of ‘templates’ to capture important fields and implementing ‘rules’ to interpret this data,” says Shipamax. By using machine-learning, the company says there is no need to create templates or define rules within each organisation. Instead, Shipamax’s technology provides the “contextual understanding” layer. Meanwhile, if you are wondering what product-market-fit looks like, once you actually find it, Shipamax says that in its current incarnation it has seen zero customer churn. The company now processes more than 18 million emails and documents per year, and says that performance is tracked by document type — such as orders, bills of lading, supplier invoices etc., with accuracy reaching 99% for the most advanced types. “We then started to adapt the product for the new market, the large players and strong references from ‘in bulk’ [shipping] gave us credibility with the freight forwarding community to get access to their data to re-train some of the models,” explains Brown. “Within a few months we’d proven that we could adapt this core tech quickly to the new training sets. A few months after launching this segment, it comprised over 20% of our revenues and it’s been the fastest growing part of our business. We’re lucky that the core infrastructure we’d built for the initial market was built to handle extremely high volumes, which has made it easy to ramp up with large customers.” Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:56:01 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAT2qnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2fwhen-a-pivot-comes-together%2f/RK=2/RS=i30ViczxTHFQDTucOmCF1Dztblc- -72 hours left to save $150 on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 January 28, 2020 We’re counting the days (35 to be precise) until TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place on March 3 in Berkeley, Calif. But we’re also counting the days that you can save on the price of admission. The early-bird pricing ends in just three days, on January 31. Buy your ticket right here before that bird flies south, and you’ll save $150. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Buy your ticket right here This single-day conference features interviews, panel discussions, Q&As and demos with the leaders, founders and investors focused on the future of robotics and AI. TechCrunch editors will interview the people making it happen, explore the promise, expose the hype and address the challenges of these revolutionary industries. The lineup, as impressive as ever, also includes workshops and demos, because who doesn’t want to see robots in action? From autonomous cars and assistive robotics to advances in agriculture and outer space, our conference agenda covers the leading edges of the complex and exciting world of robots and AI. agenda Here’s a taste of what we’re serving: We’ve added a new, exciting element this year. It’s Pitch Night, a sort of mini Startup Battlefield. The night before the conference, 10 teams will pitch to an audience of VCs and other influencers at a private event. Judges will choose five finalists, and those teams will pitch again from the Main Stage at the conference. We’re taking applications until February 1, so apply right here. It’s free, and a great way to showcase your startup to the people who can supercharge your startup dreams. Pitch Night apply right here Don’t miss your chance to learn from, share with and pitch to the brightest minds, makers, investors and researchers in robotics and AI. And don’t miss out on serious savings. Buy an early-bird ticket to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 — before prices go up on January 31 — and you’ll keep $150 in your wallet. Buy an early-bird ticket to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:56:12 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAUWqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2f72-hours-left-to-save-150-on-tickets-to-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=aRXzKX2Z2en73xsmEVL1YFwo6aE- -Max Q: Lego Space Stations and robot astronauts January 27, 2020 Max Q is a new weekly newsletter all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Sundays in your inbox This week saw a huge funding round for a new space startup that’s working on the problem of distribution and use of the new data networks made possible by the explosion in the small satellite and satellite constellation industry. But we also saw one of the next wave of launch startups encounter a bit of a setback on their path to actually delivering their first rocket to orbit. Lego is selling an ISS kit Lego is selling an ISS kit Lego is putting a new official International Space Station kit up for sale starting next month, after the project was originally suggested on its Ideas crowdsourcing platform. The new kit comes in at an impressive 864 pieces, and includes astronaut mini-figs for simulated spacewalks, plus a Space Shuttle and a capsule. It’s bound to be a hot item once it’s actually released, so I would say it’s probably best to get an order in fast once this goes on sale in February if you want to pick one up. Skylo raises $103 million for IoT satellite comms Skylo raises $103 million for IoT satellite comms There’s been a huge increase in the number of satellites and satellite constellations in operation, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy for devices here on Earth to access the data networks many of those new satellites operate. Previously stealth startup Skylo aims to make it much easier for these networks to provide useful services here on Earth, and they’ve raised a new round of $103 million to make that happen, bringing their total raised to $116 million. ISRO’s path to human spaceflight includes humanoid astrobots ISRO’s path to human spaceflight includes humanoid astrobots Visitors take selfies with ‘Vyommitra,’ the first prototype half humanoid robot developed by the Inertial Systems Unit of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for its planned ‘Gaganyaan’ unmanned mission, at an exhibition during a symposium on Human Spaceflight and Exploration – Present Challenges and Future Trends in Bangalore on January 23, 2020. (Photo by Manjunath Kiran / AFP) (Photo by MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP via Getty Images) Visitors take selfies with ‘Vyommitra,’ the first prototype half humanoid robot developed by the Inertial Systems Unit of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for its planned ‘Gaganyaan’ unmanned mission, at an exhibition during a symposium on Human Spaceflight and Exploration – Present Challenges and Future Trends in Bangalore on January 23, 2020. (Photo by Manjunath Kiran / AFP) (Photo by MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP via Getty Images) India’s Space Research Organization is getting ready for its first human spacecraft launches, set for 2022. The path to that goal includes sending up a half-humanoid robot called “Vyommitra,” whose face resembles that of a human woman. This robot is able to perform all the in-flight procedures that a real human pilot would be required to do, and will help test the agency’s Gaganyaan spacecraft before any people give it a go. Firefly Aerospace starts a fire Firefly Aerospace starts a fire Launch startup Firefly Aerospace has overcome its fair share of difficulties, including a bankruptcy filing, but now it’s underway with hot-fire testing of its Alpha launch vehicle. Unfortunately, its first test of the engines that power this rocket with the spacecraft assembled resulted in a fire on the launch pad, which will mean an investigation to figure out how not to do that in the future. NASA sets cargo manifests for first lunar landers NASA sets cargo manifests for first lunar landers NASA’s first lunar lander missions provided by commercial contractors are set to fly this year — two landers should launch if all goes to plan, including one from Astrobotic and one from Intuitive Machines. Both of these are partners with the agency through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) sourcing program, and their landers will hopefully prove the viability of using private suppliers to get key experiments and cargo to the Moon’s surface ahead of the planned return of human astronauts. Capella Space has a new and improved Earth observation satellite Capella Space has a new and improved Earth observation satellite Startup Capella Space has a new satellite design that can provide best-in-class resolution on a spacecraft of its size, which should unlock lots of additional demand for its services from clients who want to be able to image parts of the Earth on demand with fast turnaround time and plenty of detail. Rocket Lab’s first mission of 2020 is for the NRO Rocket Lab’s first mission of 2020 is for the NRO The National Reconnaissance Office is Rocket Lab’s first client of 2020 for a launch, and the mission is set to take off from the company’s New Zealand launch pad at the end of this month. This is also the first mission the NRO has awarded under its Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket. or RASR. contract model, which basically aims for cheap and fast launch vehicle sourcing. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:56:27 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAU2qnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f27%2fmax-q-lego-space-stations-and-robot-astronauts%2f/RK=2/RS=2Vv4CqPjKSzcL4yoonCXUWqTM5M- -4 days left to save $150 on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 January 27, 2020 The countdown to savings continues, and you have just four days left to score the best price on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020. Join 1,500 of the brightest minds and innovators in robotics and machine learning — technologists, founders, investors, engineers and researchers. Buy an early-bird ticket now before prices go up on January 31, and you’ll keep $150 in your pocket. Why spend more when you don’t have to? TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Buy an early-bird ticket now Get ready for a full day focused on the future of two technologies with the potential to change everything about the way we live. We have an outstanding lineup of speakers, interviews and panel discussions covering a range of topics. And of course, plenty of demos, too. speakers We won’t just parrot the hype, either. Our editors will ask the hard questions, and the conference agenda includes discussions about the ethics and ramifications inherent with these potent technologies. Here’s a just sample of what’s on tap: There’s plenty more waiting for you, including the finalists of our first Pitch Night. This group of intrepid robotics and AI startup founders made the cut (10 teams will pitch the night before the conference at a private event). The finalists will pitch again at the conference from the Main Stage. Think your startup has what it takes to throw down in a pitch-off? We’re accepting applications until February 1. Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for focused exposure — apply right here today! Pitch Night apply right here today TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 draws the top people in the industry, which makes it prime networking territory. Whether you’re looking for funding, hunting for the perfect startup to add to your portfolio or searching for the next generation of engineers, this is where you need to be. Come work it to your advantage. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place in Berkeley on March 3, and we’ve packed a lot of value and opportunity into one day. Make the most of it — and remember, you’ll save $150 if you buy an early-bird ticket before prices go up on January 31. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 buy an early-bird ticket Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics & AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:56:40 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAVWqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f27%2f4-days-left-to-save-150-on-tickets-to-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=nfN3Ud_eMIYY6YIV2Zrcx1FvQkM- -PrimaHealth Credit will now lend to borrowers looking to pay for addiction treatment January 27, 2020 PrimaHealth Credit, which offers loans to borrowers to pay for medical treatment, is expanding its pitch to cover addiction treatment centers. PrimaHealth Credit Currently, PrimaHealth offers loans for elective healthcare procedures like plastic surgery, LASIK, dental surgery and orthodontics. The move into addiction treatment is both a sign of how broken the American healthcare system is when it comes to substance abuse and addiction — and mental health therapies more broadly — and an indicator of the potential size of the market. According to the company, PrimaHealth won’t charge any interest for most of its loans — depending on the creditworthiness of the borrower. Instead, the company will make money by charging a fee to the treatment center. If the borrower has poor credit, the APR on loans is 19.99%, according to a spokesperson for the company. “Addiction treatment centers are under-served in relation to viable financing options to offer their patients,” says Brendon Kensel, founder and chief executive of PrimaHealth Credit, in a statement. “The burden of out-of-pocket costs falls on their patients, who often are unable to start the treatments they urgently need.” Spending on substance abuse treatment in the U.S. is expected to reach $42.1 billion this year, with patients paying about $3.7 billion out-of-pocket for treatment and services, according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration cited by the company. “Out-of-pocket expenses are often a key barrier to patients proceeding with care,” says Fritz Quindt, marketing director at A Better Today Recovery Services, a leading addiction treatment provider based in Scottsdale, Ariz., in a statement. “PrimaHealth Credit offers a new approach to helping patients fund the treatment they need. Their easy-to-use platform, customer support, and results speak for themselves.” The company wouldn’t comment on the number of loans it has issued for elective surgeries. PrimaHealth uses an algorithm to determine the credit-worthiness of potential borrowers and provides a payment management solution for treatment centers. Using underwriting models that use 200 determining factors, the company can issue instant credit decisions and offer different payment plans for borrowers, according to a statement. For providers, the company offers reduced administrative costs and manages payment services, accounts receivable and credit reporting. PrimaHealth also said it would help addiction providers meet regulatory requirements to collect co-pays and deductibles. The company’s services are currently available in Arizona, California, Florida and Texas. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:56:52 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAV2qnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f27%2fprimahealth-credit-will-now-lend-to-borrowers-looking-to-pay-for-addiction-treatment%2f/RK=2/RS=KPEI3EQNzN4KHr9nYBYmo3RI63A- -AI-powered voice transcription app Otter raises $10M, including from new strategic investor NTT... January 27, 2020 Otter.ai, an AI-powered transcription app and note-takers’ best friend, has received a strategic investment from Japan’s leading mobile operator and new Otter partner, NTT DOCOMO Inc. The two companies are teaming up to support Otter’s expansion into the Japanese market, where DOCOMO will be integrating Otter with its own AI-based translation service subsidiary, Mirai Translation, in order to provide accurate English transcripts, which are then translated into Japanese. Otter.ai The investment was made by DOCOMO’s wholly owned subsidiary, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc., but the size was undisclosed. However, the new round was $10 million in total, we’re told. To date, Otter has raised $23 million in funding from NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Fusion Fund, GGV Capital, Draper Dragon Fund, Duke University Innovation Fund, Harris Barton Asset Management, Slow Ventures, Horizons Ventures and others. has raised $23 million in funding Otter launched its service in 2018, offering a way for users to search voice conversations as easily as they can today search their email or their text. Otter CEO and founder Sam Liang, along with a team hailing from Google, Facebook, Nuance and Yahoo as well as Stanford, Duke, MIT and Cambridge, developed a technology specifically designed to capture conversations — like meetings, interviews, presentations, lectures and more. This is a different sort of technology than what’s used in today’s voice assistants, like Google Assistant, Siri and Alexa, as it’s focused on transcribing longer, human-to-human conversations, which are spoken naturally. The product itself creates automated transcriptions in real time, as speakers are talking. The resulting transcript is searchable, and identifies the different speakers and key phrases. You also can upload photos alongside the recording. Since launch, Otter has expanded its product to millions of users and now offers both an Otter for Teams and enterprise tier. expanded Otter for Teams and enterprise tier. With the new NTT DOCOMO partnership, the goal is to bring the Otter enterprise collaboration services to the Japanese market, explains Liang, the former Google architect who later sold his location startup Alohar Mobile to Alibaba. Alohar Mobile “DOCOMO and other large companies have a large international workforce who communicate in English for their international conference calls,” says Liang. “They will use Otter to take automatic meeting notes, and improve meeting and communication effectiveness… The goal is to further enhance communication and collaboration on top of Otter‘s automatic English meeting note services,” he adds. Otter.ai has similar partnerships with U.S. businesses, including Zoom Video Communications and Dropbox. Otter.ai As a result of the new partnership, Otter’s Voice Meeting Notes application is being used on a trial basis in Berlitz Corporation’s English language classes in Japan. Students are using Otter to transcribe and review their lessons, click on sections of text and initiate voice playback. DOCOMO, Otter.ai and Berlitz are also expanding their collaboration in language education to verify Otter’s effectiveness in the study of English, the company says. “The Japanese market values high-quality detailed meeting notes, and Otter’s highly accurate A.I.-powered note-taker overcomes language barriers and improves the operating efficiency of Japanese companies with global operations,” said Tomoyoshi Oono, senior vice president and general manager of the Innovation Management Department in the R&D Innovation Division at DOCOMO, in a statement about the deal. “There is a large business market opportunity for Otter.ai and DOCOMO’s translation service.” DOCOMO is also featuring Otter during demonstrations at DOCOMO Open House 2020 taking place in the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition complex January 23 and 24, 2020. Here, Otter will transcribe the English-language presentations in real time, which will then be translated into Japanese using DOCOMO’s machine translation technology. Both the English transcription and Japanese translation will be projected on a large screen for attendees to read. While Otter’s transcriptions aren’t perfect in real-world scenarios, like where there’s background noise or muffled speaking, it does better when it can be connected directly to the audio source, like at big events. (TechCrunch, for example, has used Otter’s service to transcribe audio at TechCrunch Disrupt.) Otter’s new funding will also used to hire more engineers and further enhance its AI technologies in speech recognition, diarization, speaker identification and automatic summarization, Liang tells TechCrunch. And the team will work to accelerate Otter’s adoption by enterprise customers in professional services, media and education. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:57:05 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAWWqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f27%2fa-i-powered-voice-transcription-app-otter-raises-10m-including-from-new-strategic-investor-ntt-docomo%2f/RK=2/RS=m72rX3M0ujRyf20Lv14sqN3OL5c- -Original Content podcast: Apple's 'Little America' chooses uplift over anger January 26, 2020 “Little America,” a new anthology series on Apple TV+, has been widely described as the best show on the fledging streaming service. Apple the best show on the fledging streaming service Here on the Original Content podcast, we aren’t ready to go quite that far, particularly since a couple of us are big fans of “See.” But we were pretty impressed. the Original Content podcast big fans of “See.” The series, which counts “The Big Sick” writers Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani among its executive producers, tells eight separate stories (all based on real-life profiles in Epic Magazine) about immigrants to the United States. For example, the first episode focuses on a young boy whose parents end up returning to India in the face of deportation, leaving him as the de facto manager of their motel in Utah. At a time when immigration remains a hot-button issue on the national stage, this might sound like the setup for a righteously angry and political show. Instead, “Little America” largely eschews overt politics, aside from its insistence in depicting immigrants from all over the world as individuals with their own idiosyncrasies and ambitions — in short, as real human beings. This makes for a funny, engaging show that never gets particularly dark or depressing. Perhaps that’s our only real criticism — that the stories seem so carefully chosen to emphasize uplift over anger that they can start to feel a bit formulaic. In addition to our review (which includes some mild spoilers for early episodes), this episode takes us all over the place, covering everything from Netflix’s new method for reporting audience size to a lawsuit alleging that M. Night Shyamalan stole the idea for his TV+ series “Servant. Netflix’s new method for reporting audience size alleging that M. Night Shyamalan stole the idea for his TV+ series “Servant You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!) subscribe using Apple Podcasts send us feedback directly And if you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down: 0:00 Intro 0:27 Netflix audience metrics 15:52 “Little America” review (mild spoilers) 45:59 M. Night Shyamalan lawsuit discussion 56:31 “Encore” discussion 1:02:07 “Bachelor” discussion Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:57:17 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAW2qnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f26%2foriginal-content-little-america%2f/RK=2/RS=mKqUtlNQ0wkmKxZQhNoXrN0ml58- -Early-bird savings end next Friday on tickets to Robotics+AI 2020 January 24, 2020 TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020 is gearing up to be one amazing show. This annual day-long event draws the brightest minds and makers from these two industries — 1,500 attendees last year alone. And if you really want to make 2020 a game-changing year, grab yourself an early-bird ticket and save $150 on tickets before prices go up after January 31. TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020 grab yourself an early-bird ticket and save $150 Not convinced yet? Check out some agenda highlights featuring some of today’s leading robotics and AI leaders: Stuart Russell UC Berkeley Human Compatible Tye Brady Amazon Robotics Amazon Lucy Condakchian Maxar Technologies Maxar Technologies Anca Dragan Waymo UC Berkeley Jur van den Berg Ike See the full agenda here. here If you’re a startup, nab one of the five demo tables left and showcase your company to new customers, press, and potential investors. Demo tables run $2,200 and come with four attendee tickets so you can divide and conquer the networking scene at the conference. nab one of the five demo tables Students, get your super-reduced $50 ticket here and learn from some of the biggest names in the biz and meet your future employer or internship opportunity. get your super-reduced $50 ticket here Don’t forget, the early-bird ticket sale ends on January 31. After that, prices go up by $150. Purchase your tickets here and save an additional 18% when you book a group of four or more. here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:57:31 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAXWqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f24%2fearly-bird-savings-end-next-friday-on-tickets-to-roboticsai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=Fr4FoTIyHBgCHmyl1F3zhydDP9M- -Uber's Shin-pei Tsay is coming to TC Sessions: Mobility January 23, 2020 Government and policy experts are among the most important people in the future of transportation. Any company pursuing the shared scooters and bikes business, ride-hailing, on-demand shuttles and eventually autonomous vehicles has to have someone, or a team of people, who can work with cities. Enter Shin-pei Tsay, the director of policy, cities and transportation at Uber . TechCrunch is excited to announce that Tsay will join us onstage at TC Sessions: Mobility, a one-day conference dedicated to the future of mobility and transportation. Shin-pei Tsay, Uber TC Sessions: Mobility If there’s one person who is at the center of this universe, it’s Tsay. In her current role at Uber, she leads a team of issues experts focused on what Uber calls a “sustainable multi-modal urban future.” Tsay is also a founder. Prior to Uber, she founded a social impact analysis company called Make Public. She was also the deputy executive director of TransitCenter, a national foundation focused on improving urban transportation. She also founded and directed the cities and transportation program under the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. For the past four years, Shin–pei has served as a commissioner for the City of New York Public Design Commission. She is on the board of the national nonprofit In Our Backyard. Stay tuned, we’ll have more speaker announcements in the coming weeks. In case you missed it, TechCrunch has already announced Ike co-founder and chief engineer Nancy Sun, Waymo’s head of trucking Boris Sofman and Trucks VC’s Reilly Brennan will be participating in TC Sessions: Mobility. already announced Don’t forget that $250 Early-Bird tickets are now on sale — save $100 on tickets before prices go up on April 9; book today. book today Students, you can grab your tickets for just $50 here. here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:57:43 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ytfKDdeq8IAX2qnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701919/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f23%2fubers-shin-pei-tsay-is-coming-to-tc-sessions-mobility%2f/RK=2/RS=ESTENvKYL5PXx1hb9EyAocKGfvg- -Match Group invests in Noonlight to power new safety features in Tinder and other dating apps January 23, 2020 Match Group, the dating app giant and parent company to Match, Tinder, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish and several other dating apps, announced this morning it has invested in and partnered with connected safety platform Noonlight to roll out a series of new safety features to its suite of dating apps. The tools include those for emergency assistance, location tracking, photo verification and an updated in-app Safety Center. Noonlight The Noonlight partnership follows an investigative report by ProPublica and Columbia Journalism Investigations from December 2019, which revealed how Match Group allowed known sexual predators to use its apps. The report also noted that Match Group didn’t have a uniform policy of running background checks on its dating app users, putting the responsibility on users to keep themselves safe. Noonlight an investigative report by ProPublica and Columbia Journalism Investigations The company explained at the time that it didn’t screen users of its free dating apps because it didn’t collect enough personal information to do so. But the results of that strategic decision meant that users of Tinder, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish and Match Group’s other free dating app platforms could encounter sexual predators — including registered sexual offenders, it admitted. Today, Match Group says it has invested in Noonlight with the intention of rolling out new safety features to its apps, starting with Tinder on January 28, 2020. Tinder, now Match Group’s leading dating app and biggest moneymaker, has been downloaded more than 340 million times and has nearly 5.7 million paying subscribers. It was also the top-grossing non-game app of 2019. starting with Tinder The company didn’t disclose the size of its Noonlight investment, but did say it was joining Noonlight’s board of directors. Noonlight, which has been operating for five-plus years, today partners with Uber, Lyft, Alexa, Google Home, Fitbit, Canary, SmartThings and others, according to its website. It has handled more than 100,000 emergencies to date and runs three monitoring centers. One key addition to Tinder, powered by Noonlight, will allow U.S. users to share details about upcoming dates via Noonlight’s Timeline technology. Tinder users will be able to share who they are meeting, where and when by adding the date to their timeline. Beyond being a way to combat the reporting about dating app dangers, Match’s interest in this particular safety feature may also have been inspired by its new competition from Facebook. Last fall, the social network launched its Facebook Dating platform in the U.S., which allows daters to share their live location with a trusted friend via Messenger. launched allows daters to share their live location Another new feature in Tinder will allow users to easily and discreetly trigger emergency services via the Noonlight app, if they’re feeling uneasy or in need of assistance. This is something that ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft also offer. Similar to other buttons that connect users to emergency responders at 911, Noonlight’s own dispatchers will first reach out to the user, then alert emergency responders on their behalf, if needed. They’ll also be able to provide emergency dispatchers with information from the Tinder user’s timeline, like their location. connect users to emergency responders Other updates to Tinder include a new Photo Verification feature for verifying a match’s authenticity; a harassment detection prompt (“Does This Bother You?”), powered by machine learning; and a revamped, in-app Tinder Safety Center. The photo verification feature will allow members to self-authenticate through real-time selfies, which are compared to their existing profile photos using a combination of human assistance and AI technology. Verified photos will get a blue checkmark to signal they’ve been verified. This feature is now in testing in select markets and will become more widely available in 2020. Meanwhile, the “Does This Bother You?” prompt will appear when an offensive message has been sent. When a Tinder member responds “Yes,” they will have the option to report the person for their behavior. The technology will also be used to power a new feature called “Undo,” which will ask users if they want to take back a message that contains offensive language before it’s sent. The new Tinder Safety Center, developed in collaboration with the Match Group Advisory Council, has also been updated to be more comprehensive, informing users of new tools and resources. This is launching first in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany, before rolling out to additional markets in 2020. In the future, the Safety Center will also become personalized to the app’s user. Match Group Advisory Council, This set of features will also roll out to Match Group’s other dating apps in the months ahead, with Match the next to arrive after Tinder. Match is expected to launch its own new Safety Center, photo verification and a new Date Check-In feature to alert friends and family of their date plans, sometime in 2020. Other Match Group brands will follow. “A safe and positive dating experience is crucial to our business,” said Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg, in a statement about the deal. “We’ve found cutting-edge technology in Noonlight that can deliver real-time emergency services – which doesn’t exist on any other dating product – so that we can empower singles with tools to keep them safer and give them more confidence. Integrating this kind of technology, in addition to the other safety standards that Match Group is implementing across our brands, is a necessary step in dating innovation,” she said. “We’re proud to partner with Match Group and start our integration with Tinder to provide an enhanced level of protection and comfort throughout the dating experience,” added Noonlight co-founder Nick Droege. “Meeting a new person can be an anxiety-inducing event for a myriad of reasons. In working closely with Match Group brands, our goal is to make sure safety isn’t one of those reasons.” Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:57:59 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA5xOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f23%2fmatch-group-invests-in-noonlight-to-power-new-safety-features-in-tinder-and-other-dating-apps%2f/RK=2/RS=kZPeABA5GFTKU3vxQF1jNwGuCs4- -Jeff Clavier, Sarah Guo, Ali Partovi and Caryn Marooney to speak at Early Stage SF January 23, 2020 Early Stage SF is sneaking up on us and there is plenty to be excited about. The one-day event, which brings together a wide variety of startup experts to host breakout sessions, is going down on April 28 and we have a handful of speakers to announce. Early Stage SF So without any further ado: We’re thrilled to announce that Jeff Clavier, Sarah Guo, Caryn Marooney and Ali Partovi will be joining us at the event. Jeff Clavier, Sarah Guo, Jeff Clavier is managing partner and founder at Uncork Capital, with portfolio companies that include Eventbrite, SendGrid, Fitbit, Vungle and Mint.com. His current investments include Vidyard, Postmates, Molekule, Shippo and Front. There are now a thousand micro-VCs entrepreneurs can raise capital from, creating confusing market dynamics. Learn tips and tricks on fund raising from Uncork Capital’s managing partner, Jeff Clavier. Sarah Guo joined Greylock Partners in 2013 and led the firm’s investments in Cleo, Demisto, Sqreen and Utmost, and sits on the boards of several startups. Before Greylock, she was at Goldman Sachs, where she invested at the growth level in companies like Dropbox, and advised pre-IPO tech companies and public tech companies alike, including Workday (the former) and Netflix, Zynga and Nvidia (the latter). Sarah Guo, partner at Greylock, is an early-stage investor in enterprise software, with over half a dozen investments made across cybersecurity, AI, HR and health. She’ll give a rundown on why strong storytelling, a focus on solving a single problem well and a thesis on defensibility are all essential in a pitch, and why making seed and Series A investments often comes down to betting on the founding team. Ali Partovi runs Neo, a mentorship community and VC fund that brings together tech veterans with diverse startup leaders. Partovi has backed the likes of Airbnb, Dropbox, Facebook and Uber, and also founded Code.org. Partovi also has experience as an entrepreneur, selling his first startup LinkExchange all the way back in 1998. Ali Partovi The first few employees determine a startup’s trajectory. Learn the dos and don’ts of hiring your early engineers. Caryn Marooney is a partner at Coatue Management, sitting on the boards of Zendesk and Elastic, with an advisory role at Airtable. Before Coatue, Caryn oversaw communications for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus for eight years. Marooney is also a co-founder of the OutCast Agency, where she worked with companies across a wide spectrum of industries and sizes, including Salesforce, Amazon, Netflix and VMware. Caryn Marooney Startups often struggle to create a narrative that stands out. As a general partner at Coatue, former head of Comms at Facebook and co-founder of the OutCast Agency, Caryn Marooney has seen it all. Come learn the brand and messaging framework that can help your company stand out (while staying true to yourself). There will be about 50+ breakout sessions at the show, and attendees will have an opportunity to attend at least seven. The sessions will cover all the core topics confronting early-stage founders — up through Series A — as they build a company, from raising capital to building a team to growth. Each breakout session will be led by notables in the startup world on par with the folks we’ve announced today. Don’t worry about missing a breakout session, because transcripts from each will be available to show attendees. And most of the folks leading the breakout sessions have agreed to hang at the show for at least half the day and participate in CrunchMatch, TechCrunch’s great app to connect founders and investors based on shared interests. Here’s the fine print. Each of the 50+ breakout sessions is limited to around 100 attendees. We expect a lot more attendees, of course, so signups for each session are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Buy your ticket today and you can sign up for the breakouts we are announcing today. Pass holders will also receive 24-hour advance notice before we announce the next batch. (And yes, you can “drop” a breakout session in favor of a new one, in the event there is a schedule conflict.) We’re absolutely thrilled for this event, and we hope you are, too. Buy a pass to Early Stage SF 2020 right here! Buy a pass to Early Stage SF 2020 right here! Interested in sponsoring Early Stage? Hit us up here. Hit us up here. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:58:12 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA6ROnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f23%2fjeff-clavier-sarah-guo-ali-partovi-and-caryn-marooney-to-speak-at-early-stage-sf%2f/RK=2/RS=KwiqsH5c2Og5AqKYuVilGedvM.E- -ManoMano raises $139 million for its home improvement e-commerce platform January 28, 2020 French startup ManoMano is raising another mega round of funding. The company operates an e-commerce website for DIY, home improvement and gardening products. This time, ManoMano is raising $139 million (€125 million), with Temasek leading the round. ManoMano ManoMano General Atlantic, Eurazeo, Piton Capital, Bpifrance and Kismet Holdings are also participating. The company announced another significant funding round back in April 2019. At the time, ManoMano raised $125 million (€110 million). Overall, ManoMano has raised $344 million (€310 million) over the past six years. $125 million In 2019 alone, the company grew by 50%, with $666 million (€600 million) in gross merchandise value. While the company is still mostly active in France, its other markets (Spain, Italy, Germany and the U.K.) now represent a third of sales figures. ManoMano is betting on three pillars to differentiate its e-commerce platform from other, more generalist platforms. First, the company works directly with third-party retailers and takes care of logistics as part of the Mano Fulfillment service. Given that the marketplace focuses on a niche, ManoMano could beat competitors that also have a fulfillment service. Second, ManoMano has built a community of experts and enthusiasts to recreate the experience you’d get when you go to a store. At any time, you can start a conversation with Manodvisors. In 2019, customers had 1 million conversations with Manodvisors. Anybody can become a certified expert and get some revenue from the startup. become Third, ManoMano wants to expand beyond hobbyists with ManoMano Pro. While this service is just getting started, it already represents 10% of the company’s sales in France. Obviously, professionals could lead to a higher average basket size. ManoMano Pro With today’s funding round, the company plans to recruit 200 people in Barcelona and Bordeaux. ManoMano raises $125 million for its home improvement e-commerce platform ManoMano raises $125 million for its home improvement e-commerce platform Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:58:24 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA6xOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f27%2fmanomano-raises-139-million-for-its-home-improvement-e-commerce-platform%2f/RK=2/RS=52iVxk5zuWmvNtd1gB6gCNDwiaM- -Boston Dynamics’ Spot gets an SDK and co-starring role in an Adam Savage video January 23, 2020 This next year will be one of the most important since Boston Dynamics was founded back in 1992. After changing hands from Google to SoftBank, the robot maker is getting more aggressive about commercializing products, bringing Spot to market while Handle waits in the wings. The news includes a new CEO, its first since founding. This week, Boston Dynamics is also making Spot’s SDK available to the public via GitHub. That will go live tomorrow. It’s a pretty big step for the company, and it plans to grow its first commercially available robot into a platform — something it’s talked up for a while now. includes a new CEO VP Michael Perry offered up the following comment to TechCrunch: The SDK enables a broad range of developers and non-traditional roboticists to communicate with the robot and develop custom applications that enable Spot to do useful tasks across a wide range of industries. Developers will still need to become part of the Early Adopter Program to lease the robot to execute their code, but all interested parties will now be able to view the SDK and existing early adopters can open source their own code. With the SDK, developers in the Early Adopter Program can create custom methods of controlling the robot, integrate sensor information into data analysis tools, and design custom payloads which expand the capabilities of the base robot platform. One of our customers HoloBuilder is using the SDK to integrate Spot into their existing app. With what they’ve developed, workers can use a phone to teach Spot to document a path around a construction site and then Spot will autonomously navigate that path and take 360 images that go right into their processing software. Other customers are exploring VR control, automated registration of laser-scanning, connecting Spot’s data to cloud work order services, using Edge computing to help Spot semantically understand its environment, and much more. Boston Dynamics has already showcased a number of potential applications for the robot onstage at TechCrunch’s annual Robotics+AI conference. Early uses include security and construction site monitoring. Spot’s ability to walk up and down stairs and open doors makes it uniquely qualified among these sorts of robots. Another video, which featured Spot being used in state police drills, meanwhile, raised some concern with the ACLU. Of that, now-former CEO Marc Raibert told me, “There is a part of a humanity that loves to worry about robots taking over or being weaponized or something like that. We definitely want to counter that narrative. We’re not interested in weaponized robots. We’ve also gotten positive feedback from the fact that the police were using our robot to look at suspicious packages. There’s a real safety issue there and that it generated some additional interest with us as well. I mean, this isn’t really anything different than any new technology. There’s a wide variety of things it can be used for. We’re working to be responsible and trying find the good things that it could be used for.” The truth is that the nature of Boston Dynamics’ robots have — and probably always will — raise suspicions among an audience trained to be suspicious of large robots like Spot through generations of sci-fi stories. Certainly having it in the field with officers only contributed to such suspicions for many. Also true is that once Spot and the SDK are out in the world, BD will only have so much control over how such products are used in the world. One well-known early adopter is Adam Savage. The former Mythbuster got his hands on a Spot over the holidays and produced a video wherein he interacts with the robot like a kid on Christmas day. Understandable. I’ve controlled Spot myself, and it’s pretty awesome once you get over the fleeting concern that you’re going to break a machine the size of a large dog that costs as much as a car. got his hands on a Spot According to his video, Savage will be working with Spot for the next year. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:58:35 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA7ROnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f23%2fboston-dynamics-spot-gets-an-sdk-and-co-starring-role-in-an-adam-savage-video%2f/RK=2/RS=GOdz6VXSO0YpdC3PQu1JacBhhQw- -Substack builds multi-author support into its hybrid publishing, newsletter service January 22, 2020 Substack announced today that it has built support for multiple authors into its service. The company provides a publishing tool that blends blogs and email newsletters into a single entity, with a focus on subscription monetization. Substack The day’s updates also include a number of publisher-friendly tools, like shared access and homepage features closer to those of traditional websites than the linear timeline style that Substack has focused on so far. The additions, which also include nice-to-haves like author pages for multi-person publications, mark a new level of maturity for Substack, a service that quickly attracted both authors and an audience after it launched. That early traction helped the company land an outsized — when compared to the size of its team — Series A that put $15.6 million into the business. after it launched put $15.6 million into the business For users of the service, news of the funding was welcome. As was Substack’s disclosure at the time that the publications on its platform had attracted 50,000 paying subscribers. That figure was exciting, indicating that the company’s product might help writers of all sorts build a monetized audience, a holy grail for written creatives. In light of today’s updates, TechCrunch asked Substack about the progress of its monetization, specifically curious about how many paid subscribers Substack publications had accreted. The company declined to share new numbers, with its co-founder and COO Hamish McKenzie instead saying that his team is “very happy with the growth [it has] seen over the past few months.” Substack Hamish McKenzie In a company blog post accompanying today’s news, the firm noted “tens of thousands of paying subscribers,” implying that Substack has not yet doubled its former 50,000 person subscriber base. (Doing so would give Substack six-figures worth of subscribers. However, as it reached the 50,000 paid subscriber mark less than a year ago, it might be aggressive to expect such a rapid doubling.) Newsletter, blog, website Part of Substack’s initial success came from its intelligent blending of blogs and newsletters. Anyone who wanted to build one or the other got both, in a format that worked for each; bloggers could send email, and the email-focused also got a home on the internet. That the product came stapled to monetization tools made it all the more attractive. Today’s updates help add a new form to the Substack mix: Websites. Here’s what a new Substack website can look like: The ability to pin posts to the top of publications, the addition of photo bylines, and other tools mean that users can now do much more with the Substack publications. The company will now have to tread the line between the power of simplicity, and simply empowering its power users. The company’s model appears to be working. Traffic to the larger Substack service has risen in recent months, according to analytics service Alexa. Substack was ranked among the 13,000th most visited global site in October of last year, according to the platform. It’s now in the 11,000s. With media companies like The Dispatch hatching on Substack, and with today’s updates, expect that number to continue to fall. according to analytics service Alexa like The Dispatch hatching on Substack Substack is a bet that readers will pay for the written work that they care about. It’s a good wager. And better tools will tilt the odds more in its favor. Now we can simply count down until Substack announces 100,000 paid subscribers. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:58:48 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA7xOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f22%2fsubstack-builds-multi-author-support-into-its-hybrid-publishing-newsletter-service%2f/RK=2/RS=DJ.mnT9m6zlmc5ZaebtPMiRx4as- -Unearth the future of agriculture at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI with the CEOs of Traptic, FarmWise and... January 22, 2020 Farming is one of the oldest professions, but today those amber waves of grain (and soy) are a test bed for sophisticated robotic solutions to problems farmers have had for millennia. Learn about the cutting edge (sometimes literally) of agricultural robots at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI on March 3 with the founders of Traptic, Pyka and FarmWise. TC Sessions: Robotics+AI Traptic, and its co-founder and CEO Lewis Anderson, you may remember from Disrupt SF 2019, where it was a finalist in the Startup Battlefield. The company has developed a robotic berry picker that identifies ripe strawberries and plucks them off the plants with a gentle grip. It could be the beginning of a new automated era for the fruit industry, which is decades behind grains and other crops when it comes to machine-based harvesting. Traptic Traptic uses 3D vision and robotic arms to harvest ripe strawberries Traptic uses 3D vision and robotic arms to harvest ripe strawberries FarmWise has a job that’s equally delicate yet involves rough treatment of the plants — weeding. Its towering machine trundles along rows of crops, using computer vision to locate and remove invasive plants, working 24/7, 365 days a year. CEO Sebastian Boyer will speak to the difficulty of this task and how he plans to evolve the machines to become “doctors” for crops, monitoring health and spontaneously removing pests like aphids. FarmWise Pyka’s robot is considerably less earthbound than those: an autonomous, all-electric crop-spraying aircraft — with wings! This is a much different challenge from the more stable farming and spraying drones like those of DroneSeed and SkyX, but the choice gives the craft more power and range, hugely important for today’s vast fields. Co-founder Michael Norcia can speak to that scale and his company’s methods of meeting it. Pyka’s an autonomous, all-electric crop-spraying aircraft — with wings! Pyka and its autonomous, electric crop-spraying drone land $11M seed round Pyka and its autonomous, electric crop-spraying drone land $11M seed round These three companies and founders are at the very frontier of what’s possible at the intersection of agriculture and technology, so expect a fruitful conversation. $150 early-bird savings end on January 31! Book your $275 Early-Bird Ticket today and put that extra money in your pocket. Book your $275 Early-Bird Ticket today Students, grab your super-discounted $50 tickets right here. You might just meet your future employer/internship opportunity at this event. right here Startups, we only have five demo tables left for the event. Book your $2,200 demo table here and get in front of some of today’s leading names in the biz. Each table comes with four tickets to attend the show. Book your $2,200 demo table here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:59:02 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA8ROnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f22%2funearth-the-future-of-agriculture-at-tc-sessions-roboticsai-with-the-ceos-of-traptic-farmwise-and-pyka%2f/RK=2/RS=2hVIvzZmLEu8V55vY5v1xIt4bfo- -Memphis Meats raised $161 million from SoftBank Group, Norwest and Temasek January 22, 2020 Memphis Meats, a developer of technologies to manufacture meat, seafood and poultry from animal cells, has raised $161 million in financing from investors, including Softbank Group, Norwest and Temasek, the investment fund backed by the government of Singapore. Memphis Meats, The investment brings the company’s total financing to $180 million. Previous investors include individual and institutional investors like Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Threshold Ventures, Cargill, Tyson Foods, Finistere, Future Ventures, Kimbal Musk, Fifty Years and CPT Capital. Richard Branson, Cargill, Tyson Foods, Future Ventures, Other companies, including Future Meat Technologies, Aleph Farms, Higher Steaks, Mosa Meat and Meatable, are pursuing meat grown from cell cultures as a replacement for animal husbandry, whose environmental impact is a large contributor to deforestation and climate change around the world. Future Meat Technologies, Lab-grown meat could be on store shelves by 2022, thanks to Future Meat Technologies Lab-grown meat could be on store shelves by 2022, thanks to Future Meat Technologies Innovations in computational biology, bio-engineering and materials science are creating new opportunities for companies to develop and commercialize technologies that could replace traditional farming with new ways to produce foods that have a much lower carbon footprint and bring about an age of superabundance, according to investors. to develop and commercialize technologies that could replace traditional farming What’s beyond Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods in the future of food? What’s beyond Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods in the future of food? The race is on to see who will be the first to market with a product. “For the entire industry, an investment of this size strengthens confidence that this technology is here today rather than some far-off future endeavor. Once there is a “proof of concept” for cultivated meat — a commercially available product at a reasonable price point — this should accelerate interest and investment in the industry,” said Bruce Friedrich, the executive director of the Good Food Institute, in an email. “This is still an industry that has sprung up almost overnight and it’s important to keep a sense of perspective here. While the idea of cultivated meat has been percolating for close to a century, the very first prototype was only produced six years ago.” Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:59:15 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA8xOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f22%2fmemphis-meats-raised-161-million-from-softbank-group-norwest-and-temasek%2f/RK=2/RS=zff2LL2gl1xaeQMiPAW04D_O2gI- -Hot off the press: New tickets to the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize January 21, 2020 Party on, startuppers. We’ve just printed up a fresh batch of tickets to our 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize in San Francisco on February 7. If you haven’t snagged yours yet, don’t wait, because tickets to this event fly off the proverbial shelf. Buy your ticket right now. 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Buy your ticket right now Our annual winter soiree features 1,000 of Silicon Valley’s brightest minds, makers and visionaries relaxing over passed canapes and delightful libations. It’s the perfect way to meet your colleagues, expand your network, shake off the winter blues and just have some fun. Let’s face it — networking works better in a relaxed setting. You never know who you’ll meet at a TechCrunch party — it might be a relationship that takes your business to new heights. Our parties have a history of creating startup magic. We’re not kidding when we say this is a popular event. Case in point: Our demo table packages sold out in a flash. As you swill and chill, be sure to check out the up-and-coming startups showcasing their tech. We have a limited number of tickets left, and they’re going fast. In addition to networking, comradery and great food and drink, our Winter Party comes replete with party games, activities and photo ops. Bring your best karaoke chops and impress the crowd. Oh, and no TechCrunch party is complete without door prizes, TC swag and a chance to win tickets to Disrupt SF, our flagship event coming in September 2020. Don’t miss out on the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize on February 7 in San Francisco. Tickets are going fast — get yours now while you still can! 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Tickets are going fast — get yours now Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. Galvanize? filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:59:26 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA9ROnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f21%2fhot-off-the-press-new-tickets-to-the-3rd-annual-winter-party-at-galvanize%2f/RK=2/RS=1oOUDnqwioRR.Og2rzP9ALIq4jo- -Capella Space reveals new satellite design for real-time control of high-resolution Earth imaging January 21, 2020 Satellite and Earth observation startup Capella Space has unveiled a new design for its satellite technology, which improves upon its existing testbed hardware platform to deliver high-resolution imaging capable of providing detail at less than 0.5 meters (1.6 feet). Its new satellite, code-named “Sequoia,” also will be able to provide real-time tasking, meaning Capella’s clients will be able to get imaging from these satellites of a desired area basically on demand. Capella Space Capella’s satellites are “synthetic aperture radar” (SAR for short) imaging satellites, which means they’re able to provide 2D images of the Earth’s surface even through cloud cover, or when the area being imaged is on the night side of the planet. SAR imaging resolution is typically much higher than the 0.5-meter range that Capella’s new design will enable — and it’s especially challenging to get that kind of performance from small satellites, which is what Sequoia will be. The new satellite design is a “direct result of customer feedback,” Capella says, and includes advancements like an improved solar array for faster charging and quicker recycling; better thermals to allow it to image for longer stretches at a time; a much more agile targeting array, which means it can switch targets much more quickly in response to customer needs; and a higher bandwidth downlink, meaning it can transfer more data per orbital pass than any other SAR system from a commercial company in its size class. This upgrade led to Capella Space locking in contracts with major U.S. government clients, including the  U.S. Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). And the tech is ready to fly — it’ll be incorporated into Capella’s next six commercial satellites, which are set to fly starting in March. Capella Space Earth observation startup Capella Space will launch a seven satellite constellation in 2020 Earth observation startup Capella Space will launch a seven satellite constellation in 2020 Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:59:38 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA9xOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f21%2fcapella-space-reveals-new-satellite-design-for-real-time-control-of-high-resolution-earth-imaging%2f/RK=2/RS=gJeIFFg4Uup7EO6t201nAG4xzpg- -Diligent’s Vivian Chu and Labrador’s Mike Dooley will discuss assistive robotics at TC Sessions:... January 20, 2020 Too often the world of robotics seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Assistive robotics, on the other hand, are among one of the primary real-world tasks existing technology can seemingly address almost immediately. The concept for the technology has been around for some time now and has caught on particularly well in places like Japan, where human help simply can’t keep up with the needs of an aging population. At TC Sessions: Robotics+AI at U.C. Berkeley on March 3, we’ll be speaking with a pair of founders developing offerings for precisely these needs. TC Sessions: Robotics+AI Vivian Chu is the cofounder and CEO of Diligent Robotics. The company has developed the Moxi robot to help assist with chores and other non-patient tasks, in order to allow caregivers more time to interact with patients. Prior to Diligent, Chu worked at both Google[X] and Honda Research Institute. Mike Dooley is the cofounder and CEO of Labrador Systems. The Los Angeles-based company recently closed a $2 million seed round to develop assistive robots for the home. Dooley has worked at a number of robotics companies including, most recently a stint as the VP of Product and Business Development at iRobot. Early Bird tickets are now on sale for $275, but you better hurry, prices go up in less than a month by $100. Students can book a super discounted ticket for just $50 right here. Early Bird tickets are now on sale right here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 16:59:48 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A2KIbZxhKDdeJjEA.ROnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701921/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f20%2fdiligents-vivian-chu-and-labradors-mike-dooley-will-discuss-assistive-robotics-at-tc-sessions-roboticsai%2f/RK=2/RS=3S9UwgUxbP0D6iazrnRfXhWKfsI- -The paradox of 2020 VC is that the largest funds are doing the smallest rounds January 17, 2020 I talked yesterday about how VCs are just tired these days. Too many deals, too little time per deal, and constant hyper-competition with other VCs for the same equity. VCs are just tired VCs are just tired VCs are just tired One founder friend of mine noted to me last night that he has already received inbound requests from more than 90 investors over the past year about his next round — and he’s not even (presumably) fundraising. “I may have missed a few,” he deadpans — and really, how could one not? All that frenetic activity, though, leads us to the paradox at the heart of 2020 venture capital: It’s the largest funds that are writing the earliest, smallest checks. That’s a paradox because big funds need big rounds to invest in. A billion-dollar fund can’t write 800 $1 million seed checks with dollars left over for management fees (well, they could, but that would be obnoxious and impossible to track). Instead, the usual pattern is that as a firm’s fund size grows, its managing partners increasingly move to later-stage rounds to be able to efficiently deploy that capital. So the $200 million fund that used to write $8 million Series As transforms into a $1 billion fund writing $40 million Series Bs and Cs. That’s logical. Yet, the real logic is a bit more complicated. Namely, that everyone is raising huge funds. As this week’s big VC report from the National Venture Capital Association made clear, 2019 was in many ways the year of the big fund (and SoftBank didn’t even raise!). Twenty-one “mega-funds” launched last year (defined as raising more than $500 million), and that was actually below the numbers in 2018. As this week’s big VC report from the National Venture Capital Association made clear All that late-stage capital is scouring for late-stage deals, but there just aren’t that many deals to do. Sure, there are great companies and potentially great returns lying around, but there are also dozens of funds plotting to get access to that cap table, and valuation is one of the only levers these investors have to stand out from the fray. This is the story of Plaid in many ways. The fintech data API layer, which Visa announced it is intending to acquire for $5.3 billion, raised a $250 million Series C in late 2018 from Index and Kleiner, all according to Crunchbase. Multiple VC sources have told me that “everyone” looked at the deal (everyone being the tired VCs if you will). Plaid which Visa announced it is intending to acquire for $5.3 billion all according to Crunchbase Visa is acquiring Plaid for $5.3 billion, 2x its final private valuation Visa is acquiring Plaid for $5.3 billion, 2x its final private valuation But as one VC who said “no” on the C round defended to me this week, the valuation last year was incredibly rich. The company had revenues in 2018 in the upper tens of millions, or so I have been told, which coupled with its publicly reported $2.65 billion Series C valuation implies a revenue multiple somewhere in the 30-50x range — extremely pricey given the company’s ongoing fight with banks to ensure it can maintain data access to its users’ accounts. Jeff Kauflin at Forbes reported that the company’s revenues in 2019 are now in the lower three digits of millions, which means that Visa likely paid a similarly expensive multiple to acquire the company. Kleiner and Index doubled their money in a year or so, and no one should complain about that kind of IRR (particularly in growth investing), but if it weren’t for Visa and the beneficial alchemy of exit timing, all might have turned out very differently. Jeff Kauflin at Forbes reported Visa Worse than just expensive valuations, these later-stage rounds can become very proprietary and exclusive. From the sounds of it, Plaid ran a fairly open process for its Series C round, which allowed a lot of firms to look at the deal, helping to drive the valuation up while limiting dilution for earlier investors and the founder. But that’s not the only way to handle it. Increasingly, firms that invested early are also trying to invest later. That Series A investor who put in $5 million also wants to put in the $50 million Series B and the $250 million Series C. After all, they have the capital, already know the company, have a relationship with the CEO and can avoid a time-consuming fundraise in the process. So for many deals today, those later-stage cap tables are essentially locking out new investors, because there is already so much capital sitting around the cap table just salivating to double down. That gets us straight to the paradox. In order to have access to later-stage rounds, you have to already be on the cap table, which means that you have to do the smaller, earlier-stage rounds. Suddenly, growth investors are coming back to early-stage rounds (including seed) just to have optionality on access to these startups and their fundraises. As one VC explained to me last week (paraphrasing), “What’s weird today is that you have firms like Sequoia who show up for seed rounds, but they don’t really care about … anything. Valuation, terms, etc. It’s all a play for those later-stage rounds.” I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, to be clear, but ultimately, those one million-dollar checks are essentially a rounding error for the largest funds. The real return is in the mega rounds down the road. Does that mean seed funds will cease to exist? Certainly not, but it’s hard to make money and build a balanced, risk-adjusted portfolio when your competitors literally don’t care and consider the investment a marketing and access expense. As for founders — the times are still really, really good if you can check the right VC boxes. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:00:03 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAALSqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f17%2fthe-paradox-of-2020-vc-is-that-the-largest-funds-are-doing-the-smallest-rounds%2f/RK=2/RS=upG0LazsuMfIr0pc.I_P3Lx5ECc- -Discount student tickets available for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 January 17, 2020 “Revolutionary” may be an over-used adjective, but how else to describe the rapid evolution in mobility technology? Join us in San Jose, Calif., on May 14 for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020. Our second annual day-long conference cuts through the hype and explores the current and future state of the technology and its social, regulatory and economic impact. TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 If you’re a student with a passion for mobility and transportation tech, listen up. We can’t talk about the future if we’re not willing to invest in the next generation of mobility visionaries. That’s why we offer student tickets at a deep discount — $50 each. Invest in your future, save $200 and spend the day with more than 1,000 of mobility tech’s brightest minds, movers and makers. student tickets at a deep discount As always, you can count on a program packed with top-notch speakers, panel discussions, fireside chats and workshops. We’re in the process of building our agenda, but we’re ready to share our first two guests with you: Boris Sofman and Nancy Sun. Boris Sofman Sofman is the engineering director at Waymo and former co-founder and CEO of Anki. Sun is the co-founder and chief engineer of Ike Robotics. Read more about Sofman and Sun’s accomplishments here. We can’t wait to hear what they have to say about automation and robotics. Waymo Read more about Sofman and Sun’s accomplishments here Keep checking back, because we’ll announce more exciting speakers in the coming weeks. You’ll also have plenty of time for world-class networking. What better place for a student to impress — and possibly score a great internship or job? You might even meet a future co-founder or an investor. That knocking sound you hear is opportunity. Open the door. Hold up… you’re not a student but still love a bargain? We’ve got you covered, too. You can save $100 if you purchase an early-bird ticket before April 9. purchase an early-bird ticket Be part of the revolution. Join the mobility and transportation tech community — the top technologists, investors researchers and visionaries — on May 14 at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 in San Jose. Get your student ticket today. TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 Get your student ticket Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:00:16 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAALyqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f17%2fdiscount-student-tickets-available-for-tc-sessions-mobility-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=IwtUKqaVvMriuB3zbTnR8N4DIt0- -WorkBoard triples again in 2019, raises $30M from a16z to celebrate January 16, 2020 WorkBoard, a SaaS startup that provides goal setting and management software to other companies, announced today that it has closed a $30 million Series C. The new capital comes less than a year after the startup raised a $23 million Series B. WorkBoard has raised $66.6 million to date, according to Crunchbase. WorkBoard startup raised a $23 million Series B according to Crunchbase Andreessen Horowitz’s David Ulevitch led the round, which saw participation from Microsoft’s M12, GGV and Workday Ventures, each of which had put money into the company in preceding rounds. Andreessen Horowitz’s David Ulevitch Microsoft’s M12 GGV Workday Ventures Why did WorkBoard announce a Series C just 10 months after its Series B? That’s what we wanted to find out. As it turns out, the answer is growth. 3x, twice The company is growing quickly, making it an attractive investment for the venture class. However, it’s useless to explain its growth in numerical terms if we don’t understand why it is growing as quickly as it is. WorkBoard provides software and services to other companies relating to how they plan and track their progress against their plans. More simply, WorkBoard helps other companies set and leverage OKRs, an acronym that stands for “objectives and key results.” If you’d like a longer-winded explanation of how the concept works, my notes on the company’s Series B are the jam. Briefly, OKRs are a planning framework that help companies set their course intelligently, and execute across smaller tasks that add up to the direction they want to go. You complete “key results” over a given period of time, which roll up into your “objectives.” are the jam It’s a pretty okay way to set up a company’s planning system. OKRs are popular in Silicon Valley, where Google popularized the method. It was not clear, at least to your humble servant, how far the idea had spread when WorkBoard raised its Series B last year. What if the startup raised a bunch of money after selling into fertile ground (startups aware of OKRs), but struggled when it went after other, non-tech companies? Whoops. After boosting its annual recurring revenue 3.5x in 2018, WorkBoard tripled its ARR again in 2019, according to CEO Deidre Paknad. Thinking out loud, WorkBoard raised its Series A in December of 2017. It probably had $1 million to $3 million ARR at the time, a wide but regular-ish range of ARR for a startup raising its first institutional (priced) round. Given its 3.5x and 3x results in 2018 and 2019, starting right after that Series A investment, the company’s ARR is now likely over $20 million, and probably closer to $25 million. CEO Deidre Paknad So if it can double this year, the startup may begin to approach IPO scale in 2021, provided that its growth can keep up. On that point, I asked Paknad about her market, especially in regards to how much work she and her employees had to do in terms of market education; did they have to bring the gospel of OKRs to companies, sell them on the idea and then sell its software? Or had the need to teach about OKRs themselves gone down? She indicated that instead of needing to pull the market toward her firm, the trendlines are better than neutral. According to the CEO, it was harder to sell OKR software “five years ago” because “the need to educate” a half decade ago “was intense.” Companies were stuck on their love of PowerPoint and similar, dated tooling. However, that need for “education has declined rapidly” Paknad said. She says that in her company’s experience there is “ever broader recognition that if you want to drive smart growth — not growth at any cost but smart growth,” companies will need to have “everybody in the organization aligned, and you need to be able to see what they [are] aligned on.” OKRs are a natural and well-explored way to attempt to do so. That market movement has helped the company have very efficient operations, in terms of the usual raft of SaaS metrics that we understand. Paknad told TechCrunch a few things that stuck out: way better The investor perspective TechCrunch got Ulevitch, WorkBoard’s newest lead investor, on the phone. Ulevitch called Paknad “a force of nature” who “really connects to customers.” That was all well and good, but more fun were his notes on how the round came together. Paknad told Ulevitch after WorkBoard’s March 2019 Series B that her company would triple in the year. When it did, Ulevitch said he didn’t want to wait any longer to put money into the firm. And the investment came together quickly, with the Andreessen Horowitz investor noting a roughly one-month time frame for the deal’s life cycle. This round isn’t hard to figure out. Fast-growing, efficient SaaS companies make investors dream of the next Slack. Let’s see if WorkBoard can double or triple in 2020. If so, we’ll be chatting with Paknad about exits and IPOs, not middle-sized, middle-stage rounds. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:00:30 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAAMSqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f16%2fworkboard-triples-again-in-2019-raises-30m-from-a16z-to-celebrate%2f/RK=2/RS=TXICoMNcuE1GMGqUJuO_Yuwnpyo- -Trucks VC general partner Reilly Brennan is coming to TC Sessions: Mobility January 16, 2020 The future of the transportation industry is bursting at the seams with startups aiming to bring everything from flying cars and autonomous vehicles to delivery bots and even more efficient freight to roads. One investor who is right at the center of this is Reilly Brennan, founding general partner of Trucks VC, a seed-stage venture capital fund for entrepreneurs changing the future of transportation. Reilly Brennan, TechCrunch is excited to announce that Brennan will join us onstage for TC Sessions: Mobility. TC Sessions: Mobility In case you missed last year’s event, TC Sessions: Mobility is a one-day conference that brings together the best and brightest engineers, investors, founders and technologists to talk about transportation and what is coming on the horizon. The event will be held May 14, 2020 in the California Theater in San Jose, Calif. TC Sessions: Mobility Brennan is known as much for his popular FoT newsletter as his investments, which include May Mobility, Nauto, nuTonomy, Joby Aviation, Skip and Roadster. Nauto, nuTonomy, Stay tuned to see who we’ll announce next. And … $250 Early-Bird tickets are now on sale — save $100 on tickets before prices go up on April 9; book today. book today Students, you can grab your tickets for just $50 here. here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:00:42 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAAMyqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f16%2ftrucks-vc-general-partner-reilly-brennan-is-coming-to-tc-sessions-mobility%2f/RK=2/RS=Ez6NDGKAHqzaj6hoNxcnXrcOkuI- -Amazon to invest $1 billion to help digitize small businesses in India January 15, 2020 India welcomed Jeff Bezos this week with an antitrust probe. On top of that, thousands of small merchants who typically compete with one another are beginning to gather across the country to hold a protest against the alleged predatory practices by the e-commerce giant. But Amazon founder and chief executive’s love for one of the company’s most important overseas markets remains untainted. Jeff Bezos an antitrust probe At a conference in New Delhi on Wednesday, Bezos and Amit Agarwal, the head of Amazon India, announced that the American giant is pumping $1 billion into India operations to help small and medium-sized businesses in the country come online. This is in addition to about $5.5 billion the company has previously invested in the country. Amazon about $5.5 billion the company has previously invested in the country Bezos said that Amazon is also eyeing making exports of locally produced goods from India — in line with New Delhi’s Make in India program that encourages companies to manufacture locally in the nation — to be of $10 billion in size on Amazon platform by 2025. “Over the next five years, Amazon will invest an incremental $1 billion to digitize micro and small businesses in cities, towns, and villages across India, helping them reach more customers than ever before,” said Bezos in a statement. “This initiative will use Amazon’s global footprint to create $10 billion in India exports by 2025. Our hope is that this investment will bring millions more people into the future prosperity of India and at the same time expose the world to the ‘Make in India’ products that represent India’s rich, diverse culture,” he added. Nearly half a billion people in India came online for the first time in the last decade. But most small businesses such as mom-and-pop stores that dot tens of thousands of cities, towns, and villages of India are still offline. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have also launched tools in recent years to help these businesses build presence on the web and accept digital payments. Google, Amazon opened its conference, titled Amazon SMBhav (Hindi for possible), with videos of poor merchants and craftsmen in India who have expanded their businesses after signing up on the e-commerce platform. An Amazon executive said the company has amassed over 500,000 sellers in India and thousands of merchants have boosted their business by beginning to sell on 12 Amazon marketplaces across the globe. But just 10 miles from the conference venue, dozens of merchants had a different Amazon story to tell. Dozens of merchants gathered in New Delhi on Wednesday to protest against alleged predatory practices by Amazon. (Image: Manish Singh / TechCrunch) Dozens of merchants gathered in New Delhi on Wednesday to protest against alleged predatory practices by Amazon. (Image: Manish Singh / TechCrunch) Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), a trade group that represents more than 60 million merchants in the country, said it was organizing protests in 300 cities in India. A representative of the trade group said they want to publicize the alleged predatory pricing and other anti-competitive practices employed by Amazon and Flipkart . Flipkart Bezos and Agarwal did not address the protests or the antitrust probe. At stake is one of the world’s largest untapped markets. India’s e-commerce market is projected to grow to $150 billion in the next three years, according to a report by Nasscom and PwC India. “I predict that the 21st century is going to be the Indian century,” said Bezos at the conference. “The most important alliance is going to be the alliance between India and the U.S., the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy.” On Monday, India’s Competition Commission opened an antitrust probe into Amazon and Walmart -owned Flipkart to find whether the two e-commerce giants have exclusive arrangements with smartphone vendors and are giving preferential treatment to some sellers. Walmart The probe is the latest regulatory setback for Amazon and Flipkart, which sold majority stake to Walmart for $16 billion in 2018, in India. Last year, U.S. senators criticized New Delhi after it restricted foreign companies from selling inventory from their own subsidiaries. The move forced Amazon and Flipkart to abruptly pull hundreds of thousands of goods from their marketplaces. sold majority stake to Walmart for $16 billion in 2018 pull hundreds of thousands of goods from their marketplaces A CAIT spokesperson told TechCrunch that its member merchants were pleased with India’s antitrust watchdog’s move. The new round of protests today are one of several the trade group has organized in recent years. Last month, thousands of protestors expressed similar concerns against the e-commerce players. “Amazon, Jeff Bezos, Flipkart, go back!” some protesters chanted today. Sumit Agarwal, National Secretary of CAIT, told TechCrunch in an interview that “deep discounting” on products on Amazon is impeding the growth of small merchants and a government intervention is urgently needed. According to industry estimates, e-commerce accounts for about 3% of retail sales in the country. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:00:56 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAANSqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f14%2famazon-to-invest-1-billion-to-digitize-small-businesses-in-india%2f/RK=2/RS=7stLCUwwbWGlL51Ojy2Zc7_nRvo- -Google's new feature makes it easier to shop from search results January 15, 2020 Following the big revamp of Google Shopping last fall, Google today is updating the shopping experience on Google Search, on mobile. Now, when you do a web search for clothing, shoes and accessories, you won’t just get a set of links to different products and stores. Instead, Google will present a new section where it features the most popular products from stores around the web, which you can filter and browse. the big revamp of Google Shopping Google For example, you could search for things like “running shoes” or “women’s leather belt” or “wide-leg pants,” Google explains, then be presented with a selection of items in a new, visual guide. You can then further narrow down what you’re looking for by style, department or size type, and view images. Underneath each item, Google will also display how many stores carry that product and the lowest price (e.g. “$199+”). This change will help in particular when you’re trying to find all the stores that carry one particular item — something that hasn’t been easy to do in the past. And as you view the item in question, you can scroll down to read aggregated customer reviews. When you’re ready to buy, you’ll just click on the link to the store you want to shop. The feature is powered by Google’s search index, which has organized products from more than a million online stores and is regularly refreshed. The new shopping feature isn’t a paid advertisement for retailers either, Google notes. Participating retailers can include their eligible products within this section for free. eligible products The changes are part of a large focus on how the shopping experience can be improved for online retailers as Google revamps to become the go-to platform for finding everything that’s not on Amazon. On that front, Google this week acquired a startup, Pointy, for $163 million, to help physical retailers track their in-store inventory. acquired The company also recently updated the Google Shopping homepage to become a personalized destination based on your habits and purchases, with additions like a price tracker and new ways to shop from both local and online retailers. But many online searchers’ first stop when looking for clothing and accessories isn’t the Google Shopping destination — it’s a simple Google Search. That’s where the new features come in. updated Google says the updated experience will begin rolling out starting today and through this week, on mobile devices only. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:01:07 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAANyqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f15%2fgoogles-new-feature-makes-it-easier-to-shop-from-search-results%2f/RK=2/RS=yuiAgQrP0QpTqBPoN.lshoVWBFE- -TRI-AD’s James Kuffner and Max Bajracharya are coming to TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020 January 16, 2020 With the Tokyo Summer Olympics rapidly approaching, 2020 is shaping up to be a big year for TRI-AD (Toyota Research Institute – Advanced Development). Opened in 2018, the research wing is devoted to bringing some of TRI’s work into practice. The organization is heavily invested in both autonomous driving and other key robotics projects. TRI-AD’s CEO James Kuffner and TRI’s VP of Robotics Max Bajracharya will be joining us onstage at TC Sessions Robotics+AI on March 3 at UC Berkeley to discuss their work in the field. The company has been working to promote accessibility, both in terms of its work in automotive and smart cities, as well as robotics aimed to help assist Japan’s aging population. TC Sessions Robotics+AI The Summer Olympics will serve as an opportunity for TRI-AD to showcase those technologies in practice. Kuffner and Bajracharya will discuss why companies like Toyota are investing in robotics and working to make every day robotics a reality. Early-Bird tickets are now on sale for $275. Book your tickets now and save $150 before prices go up! Book your tickets now Student Tickets are just $50 — grab yours here. grab yours here Startups, book a demo exhibitor table and get four tickets to the show and a demo area to showcase your company. Packages run $2,200. book a demo exhibitor table Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:01:19 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAAOSqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f16%2ftri-ads-james-kuffner-and-max-bajracharya-are-coming-to-tc-sessions-roboticsai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=qCiusWRBMSMTOCXVMSRkbFVK0.s- -Tradeshift raises $240M and appears to put its expected IPO on hold — for now January 14, 2020 Tradeshift — the startup which set out to disrupt the traditional arena of supply chain payments and marketplaces when it first appeared in 2008 — has today announced a new funding round of $240 million in equity and debt, raised from a combination of existing and new investors. Tradeshift The funding will be used to help accelerate its growth and, it says, set the company “on a direct path to profitability in the near future.” That last line is telling, as the new funding comes in the context of what was widely held to be a window of opportunity for Tradeshift to head toward an IPO. Tradeshift What this new funding means it that Tradeshift is effectively delaying its IPO to get its “house in order” in the context of a new economic environment that has become skeptical toward tech IPOs in the wake of the WeWork debacle, which saw public investors cool toward new tech company listings. Although the company isn’t saying this, perhaps in this instance, its motto should be temporarily changed from “shift happens” to the more apt “shit happens.” Still, at least Tradeshift is coming from a position of relative strength. In a statement, the company said it has reported more than two years of strong growth in quarterly revenue, and recorded its best-ever year in 2019, including more than 60% revenue growth, with more than 250 deals closed (the average deal size was doubled). Furthermore, more than 40% of the total cumulative transaction volume across its platform came in the past year, it says. Tradeshift said the additional capital will be used to further momentum it has seen across core product lines, including Tradeshift Pay, which was ranked in 2019 as the strongest ePayables SaaS solution in the industry by analyst firm Ardent Partners, and Tradeshift Go, with more than 200 new customers signed in 2019. The new investment will also support the monetization of its trade finance proposition across a user base of over two million suppliers. “The additional funding we’ve secured is a testament to the belief the investor community has in our vision and our business model,” said Christian Lanng, CEO of Tradeshift in the statement. “As a network business, growth is always going to be a key part of our story. But it’s also important that we manage that growth responsibly.” Christian Lanng, I asked him what he meant by “networked.” Lang believes we are moving “from cloud businesses to networked businesses,” where, instead of companies, like Microsoft having one single solution but also offering a variety of other products (such as LinkedIn and Skype), people and businesses will opt more for single-use tools. Microsoft “The fact that both Microsoft and Salesforce bid for Linkedin shows that we have moved into a network era,” he told me. Salesforce Tradeshift’s drive toward profitability ahead of a possible IPO also means it’s going to slash costs to bring overheads in line with revenue. Lanng said this will likely mean reducing headcount in its expensive San Francisco offices, but reallocating resources and talent to locations where that is more affordable. He told me “costs and margins” would now be the focus. “As we reach the next phase in the maturity of our business, our focus for the coming year will be about doubling down in areas where we’re seeing the greatest momentum, while continuing to ensure we have the necessary balance in place to fully capitalize on the enormous opportunities in front of us,” he said. What is clearly unspoken about this latest move is that this leaner, meaner Tradeshift is going to continue to weather this year, at the very least, as a private company before, most likely, looking toward its long-awaited IPO in the mid-term. Previous investors in the company have included Goldman Sachs, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), HSBC, H14, GP Bullhound, Gray Swan, a venture company established by Tradeshift’s founders, American Express Ventures, the CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund, Notion Capital, Santander InnoVentures and others. In 2018, when it raised $250 million, it claimed its valuation passed $240 million. included Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:01:32 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAAOyqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f14%2ftradeshift-raises-240m-and-appears-to-put-its-expected-ipo-on-hold-for-now%2f/RK=2/RS=t2lhSx.sbihzBFzznVSgTBQ5Do8- -Instagram tests Direct Messaging on web where encryption fails January 14, 2020 Instagram will finally let you chat from your web browser, but the launch contradicts Facebook’s plan for end-to-end encryption in all its messaging apps. Today Instagram began testing Direct Messages on the web for a small percentage of users around the globe, a year after TechCrunch reported it was testing web DMs. Instagram TechCrunch reported When fully rolled out, Instagram tells us its website users will be able to see when they’ve received new DMs, view their whole inbox, start new message threads or group chats, send photos (but not capture them), double click to Like and share posts from their feed via Direct so they can gossip or blast friends with memes. You won’t be able to send videos, but can view non-disappearing ones. Instagram’s CEO Adam Mosseri tweeted that he hopes to “bring this to everyone soon” once the kinks are worked out. tweeted Web DMs could help office workers, students and others stuck on a full-size computer all day or who don’t have room on their phone for another app to spend more time and stay better connected on Instagram. Direct is crucial to Instagram’s efforts to stay ahead of Snapchat, which has seen its Stories product mercilessly copied by Facebook but is still growing thanks to its rapid fire visual messaging feature that’s popular with teens. Facebook But as Facebook’s former Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos tweeted, “This is fascinating, as it cuts directly against the announced goal of E2E encrypted compatibility between FB/IG/WA. Nobody has ever built a trustworthy web-based E2EE messenger, and I was expecting them to drop web support in FB Messenger. Right hand versus left?” tweeted A year ago Facebook announced it planned to eventually unify Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram Direct so users could chat with each other across apps. It also said it would extend end-to-end encryption from WhatsApp to include Instagram Direct and all of Facebook Messenger, though it could take years to complete. That security protocol means that only the sender and recipient would be able to view the contents of a message, while Facebook, governments and hackers wouldn’t know what was being shared. Yet Stamos explains that historically, security researchers haven’t been able to store cryptographic secrets in JavaScript, which is how the Instagram website runs, though he admits this could be solved in the future. More problematically, Stamos writes that “the model by which code on the web is distributed, which is directly from the vendor in a customizable fashion. This means that inserting a backdoor for one specific user is much much easier than in the mobile app paradigm,” where attackers would have to compromise both Facebook/Instagram and either Apple or Google’s app stores. “Fixing this problem is extremely hard and would require fundamental changes to how the WWW [world wide web] works” says Stamos. At least we know Instagram has been preparing for today’s launch since at least February when mobile researcher Jane Manchun Wong alerted us. We’ve asked Instagram for more details on how it plans to cover web DMs with end-to-end encryption or whether they’ll be exempt from the plan. [Update: An Instagram spokesperson tells me that as with Instagram Direct on mobile, messages currently are not encrypted. The company is working on making its messaging products end-to-end encrypted, and it continues to consider ways to accomplish this.] since at least February . Critics have called the messaging unification a blatant attempt to stifle regulators and prevent Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp from being broken up. Yet Facebook has stayed the course on the plan while weathering a $5 billion fine plus a slew of privacy and transparency changes mandated by an FTC settlement for its past offenses. Personally, I’m excited, because it will make DMing sources via Instagram easier, and mean I spend less time opening my phone and potentially being distracted by other apps while working. Almost 10 years after Instagram’s launch and six years since adding Direct, the app seems to finally be embracing its position as a utility, not just entertainment. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:01:46 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAAPSqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f14%2finstagram-web-messaging%2f/RK=2/RS=rSzhOSg7x3U5wLaclZ2xo2MDJuc- -Dating and fertility apps among those snitching to 'out of control' ad tech, report finds January 14, 2020 The latest report to warn that surveillance capitalism is out of control — and “free” digital services can in fact be very costly to people’s privacy and rights — comes courtesy of the Norwegian Consumer Council, which has published an analysis of how popular apps are sharing user data with the behavioral ad industry. report It suggests smartphone users have little hope of escaping ad tech’s pervasive profiling machinery — short of not using a smartphone at all. A majority of the apps that were tested for the report were found to transmit data to “unexpected third parties” — with users not being clearly informed about who was getting their information and what they were doing with it. Most of the apps also did not provide any meaningful options or on-board settings for users to prevent or reduce the sharing of data with third parties. “The evidence keeps mounting against the commercial surveillance systems at the heart of online advertising,” the Council writes, dubbing the current situation “completely out of control, harming consumers, societies, and businesses,” and calling for curbs to prevalent practices in which app users’ personal data is broadcast and spread “with few restraints.” “The multitude of violations of fundamental rights are happening at a rate of billions of times per second, all in the name of profiling and targeting advertising. It is time for a serious debate about whether the surveillance-driven advertising systems that have taken over the internet, and which are economic drivers of misinformation online, is a fair trade-off for the possibility of showing slightly more relevant ads. “The comprehensive digital surveillance happening across the ad tech industry may lead to harm to both individuals, to trust in the digital economy, and to democratic institutions,” it also warns. In the report, app users’ data is documented being shared with tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter (via its mobile app monetization network, MoPub) — which operate their own mobile ad platforms and/or other key infrastructure related to the collection and sharing of smartphone users’ data for ad targeting purposes — but also with scores of other faceless entities that the average consumer is unlikely to have heard of. Facebook, Google Twitter The Council commissioned a data flow analysis of 10 popular apps running on Google’s Android smartphone platform — generating a snapshot of the privacy black hole that mobile users inexorably tumble into when they try to go about their digital business, despite the existence (in Europe) of a legal framework that’s supposed to protect people by giving citizens a swathe of rights over their personal data. Android Among the findings are a makeup filter app sharing the precise GPS coordinates of its users; ovulation, period and mood-tracking apps sharing users’ intimate personal data with Facebook and Google (among others); dating apps exchanging user data with each other, and also sharing with third parties sensitive user info like individuals’ sexual preferences (and real-time device specific tells such as sensor data from the gyroscope… ); and a games app for young children that was found to contain 25 embedded SDKs and which shared the Android Advertising ID of a test device with eight third parties. GPS The 10 apps whose data flows were analyzed for the report are the dating apps Grindr, Happn, OkCupid, and Tinder; fertility/period tracker apps Clue and MyDays; makeup app Perfect365; religious app Muslim: Qibla Finder; children’s app My Talking Tom 2; and the keyboard app Wave Keyboard. OkCupid, “Altogether, Mnemonic [the company which the Council commissioned to conduct the technical analysis] observed data transmissions from the apps to 216 different domains belonging to a large number of companies. Based on their analysis of the apps and data transmissions, they have identified at least 135 companies related to advertising. One app, Perfect365, was observed communicating with at least 72 different such companies,” the report notes. “Because of the scope of tests, size of the third parties that were observed receiving data, and popularity of the apps, we regard the findings from these tests to be representative of widespread practices in the adtech industry,” it adds. Aside from the usual suspect (ad)tech giants, less well-known entities seen receiving user data include location data brokers Fysical, Fluxloop, Placer, Places/Fouraquare, Safegraph and Unacast; behavioral ad targeting players like Receptiv/Verve, Neura, Braze and LeanPlum; mobile app marketing analytics firms like AppsFlyer; and ad platforms and exchanges like AdColony, AT&T’s AppNexus, Bucksense, OpenX, PubNative, Smaato and Vungle. AppNexus, OpenX, In the report, the Forbrukerrådet concludes that the pervasive tracking of smartphone users which underpins the behavioral ad industry is all but impossible for smartphone users to escape — even if they are able to locate an on-device setting to opt out of behavioral ads. This is because multiple identifiers are being attached to them and their devices, and also because of frequent sharing/syncing of identifiers by ad tech players across the industry. (It also points out that on the Android platform, a setting where users can opt-out of behavioral ads does not actually obscure the identifier — meaning users have to take it on trust that ad tech entities won’t just ignore their request and track them anyway.) The Council argues its findings suggest widespread breaches of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), given that key principles of that pan-EU framework — such as data protection by design and default — are in stark conflict with the systematic, pervasive background profiling of app users it found (apps were, for instance, found sharing personal data by default, requiring users to actively seek out an obscure device setting to try to prevent being profiled). “The extent of tracking and complexity of the ad tech industry is incomprehensible to consumers, meaning that individuals cannot make informed choices about how their personal data is collected, shared and used. Consequently, the massive commercial surveillance going on throughout the ad tech industry is systematically at odds with our fundamental rights and freedoms,” it also argues. Where (user) consent is being relied upon as a legal basis to process personal data, the standard required by GDPR states it must be informed, freely given and specific. But the Council’s analysis of the apps found them sorely lacking on that front. “In the cases described in this report, none of the apps or third parties appear to fulfil the legal conditions for collecting valid consent,” it writes. “Data subjects are not informed of how their personal data is shared and used in a clear and understandable way, and there are no granular choices regarding use of data that is not necessary for the functionality of the consumer-facing services.” It also dismisses another possible legal base — known as legitimate interests — arguing app users “cannot have a reasonable expectation for the amount of data sharing and the variety of purposes their personal data is used for in these cases.” The report points out that other forms of digital advertising (such as contextual advertising) which do not rely on third parties processing personal data are available — arguing that further undermines any ad tech industry claims of “legitimate interests” as a valid base for helping themselves to smartphone users’ data. “The large amount of personal data being sent to a variety of third parties, who all have their own purposes and policies for data processing, constitutes a widespread violation of data subjects’ privacy,” the Council argues. “Even if advertising is necessary to provide services free of charge, these violations of privacy are not strictly necessary in order to provide digital ads. Consequently, it seems unlikely that the legitimate interests that these companies may claim to have can be demonstrated to override the fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject.” The suggestion, therefore, is that “a large number of third parties that collect consumer data for purposes such as behavioural profiling, targeted advertising and real-time bidding, are in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation.” The report also discusses the harms attached to such widespread violation of privacy — pointing out risks such as discrimination and manipulation of vulnerable individuals, as well as chilling effects on speech, added fuel for ad fraud and the torching of trust in the digital economy, among other society-afflicting ill being fueled by ad tech’s obsession with profiling everyone… Some of the harm of this data exploitation stems from significant knowledge and power asymmetries that render consumers powerless. The overarching lack of transparency of the system makes consumers vulnerable to manipulation, particularly when unknown companies know almost everything about the individual consumer. However, even if regular consumers had comprehensive knowledge of the technologies and systems driving the adtech industry, there would still be very limited ways to stop or control the data exploitation. Since the number and complexity of actors involved in digital marketing is staggering, consumers have no meaningful ways to resist or otherwise protect themselves from the effects of profiling. These effects include different forms of discrimination and exclusion, data being used for new and unknowable purposes, widespread fraud, and the chilling effects of massive commercial surveillance systems. In the long run, these issues are also contributing to the erosion of trust in the digital industry, which may have serious consequences for the digital economy. To shift what it dubs the “significant power imbalance between consumers and third party companies,” the Council calls for an end to the current practices of “extensive tracking and profiling” — either by companies changing their practices to “respect consumers’ rights,” or — where they won’t — urging national regulators and enforcement authorities to “take active enforcement measures, to establish legal precedent to protect consumers against the illegal exploitation of personal data.” It’s fair to say that enforcement of GDPR remains a work in progress at this stage, some 20 months after the regulation came into force, back in May 2018. With scores of cross-border complaints yet to culminate in a decision (though there have been a couple of interesting ad tech and consent-related enforcements in France). a work in progress ad tech consent-related enforcements We reached out to Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) and the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for comment on the Council’s report. The Irish regulator has multiple investigations ongoing into various aspects of ad tech and tech giants’ handling of online privacy, including a probe related to security concerns attached to Google’s ad exchange and the real-time bidding process which features in some programmatic advertising. It has previously suggested the first decisions from its hefty backlog of GDPR complaints will be coming early this year. But at the time of writing the DPC had not responded to our request for comment on the report. probe Google’s lead EU regulator opens formal privacy probe of its adtech Google’s lead EU regulator opens formal privacy probe of its adtech A spokeswoman for the ICO — which last year put out its own warnings to the behavioral advertising industry, urging it to change its practices — sent us this statement, attributed to Simon McDougall, its executive director for technology and innovation, in which he says the regulator has been prioritizing engaging with the ad tech industry over its use of personal data and has called for change itself — but which does not once mention the word “enforcement”… warnings to the behavioral advertising industry change its practices Over the past year we have prioritised engagement with the adtech industry on the use of personal data in programmatic advertising and real-time bidding. Along the way we have seen increased debate and discussion, including reports like these, which factor into our approach where appropriate. We have also seen a general acknowledgment that things can’t continue as they have been. Our 2019 update report into adtech highlights our concerns, and our revised guidance on the use of cookies gives greater clarity over what good looks like in this area. Whilst industry has welcomed our report and recognises change is needed, there remains much more to be done to address the issues. Our engagement has substantiated many of the concerns we raised and, at the same time, we have also made some real progress. Throughout the last year we have been clear that if change does not happen we would consider taking action. We will be saying more about our next steps soon – but as is the case with all of our powers, any future action will be proportionate and risk-based. Update: Following publication of the Council’s report, Twitter has issued a statement — saying it has suspended Grindr’s MoPub account — while it investigates the “sufficiency” of its consent mechanism. “We are currently investigating this issue to understand the sufficiency of Grindr’s consent mechanism. In the meantime, we have disabled Grindr’s MoPub account,” a spokesperson said. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:02:07 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ62BjKDde4aAAPyqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701923/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f14%2fdating-and-fertility-apps-among-those-snitching-to-out-of-control-adtech-report-finds%2f/RK=2/RS=fEkFwvQpSRlTwMTQHD_m2agv01g- -Sophie Alcorn, Rebecca Lynn, MG Siegler and Garry Tan are joining us for Early Stage SF January 15, 2020 One of the most valuable resources in the tech startup community is mentorship. Founders, tackling brand new challenges and adapting to a rapidly changing world, can sometimes feel like no one understands what they’re going through. But alas, the Early Stage SF event in April will most certainly prove them wrong. Early Stage will bring together seasoned operators and experts across a wide variety of topics that fall under the broad umbrellas of funding, marketing and operations. Early Stage SF event How do you secure funding? How do you get to your first yes? How do you identify the right investors? And the right lead investor? How do you negotiate a cap table that makes sense for you and your team? How do you get from seed to Series A? These are some of the questions our speakers will answer, and that’s just on the topic of funding. We’ll also hear from experts in the legal arena, wizards of the tech stack, leadership coaches, brand design geniuses, growth hackers and more! Today, we’re pleased to announce four more breakout session leaders: Sophie Alcorn, Rebecca Lynn, MG Siegler and Garry Tan . Sophie Alcorn, Rebecca Lynn, Garry Tan Each of these experts will lead 40-minute breakout sessions, including a brief presentation followed directly by a Q&A session with the audience. Dealing with a tricky visa situation? Troubleshoot the many snags that can affect early-stage startups that are trying to bring talent into the country, with top Silicon Valley immigration expert Sophie Alcorn. With the disintermediation of banks, and financial services more broadly, startups that are well-structured can really have major advantages entering those markets. From benchmarking growth metrics that matter to navigating regulatory changes, learn more about Canvas Ventures’ approach toward evaluating founding teams and equipping companies with what it takes to make the most of opportunities in fintech. We live in an era of app and services inundation. The problem for early-stage startups isn’t a lack of good ideas, it’s a lack of time that users have to try out such things, let alone implement them into their lives. M.G. Siegler will go through some ideas and trends that could be interesting entry points for startups to break through. When you’re starting your company, there are thousands of small, avoidable mistakes that can turn success into failure. Learn how to navigate around those and maximize your chance of success with key learnings from Garry Tan, founder and managing partner at Initialized Capital. Early Stage SF will have approximately 50 different breakout sessions covering a variety of startup core competencies. The hope is that early-stage founders can come in with a blank notebook and leave with a semester’s worth of insights and information on how to tackle the challenges of the future. Obviously, there is only so much time in the day, and it would be impossible for an attendee to participate in every single breakout session. But fear not! Transcripts from every breakout will be made available to attendees. And there’s one more thing! Our speakers have graciously agreed to spend part of the day at the show participating in CrunchMatch. CrunchMatch allows founders, investors, etc. to fill in information about who they’d like to meet — for example, a D2C startup founder might want to meet with brand design experts and e-commerce VCs — and set a time and place for a quick meeting right at the event. Here’s the fine print. Each of the 50+ breakout sessions is limited to around 100 attendees. We expect a lot more attendees, of course, so signups for each session are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Buy your ticket today and you can sign up for the breakouts we are announcing today. Pass holders will also receive 24-hour advance notice before we announce the next batch. (And yes, you can “drop” a breakout session in favor of a new one, in the event there is a schedule conflict.) So get your TC Early Stage: San Francisco pass today, and get the inside track on the sessions we announced today, as well as the ones to be announced in the coming weeks. TC Early Stage: San Francisco pass Possible sponsor? We have some very nifty ways to bring sponsors in on the show flow, so please contact us here! here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:02:21 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAtL2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f15%2fsophie-alcorn-rebecca-lynn-mg-siegler-and-garry-tan-are-joining-us-for-early-stage-sf%2f/RK=2/RS=DHP2Cgg6jPBQl8wxm.9WfVmPsMk- -Save over $200 with discounted student tickets to Robotics + AI 2020 January 15, 2020 If you’re a current student and you love robots — and the AI that drives them — you do not want to miss out on TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020. Our day-long deep dive into these two life-altering technologies takes place on March 3 at UC Berkeley and features the best and brightest minds, makers and influencers. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 We’ve set aside a limited number of deeply discounted tickets for students because, let’s face it, the future of robotics and AI can’t happen without cultivating the next generation. Tickets cost $50, which means you save more than $200. Reserve your student ticket now. Reserve your student ticket now Not a student? No problem, we have a savings deal for you, too. If you register now, you’ll save $150 when you book an early-bird ticket by January 31. register now More than 1,000 robotics and AI enthusiasts, experts and visionaries attended last year’s event, and we expect even more this year. Talk about a targeted audience and the perfect place for students to network for an internship, employment or even a future co-founder. What can you expect this year? For starters, we have an outstanding lineup of speaker and demos — more than 20 presentations — on tap. Let’s take a quick look at just some of the offerings you don’t want to miss: That’s just a sample — take a gander at the event agenda to help you plan your time accordingly. We’ll add even more speakers in the coming weeks, so keep checking back. take a gander at the event agenda TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place on March 3 at UC Berkeley. It’s a full day focused on exploring the future of robotics and a great opportunity for students to connect with leading technologists, founders, researchers and investors. Join us in Berkeley. Buy your student ticket today and get ready to build the future. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Buy your student ticket today Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:02:34 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAtr2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f15%2fsave-over-200-with-discounted-student-tickets-to-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=etTzdiM2NvYylmBINb3EJKHxQak- -Grab 'em quick: More tickets released for 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize January 13, 2020 You better move fast if you want to party with us and 1,000 of your closest startup entrepreneur and investor friends. We just released a fresh round of tickets to our 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize in San Francisco on February 7. Tickets are limited, and they fly off the shelf faster than you can say seed funding. Don’t get shut out — buy your tickets here. 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize buy your tickets here What can you do at the Winter Party? Plenty. Commune with the Silicon Valley community over craft beer and signature cocktails. Nosh on delectable appetizers. Converse and connect in a fun, relaxed setting. You never know who you’ll meet, but you can be sure to find influencers eager to meet and greet. Demo your startup and introduce your genius product to the Valley’s finest thinkers, makers and investors. We have a very limited number of tables available — only two demo tables left — so get cracking. FYI: The price of a demo table includes four tickets to the party. Bring your crew and maximize your networking mojo. What else goes down at the Winter Party? Lots of laughter, party games and activities — killer karaoke, anyone? — and plenty of photo ops. You might even score door prizes, like TC swag and tickets to Disrupt SF, our flagship event coming in September 2020. We’ll toss in a few surprises that night, too. Sweet! Here’s the Winter Party lowdown. buy tickets and tables here Remember, we release tickets in batches. If you don’t score a ticket this time, keep your eyes peeled for the next round. Don’t miss out! Come to the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize and hang out with your people. Enjoy the food, the drinks, the fun and the opportunity to expand your network in a relaxed setting. We’ll see you in February! 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:02:45 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAuL2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f13%2fgrab-em-quick-more-tickets-released-for-3rd-annual-winter-party-at-galvanize%2f/RK=2/RS=ZYbr8N8hdOglqgCglFLdnFWHw6I- -Mobileye takes aim at Waymo January 15, 2020 Mobileye has built a multi-billion-dollar business supplying automakers with computer vision technology that powers advanced driver assistance systems. It’s a business that last year generated nearly $1 billion in sales for the company. Today, 54 million vehicles on the road are using Mobileye’s computer vision technology. In 2018, the company made what many considered a bold and risky move when it expanded its focus beyond being a mere supplier to becoming a robotaxi operator. The upshot: Mobileye wants to compete directly with the likes of Waymo and other big players aiming to deploy commercial robotaxi services. Waymo TechCrunch sat down with Amnon Shashua, Mobileye’s president and CEO and Intel senior vice president, to find out why and how — yep, acquisitions are in the future — the company will hit its mark. Amnon Shashua, Intel Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:02:53 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAur2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f15%2fmobileye-takes-aim-at-waymo%2f/RK=2/RS=c1ndBUg8X42zQtMd7IQ5ZK0P5wg- -Instacart upgrades its pickup service with new features, adds alcohol pickup option January 14, 2020 Instacart announced today a series of new features for its Pickup service, as well as the appointment of a new general manager, Sarah Mastrorocco, to lead the Instacart Pickup product and team. The grocery pickup service has been steadily growing alongside Instacart delivery, having tripled the number of states and doubled the number of grocery partners offering a pickup option in 2019, the company says. Today, Instacart is upgrading Pickup with the addition of a new digital storefronts feature, plus better tools for managing pickups, including alerts to signal the store you’re on the way, better mapping tools and more. Instacart Pickup also expanded to include alcohol pickup across more than 20 retail partners, including Aldi, BevMo!, Publix, Save Mart, Sprouts and Wegmans, among others. Instacart In total, Instacart Pickup reaches more than 50 grocery partners, like Food Lion, Gelson’s, Publix, Price Chopper, Schnucks, Shop ‘n Save, The Fresh Market, Wegmans and more. To make pickups easier, Instacart is introducing a single digital storefront for each grocer on its platform, allowing customers to toggle between delivery and pickup options in order to see the current inventory by store and compare time windows for both delivery and pickup services. It’s also adding ways to select a pickup option that’s convenient for their route that day, as your default store may not be the most convenient for those times when you’re driving home from work or errands, and you just want to head somewhere nearby. When you’re ready to drive to the store, Instacart will now allow you to use the mapping and navigation app of your choice. And when you’re approaching the store, location-based reminders will alert store staff you’re on the way. This can speed up the hand-off time once you arrive, and is similar to the feature Target uses for its Drive Up curbside service. Another new option allows you to share order details with friends and family so they can pick up orders on your behalf. As Instacat Pickup grows, Instacart is putting a new GM in place to run the business. Mastrorocco, who joined Instacart six years ago as the first member of the Business Development team, has worked across positions including in Catalog and Account Management and, most recently, as VP of Business Development. Before Instacart, she worked with PepsiCo’s Global Operations Group and was on Frito-Lay North America’s Strategy and M&A team. In her new role, she will work with Instacart partners to oversee and scale the Pickup operation. Is Instacart’s wider rollout of Pickup an attempt to rely less on gig workers? Is Instacart’s wider rollout of Pickup an attempt to rely less on gig workers? “2020 is the year of pickup. For our retail partners, we’ve seen Instacart Pickup become a gateway to growth in a margin-thin industry. Our pickup product is also becoming a significant revenue contributor for our retail partners, growing customer basket size by an average of 15% and accounting for an average of 20% of a retailer’s total Instacart store sales,” said Nilam Ganenthiran, president of Instacart, in a statement. “Instacart’s broader business continues to grow at an incredible clip with pickup as our fastest-growing product. With the completed rollout of the new Instacart Pickup and the appointment of Sarah as our new GM, we’re laying the groundwork now to prepare for another year of triple-digit growth. By year-end, we expect to have the largest pickup retail footprint in North America and, in the coming years, to grow Instacart Pickup into a multi-billion dollar business,” he added. The focus on Instacart’s plans to grow its pickup business comes at a time when some of its delivery staff are organizing to fight back against lowered pay, including the reduction of the default tip from 10% to 5% in 2018. Now, they’re preparing a new national protest, with just one demand — to raise the default tip back to 10%. organizing to fight back 2018 preparing a new national protest On Monday, January 19, the workers will be asking customers to tweet Instacart with the #DeleteInstacart hashtag, then email the company the following day. The protest is one of many Instacart shoppers have led over the past few years, as the company has tried to balance building a sustainable business with fair pay. Instacart has also previously faced a class-action lawsuit over wages and tips, as well as a tipping controversy, where Instacart included tips in its base pay for shoppers. one of many class-action lawsuit as well as a tipping controversy Instacart Pickup is not without its rivals. In addition to Target’s Drive Up for everyday items, Instacart Pickup competes with Walmart Grocery Pickup and, in some markets, Amazon’s Whole Foods. Some chains offer their own pickup service, as well. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:03:07 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAvL2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f14%2finstacart-upgrades-its-pickup-service-with-new-features-adds-alcohol-pickup-option%2f/RK=2/RS=vO9nlmCmBBmc0cpl2U7g8MJBNG8- -Paper-rich startup employees look for 'pre-wealth' help to lock down stock options January 14, 2020 For Silicon Valley’s potential startup millionaires, compensation packages staked on future promises of wealth are where the action is. But what happens when these employees get laid off or have to leave before an exit? When Wouter Witvoet left a startup that he had joined as employee No. 4, he felt relatively prepared, having set aside $50,000 to exercise his available stock options, only to be informed by HR that he was also liable to pay taxes on said options so he was about $1.8 million short with 90 days to settle up. “I ended up losing my entire equity stake,” Witvoet tells TechCrunch. Witvoet later founded Secfi, which is just one of a handful of entities looking to establish itself in the hot “pre-wealth” management space with what it calls forward purchase agreements, enabling startup employees to exercise stock options and wait until an IPO or exit to make payments. Secfi Looking to leverage paper wealth is hardly a new trend, but more institutional investors are eyeing the non-traditional opportunity as high-growth startups get harder to access. For some of the hedge funds and private equity funds playing around in this space, these deals represent a back door into the paydays of mature IPO-bound startups, at a discount. There are a number of players with hundreds of millions at play. Section Partners has $120 million in committed capital and calls its option exercise financing a “lifeline” for employees facing option expiration. Troy Capital Group’s Quid has partnered with Oaktree Capital Management on a $200 million fund. The Bay Area ESO Fund has been providing this financing to startup employees since its founding in 2012. Section Partners Quid ESO Fund Secfi, which has raised $7 million in venture funding from investors, including Rucker Park Capital, Social Leverage and the Weekend Fund, had previously been acting as a go-between for multiple firms, but is announcing today that they’ve partnered with New York hedge fund Serengeti Asset Management, locking down a $550 million debt facility. Secfi, Taking out run-of-the-mill loans to exercise options with the assumption that a great exit inevitably awaits your startup is an awful call. These forward purchase agreements are backed by the options themselves so the recourse is limited to the options in question. If your startup succeeds, you’ll be paying the company back the principal, plus an interest rate and an equity rate, i.e. a good chunk of your upside. If your startup endures a WeWork-like fiasco, no one is coming after your car. With more late-stage startups pumping the brakes on spending and eyeing layoffs, there aren’t many great resources for affected employees looking to see what their options are worth. Many end up finding themselves going down Quora rabbit holes, browsing for information that is rarely one-size-fits-all. Educating on an individual basis has its merits, but most of these options-financing firms are also trying to get HR departments at companies to do a bit of the marketing for them through partnerships with the startups themselves. As more money gets directed from these behemoth funds toward “pre-wealth” financial services, you can expect to see more startups like Secfi popping up, hoping to offer potential startup millionaires a platform that extends beyond the pathway to options’ upside. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:03:18 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAvr2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f14%2fpaper-rich-startup-employees-look-for-pre-wealth-help-to-lock-down-future-riches%2f/RK=2/RS=2NGV5mQSsHubER6noUDOH6LfB.E- -As customer demand shifts, Bose plans to shutter 119 retail locations January 16, 2020 This stuff is never easy. Buying habits change with technology, and just about every brick and mortar operator has felt some squeeze from online purchasing. Seems even flagship brands like Bose aren’t immune from the powers of next-day shipping. The audio company confirmed with The Verge this week its plan to close shop on some 119 stores across Australia, Europe, Japan and North America in the coming months. Bose has a legacy of retail storefronts dating back to 1993, when it opened shops in the U.S. confirmed with The Verge The plan certainly made sense then, moving out of the Sharper Images of the world and planting a flag with its own brand name storefront. There’s also a lot to be said for the ability to offer in-person demos to consumers before they go dropping hundreds of dollars on a product. But apparently the model doesn’t make as much sense these days. “It’s still difficult, because the decision impacts some of our amazing store teams who make us proud every day,” the company said in a letter sent to employees. “They take care of every person who walks through our doors – whether that’s helping with a problem, giving expert advice, or just letting someone take a break and listen to great music. Over the years, they’ve set the standard for customer service. And everyone at Bose is grateful.” Bose says it will offer severance and outplacement assistant to impacted employees. It also will keep some 130 stores open in other parts of the world, including China, UAE, India, South Korea and other parts of Asia. These sorts of things tend to ebb and flow, of course. When I met with headphone startup Nura at CES, the company told me that it has opened a handful of small locations in order to showcase its own audio technology in person. Though obviously its own modest operations aren’t close to Bose’s size or scale. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:03:29 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAwL2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f16%2fas-customer-demand-shifts-bose-plans-to-shutter-119-retail-locations%2f/RK=2/RS=9TETzxX2YLJnydn8hdaN5mZRndw- -Disrupting Space: A new event from TechCrunch January 13, 2020 Every radical turn in technology history has its great entrepreneur, and for space that person is SpaceX founder Elon Musk. His unswerving conviction that “space must be affordable” led him to disrupt the old-school space launch industry with reusable Falcon 9 boosters, an achievement that has inspired hundreds of entrepreneurs and investors to take up the challenge of space. In 2018 alone, venture investments in space topped $2 billion for the first time, and 187 investors wrote checks to 90 startups, according to Bryce Space and Technology. Space represents the most extreme business and technical challenges imaginable, but SpaceX’s $30 billion valuation today is a stunning example of what space startups can achieve. Add to that the incomparable allure of space, to “boldly go where no man has gone before,” and who can look away? In that spirit, TechCrunch is pleased to announce our first TC Sessions: Space, a single-day show dedicated to this fast-emerging startup category. The show will be held at Gateway Sheraton Hotel in Los Angeles on June 25, right in the neighborhood of America’s most powerful players in space, including Boeing, Northrop, Lockheed, Raytheon, Teledyne, The Aerospace Corporation, the U.S. Air Force and, of course, SpaceX. TC Sessions: Space Darrell Etherington, Jon Shieber and Devin Coldewey have led TechCrunch’s coverage on space startups and they are already working hard on a stellar programming line-up that will feature top founders and investors, as well as key players from the industry’s top established companies, NASA, The Aerospace Corporation, the U.S. Air Force and more. They will lead a day of fireside chats and panel discussions on the big topics facing the space category at this historic moment, when technology and market developments are converging to bring about dramatic advances, from sci-fi-worthy manned space travel and colonization, to revolutions in broadband communications, earth observation data, manufacturing in space and, yes, even conduct of war in space. In addition to Main Stage programming, TC Sessions: Space will feature breakout sessions on specialized topics, as well as audience Q&A with Main Stage speakers and an exhibit area for partners as well as startups. TC Sessions: Space And to top off the show, TechCrunch will also feature a space startup pitch-off featuring five early-stage founders chosen by the editors from a large application pool. Applications open today; apply here. apply here You can grab your ticket for a front-row seat to this event for the early-bird price of $349. If you are interested in bringing a group of five or more from your company, you’ll get an automatic 20% discount. We even have discounts for the government/military, nonprofit/NGOs and students currently attending university. Grab your tickets at these reduced rates before prices increase. grab your ticket automatic 20% discount discounts for the government/military, nonprofit/NGOs and students Grab your tickets PRO TIP: Annual or multi-year subscribers to TC’s Extra Crunch premium content also get 20% off all events that TechCrunch hosts. If you are a current Extra Crunch subscriber, you can find out how to redeem your discount on this event here. Extra Crunch find out how to redeem your discount on this event here Is your company interested in partnering at TC Sessions: Space? Click here to talk with us about available opportunities. Click here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:03:42 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAwr2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f13%2fdisrupting-space-a-new-event-from-techcrunch%2f/RK=2/RS=nUquTUQ56jYvSDy6WRu_JW4mquA- -Announcing the agenda for Robotics + AI -- March 3 at UC Berkeley January 14, 2020 We’re bringing TC Sessions: Robotics + AI back to UC Berkeley on March 3, and we’re excited to announce our jam-packed agenda. For months we’ve been recruiting speakers from the ranks of the most innovative founders, top technologists and hard-charging VCs working in robotics and AI, and the speaker line-up will capture the remarkable acceleration across the field in the past year. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI New for this year, we will be hosting our very first pitch-off competition for early-stage robotics companies. There is still time to submit your application. submit your application. And one amazing fact: 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the first use of the word “robot.” What better way to mark the occasion than to grab an early-bird ticket ($150 savings) right now and right here before prices increase. right now and right here We’ve still got some key guests to announce, and will be adding some new names to the agenda in the coming days. In the meantime, check out these highlights: Agenda 10:05 AM – 10:25 AM Saving Humanity from AI with Stuart Russell (UC Berkeley) Stuart Russell UC Berkeley The UC Berkeley professor and AI authority argues in his acclaimed new book, “Human Compatible,” that AI will doom humanity unless technologists fundamentally reform how they build AI algorithms. Human Compatible 10:25 AM – 10:50 AM Investing in Robotics and AI: Lessons from the Industry’s VCs with Dror Berman (Innovation Endeavors), Kelly Chen (DCVC) and Eric Migicovsky (Y Combinator) Dror Berman Innovation Endeavors Kelly Chen DCVC Eric Migicovsky Y Combinator Leading investors will discuss the rising tide of venture capital funding in robotics and AI. The investors bring a combination of early-stage investing and corporate venture capital expertise, sharing a fondness for the wild world of robotics and AI investing. 10:50 AM – 11:10 AM Automating Amazon with Tye Brady (Amazon Robotics) Tye Brady Amazon Robotics Amazon Robotics’ chief technology officer will discuss how the company is using the latest in robotics and AI to optimize its massive logistics. He’ll also discuss the future of warehouse automation and how humans and robots share a work space. 11:10 AM – 11:30 AM Innovation Break. Coming soon 11:30 AM – 11:40 AM Live Demo from the Stanford Robotics Club 11:40 AM – 12:05 PM Building the Robots that Build with Daniel Blank (Toggle Industries), Tessa Lau (Dusty Robotics) and Noah Ready-Campbell (Built Robotics) Daniel Blank Toggle Industries Tessa Lau Dusty Robotics Noah Ready-Campbell Built Robotics Can robots help us build structures faster, smarter and cheaper? Built Robotics makes a self-driving excavator. Toggle is developing a new fabrication of rebar for reinforced concrete and Dusty builds robot-powered tools. We’ll talk with the founders of these companies to learn how and when robots will become a part of the construction crew. 1:00 PM – 1:20 PM Pitch-off Select, early-stage companies, hand-picked by TechCrunch editors, will take the stage and have five minutes to present their wares. 1:20 PM – 1:35 PM Engineering for the Red Planet with Lucy Condakchian (Maxar Technologies) Lucy Condakchian Maxar Technologies Maxar Technologies has been involved with U.S. space efforts for decades, and is about to send its sixth (!) robotic arm to Mars aboard NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. Lucy Condakchian is general manager of robotics at Maxar and will speak to the difficulty and exhilaration of designing robotics for use in the harsh environments of space and other planets. Maxar Technologies 1:35 PM – 2:00 PM Lending a Helping Robotic Hand with Vivian Chu (Diligent Robotics) and Mike Dooley (Labrador Systems) Vivian Chu Diligent Robotics Mike Dooley Labrador Systems As populations age in a number of countries, caregivers are turning to robots for assistance. We’ll discuss the role technology can play in helping care for and assist those in need. 2:00 PM – 2:25 PM Toward a Driverless Future with Anca Dragan (Waymo/UC Berkeley) and Jur van den Berg (Ike) Anca Dragan Waymo UC Berkeley Jur van den Berg Ike Autonomous driving is set to be one of the biggest categories for robotics and AI. But there are plenty of roadblocks standing in its way. Experts will discuss how we get there from here. 2:25 PM – 2:45 PM Innovation Break. Coming soon 2:45 PM – 3:10 PM Bringing Robots to Life with Max Bajracharya and James Kuffner (Toyota Research Institute Advanced Development) Max Bajracharya James Kuffner Toyota Research Institute Advanced Development This summer’s Tokyo Olympics will be a huge proving ground for Toyota’s TRI-AD. Executive James Kuffner and Max Bajracharya will join us to discuss the department’s plans for assistive robots and self-driving cars. 3:10 PM – 3:35 PM The Next Century of Robo-Exoticism with Abigail De Kosnik (UC Berkeley), David Ewing Duncan and Mark Pauline (Survival Research Labs) Abigail De Kosnik UC Berkeley David Ewing Duncan Mark Pauline Survival Research Labs) In 1920, Karl Capek coined the term “robot” in a play about mechanical workers organizing a rebellion to defeat their human overlords. One hundred years later, in the context of increasing inequality and xenophobia, the panelists will discuss cultural views of robots in the context of “Robo-Exoticism,” which exaggerates both negative and positive attributes and reinforces old fears, fantasies and stereotypes. 3:35 PM – 4:00 PM Opening the Black Box with Explainable AI with Trevor Darrell (UC Berkeley), Krishna Gade (Fiddler Labs) and Karen Myers (SRI International) Trevor Darrell UC Berkeley Krishna Gade Fiddler Labs Karen Myers SRI International Machine learning and AI models can be found in nearly every aspect of society today, but their inner workings are often as much a mystery to their creators as to those who use them. UC Berkeley’s Trevor Darrell, Krishna Gade of Fiddler Labs and Karen Myers from SRI will discuss what we’re doing about it and what still needs to be done. 4:00 PM – 4:20 PM Innovation Break. Coming soon 4:20 PM – 4:45 PM Cultivating Intelligence in Agricultural Robots with Lewis Anderson (Traptic), Sebastian Boyer (FarmWise) and Michael Norcia (Pyka) Lewis Anderson Traptic Sebastian Boyer FarmWise Michael Norcia Pyka The benefits of robotics in agriculture are undeniable, yet at the same time only getting started. Lewis Anderson (Traptic) and Sebastien Boyer (FarmWise) will compare notes on the rigors of developing industrial-grade robots that both pick crops and weed fields respectively, and Pyka’s Michael Norcia will discuss taking flight over those fields with an autonomous crop-spraying drone. 4:45 PM – 5:10 PM Fostering the Next Generation of Robotics Startups with Joshua Wilson (Freedom Robotics) and speakers to be announced Joshua Wilson Freedom Robotics Robotics and AI are the future of many or most industries, but the barrier of entry is still difficult to surmount for many startups. These companies are helping ease the first steps into the wider world of automation. 5:10 PM – 5:35 PM Robotic Surgeons (speakers to be announced) Robots have been part of the operating room for well over a decade, but we’re still only scratching the surface. Leaders from a number of robot-assisted surgery companies will discuss the changing role of robots in the hospital. Tickets are on sale now Book your $275 early-bird ticket today and save $150 before prices go up on Jan. 31. Book your $275 early-bird ticket today Student tickets are just $50 and can be purchased here. here Got a startup? Book a startup exhibitor package today and demo your company in front of 1,000+ attendees. Each table comes with four attendee tickets, so you can divide and conquer the conference. Book a startup exhibitor package today Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:04:15 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAxL2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f14%2fannouncing-the-agenda-for-robotics-ai-march-3-at-ucberkeley%2f/RK=2/RS=EFtn_ni1CGUJ2XzMTh3c3ySJf50- -Another former Kleiner partner launches a fund; this time it's Lynne Chou O'Keefe with Define... January 13, 2020 Kleiner Perkins is known for many things. Among them, increasingly, is the growing number of people who’ve logged time at the venture firm, then struck out on their own to hang their own shingles. Kleiner Perkins The latest among them: Lynne Chou O’Keefe, who joined Kleiner in 2013 as a partner in its life sciences group, where she focused on digital health and connected devices. Today, Chou O’Keefe is taking the wraps off a new firm, Define Ventures, and announcing a debut fund with $87 million in capital commitments. Define Ventures We’d first written about the fund back in October, when we spied an SEC filing for it. As we reported then, Chou O’Keefe spent six years with Abbott Vascular, a division of the healthcare giant Abbott, as a global product manager and later as a global marketing director. She also logged a couple of years with Guidant (which is part of Boston Scientific and Abbott Labs) and, before that, worked in venture with Apax Partners. written about the fund SEC filing That SEC filing listed a target of $65 million. But Chou O’Keefe, with whom we chatted on Friday, suggested that interest in the fund was even greater than imagined, thanks in part to investors she got to know through her work as a former board member of Livongo, a now publicly traded company that monitors and coaches patients with chronic diseases like diabetes. Unsurprisingly, she says founders are also excited about her new firm, suggesting they’d been looking for a firm that doesn’t just dabble in digital health but that focuses expressly on it, as does Define Ventures . Define Ventures “A lot of founders have said, ‘It’s so nice not to have to explain the space to you.’ Having true partnerships is something they’ve needed and something you can do with a sector-focused fund.” Define may be announcing its final fund close today, but the firm, which is interested in telemedicine startups and teams focused on chronic disease management, among others, has been actively investing in startups over the last year. Among its bets so far: HIMS, the direct-to-consumer digital health and wellness company focused on men; Tia, a startup that plans to open membership-only women’s health clinics across the country, after opening its first location in New York last March; Verana Health, a clinical data startup that initially focused on ophthalmology but has been expanding into other areas; Unite Us, a care coordination software maker that looks to connect social services with healthcare; and Lightship, a startup that’s working to find and connect patients with the companies that need them for their clinical trials. HIMS Tia Verana Health Unite Us Lightship Though the lone general partner, Chou O’Keefe isn’t running the fund single-handedly. Helping her is principal Chirag Shah, who was most recently a vice president with Imagine Health, a Utah-based company that builds custom teams of healthcare providers for employers with large concentrations of employees in a single geography. He has also worked as a senior manager at the publicly traded company Castlight Health and as an associate with The Carlyle Group. The two had numerous mutual connections, says Chou O’Keefe, adding that they plan to invest in between 15 and 18 startups altogether from their debut fund, writing checks that range from $750,000 on the earlier side to upwards of $6 million. Whether Define proves smart to focus more narrowly on digital health will take time to know, but certainly, there’s growing interest in virtual healthcare across the board. According to one research outfit, Grand View Research, the global digital health market size is expected to reach $500 billion by 2025, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of roughly 27% between now and then. $500 billion by 2025 In the meantime, Chou O’Keefe becomes part of a group of former Kleiner investors who are now in charge of their own destiny. Among other Kleiner alums who’ve since co-founded their own shops is Beth Seidenberg of Westlake Village Biopartners, Chi-Hua Chien of Goodwater Capital, Trae Vassallo of Defy, Mary Meeker of Bond and Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures, to name just a handful. Beth Seidenberg Goodwater Capital Trae Vassallo Mary Meeker Aileen Lee Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:04:30 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1x9lKDdeeRIAxr2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701925/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f13%2fanother-former-kleiner-partner-launches-a-fund-this-time-its-lynn-chou-okeefe-with-define-ventures%2f/RK=2/RS=xltHi67wlc.nrtK.L5y3i332WJk- -TC Sessions: Mobility 2020: Boris Sofman of Waymo and Nancy Sun of Ike January 8, 2020 You might have heard: a mobility revolution is in the making. TechCrunch is here for it — and we’re not just along for the ride. We’re here to uncover new ideas and startups, root out vaporware and dig into the tech and people spurring this change. In short, we’re helping drive the conversation around mobility. And it’s only fitting we have an event dedicated to the topic. TC Sessions: Mobility — a one-day event on May 14, 2020 in San Jose, Calif., that’s centered around the future of mobility and transportation — is back for a second year and we’re already putting together a fantastic group of the brightest engineers, investors, founders and technologists. TC Sessions: Mobility TechCrunch is excited to announce our first two guests for TC Sessions: Mobility. TC Sessions: Mobility Drum roll, please… We’re excited that Boris Sofman, engineering director at Waymo and former co-founder and CEO of Anki, will join us onstage. But wait there’s more. TechCrunch is also announcing Nancy Sun, the co-founder and chief engineer of Ike Robotics, will be a guest at TC Sessions: Mobility. Boris Sofman Waymo Here’s a bit about these bright and accomplished people. Sofman is leading the engineering for trucking at Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that is now a business under Alphabet. Sofman came to Waymo from consumer robotics company Anki, which shut down in April 2019. Nearly the entire technical team at Anki headed over to Waymo. Waymo, Anki Anki built several popular products, starting with Anki Drive in 2013 and later the popular Cozmo robot. The Bay Area startup had shipped more than 3.5 million devices with annual revenues approaching $100 million. Previously, Sofman worked on off-road autonomous vehicles and ways to leverage a machine learning approach to improve navigational capabilities in real time. Sun has also had an incredibly interesting ride in the world of automation and robotics. She is chief engineer and co-founder of Ike, the self-driving truck startup. Prior to Ike, Sun was the senior engineering manager of self-driving trucks at Uber ATG, a company she came to through the acquisition of Otto . Ike, Uber Otto Prior to Otto, Sun was engineering manager of Apple’s secretive special projects group. Apple’s Stay tuned to see who we’ll announce next. And … $250 Early-Bird tickets are now on sale — save $100 on tickets before prices go up on April 9; book today. book today Students, you can grab your tickets for just $50 here. here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:04:44 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94AeZSnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f08%2ftc-sessions-mobility-2020-boris-sofman-of-waymo-and-nancy-sun-of-ike%2f/RK=2/RS=ULCq5zvPRAI2pSGaN4B3dQArTdY- -Going fast: Buy a demo table at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020 January 8, 2020 Startup founders, set your sites on TC Sessions: Robotics+AI, which takes place on March 3, 2020. This annual day-long event draws the brightest minds and makers from these two industries — 1,500 attendees last year alone. And if you really want to make 2020 a game-changing year, grab yourself a demo table and showcase your early-stage robotics or AI startup in front of those big names and serious influencers. TC Sessions: Robotics+AI Simply purchase an Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package — the price includes four tickets to the event, so bring your crew, flex your networking mojo and take in some of the many discussions throughout the day. Get yours before they’re gone — only eight left. Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package The day’s programming covers a wide range of crucial issues focused on robotics and AI. TC editors conduct in-depth interviews and moderate panel discussions and Q&As with the industries’ leading minds, makers, technologists, researchers and investors. You’ll enjoy workshops, demos and plenty of networking opportunities. We’re talking topics that appeal to every hungry startup founder. Like a panel discussion on investing featuring Eric Migicovsky, Kelly Chen and Dror Berman — all top VCs in robotics and AI. featuring Eric Migicovsky, Kelly Chen and Dror Berman These folks have their fingers on the pulse of robotics, AI and automation. They’ll be on hand to share insights on future industry trends, talk about the most compelling startups and what they look for when it comes to funding. We’ll be sharing details and the names of plenty more speakers in the coming weeks, so keep checking back. You can always check out last year’s program to get a sense of what to expect. check out last year’s program Did you know we have a new twist to this year’s Session? It’s a pitch competition — Pitch Night. It takes place the night before, it doesn’t cost a thing and it’s open to founders of early-stage startups focused on robotics and AI. There’s only one small hoop to jump through: apply here by February 1. Pitch Night apply here by February 1 TC Sessions: Robotics+AI takes place on March 3, 2020 at UC Berkeley. Buy your Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package today, and come impress the top technologists, makers, thinkers, researchers and investors. Make 2020 your game-changing year. TC Sessions: Robotics+AI Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:04:57 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94Ae5SnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f08%2fgoing-fast-buy-a-demo-table-at-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=n.c3MIxM8MvC13Ji3I0Kiw2jino- -Samsung launches the rugged, enterprise-ready Galaxy XCover Pro January 12, 2020 We got a bit of a surprise at the end of CES: some hands-on time with Samsung’s latest rugged phone for the enterprise, the Galaxy XCover Pro. The XCover Pro, which is officially launching today, is a mid-range $499 phone for first-line workers like flight attendants, construction workers or nurses. It is meant to be very rugged but without the usual bulk that comes with that. With its IP68 rating, Military Standard 810 certification and the promise that it will survive a drop from 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) without a case, it should definitely be able to withstand quite a bit of abuse. While Samsung is aiming this phone at the enterprise market, the company tells us that it will also sell it to individual customers. As Samsung stressed during our briefing, the phone is meant for all-day use in the field, with a 4,050 mAh replaceable battery (yes, you read that right, you can replace the battery just like on phones from a few years ago). It’ll feature 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space, but you can extend that up to 512GB thanks to the built-in microSD slot. The 6.3-inch FHD+ screen won’t wow you, but it seemed perfectly adequate for most of the use cases. That screen, the company says, should work even in rain or snow and features a glove mode, too. And while this is obviously not a flagship phone, Samsung still decided to give it a dual rear-camera setup, with a standard 25MP sensor and a wide-angle 8MP sensor for those times where you might want to get the full view of a construction site, for example. On the front, there is a small cutout for a 13MP camera, too. All of this is powered by a 2GHz octa-core Exynos 9611 processor, as one would expect from a Samsung mid-range phone, as well as Android 10. Traditionally, rugged phones came with large rubber edges (or users decided to put even larger cases around them). The XCover Pro, on the other hand, feels slimmer than most regular phones with a rugged case on them. By default, the phone features NFC support for contactless payments (the phone has been approved to be part of Visa’s Tap to Phone pilot program) and two programmable buttons so that companies can customize their phones for their specific use cases. One of the first partners here is Microsoft, which lets you map a button to its recently announced walkie talkie feature in Microsoft Teams. Visa’s Tap to Phone walkie talkie feature in Microsoft Teams “Microsoft and Samsung have a deep history of bringing together the best hardware and software to help solve our customers’ challenges,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in today’s announcement. “The powerful combination of Microsoft Teams and the new Galaxy XCover Pro builds on this partnership and will provide frontline workers everywhere with the technology they need to be more collaborative, productive and secure.” Satya Nadella It has Pogo pin charging support and compatibility with third-party tools from a variety of partners for adding scanners, credit card readers and other peripherals from partners like Infinite Peripherals, KOAMTAC, Scandit and Visa. No enterprise device is complete without security features, and the XCover Pro obviously supports all of Samsung’s various Knox enterprise security tools, and access to the phone itself is controlled by both a facial recognition system and a fingerprint reader that’s built into the power button. With the Tab Active Pro, Samsung has long offered a rugged tablet for first-line workers. Not everybody needs a full-sized tablet, though, so the XCover Pro fills what Samsung clearly believes is a gap in the market that offers always-on connectivity in a smaller package and in the form of a phone that doesn’t look unlike a consumer device. I could actually imagine that there are quite a few consumers who may opt for this device. For a while, the company made phones like the Galaxy S8 Active that traded weight and size for larger batteries and ruggedness. The XCover Pro isn’t officially a replacement of this program, but it may just find its fans among former Galaxy Active users. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:05:08 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94AfZSnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f12%2fsmasung-launches-the-rugged-enterprise-ready-galaxy-xcover-pro%2f/RK=2/RS=uh2UyQyDbEHn_jXD5BGFNKApOrg- -Facebook won't ban political ads, prefers to keep screwing democracy January 9, 2020 It’s 2020 — a key election year in the U.S. — and Facebook is doubling down on its policy of letting people pay it to fuck around with democracy. Facebook Despite trenchant criticism — including from U.S. lawmakers accusing Facebook’s CEO to his face of damaging American democracy — the company is digging in, announcing as much today by reiterating its defence of continuing to accept money to run microtargeted political ads. to his face of damaging American democracy Instead of banning political ads, Facebook is trumpeting a few tweaks to the information it lets users see about political ads — claiming it’s boosting “transparency” and “controls” while leaving its users vulnerable to default settings that offer neither. Political ads running on Facebook are able to be targeted at individuals’ preferences as a result of the company’s pervasive tracking and profiling of internet users. And ethical concerns about microtargeting led the U.K.’s data protection watchdog to call in 2018 for a pause on the use of digital ad tools like Facebook by political campaigns — warning of grave risks to democracy. Facebook isn’t for pausing political microtargeting, though. Even though various elements of its data-gathering activities are also subject to privacy and consent complaints, regulatory scrutiny and legal challenge in Europe, under regional data protection legislation. Instead, the company made it clear last fall that it won’t fact-check political ads, nor block political messages that violate its speech policies — thereby giving politicians carte blanche to run hateful lies, if they so choose. last fall Facebook’s algorithms also demonstrably select for maximum eyeball engagement, making it simply the “smart choice” for the modern digitally campaigning politician to run outrageous BS on Facebook — as longtime Facebook exec Andrew Bosworth recently pointed out in an internal posting that leaked in full to the NYT. Andrew Bosworth pointed out in an internal posting that leaked in full to the NYT Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s defence of his social network’s political ads policy boils down to repeatedly claiming “it’s all free speech, man” (we paraphrase). Mark Zuckerberg’s This is an entirely nuance-free argument that comedian Sacha Baron Cohen expertly demolished last year, pointing out that: “Under this twisted logic if Facebook were around in the 1930s it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his solution to the ‘Jewish problem.’ ” Sacha Baron Cohen expertly demolished last year Facebook responded to the take-down with a denial that hate speech exists on its platform since it has a policy against it — per its typical crisis PR playbook. And it’s more of the same selectively self-serving arguments being dispensed by Facebook today. typical crisis PR playbook In a blog post attributed to its director of product management, Rob Leathern, it expends more than 1,000 words on why it’s still not banning political ads (it would be bad for advertisers wanting to reach “key audiences,” is the non-specific claim) — including making a diversionary call for regulators to set ad standards, thereby passing the buck on “democratic accountability” to lawmakers (whose electability might very well depend on how many Facebook ads they run…), while spinning cosmetic, made-for-PR tweaks to its ad settings and what’s displayed in an ad archive that most Facebook users will never have heard of as “expanded transparency” and “more control.” blog post In fact these tweaks do nothing to reform the fundamental problem of damaging defaults. The onus remains on Facebook users to do the leg work on understanding what its platform is pushing at their eyeballs and why. Even as the “extra” info now being drip-fed to the Ad Library is still highly fuzzy (“We are adding ranges for Potential Reach, which is the estimated target audience size for each political, electoral or social issue ad so you can see how many people an advertiser wanted to reach with every ad,” as Facebook writes of one tweak.) Potential Reach The new controls similarly require users to delve into complex settings menus in order to avail themselves of inherently incremental limits — such as an option that will let people opt into seeing “fewer” political and social issue ads. (Fewer is naturally relative, ergo the scale of the reduction remains entirely within Facebook’s control — so it’s more meaningless “control theatre” from the lord of dark pattern design. Why can’t people switch off political and issue ads entirely?) lord of dark pattern design Another incremental setting lets users “stop seeing ads based on an advertiser’s Custom Audience from a list.” But just imagine trying to explain WTF that means to your parents or grandparents — let alone an average internet user actually being able to track down the “control” and exercise any meaningful agency over the political junk ads they’re being exposed to on Facebook. It is, to quote Baron Cohen, “bullshit.” Nor are outsiders the only ones calling out Zuckerberg on his BS and “twisted logic”: A number of Facebook’s own employees warned in an open letter last year that allowing politicians to lie in Facebook ads essentially weaponizes the platform. Facebook’s own employees They also argued that the platform’s advanced targeting and behavioral tracking tools make it “hard for people in the electorate to participate in the public scrutiny that we’re saying comes along with political speech” — accusing the company’s leadership of making disingenuous arguments in defence of a toxic, anti-democratic policy. Nothing in what Facebook has announced today resets the anti-democratic asymmetry inherent in the platform’s relationship to its users. Facebook users — and democratic societies — remain, by default, preyed upon by self-interested political interests thanks to Facebook’s policies which are dressed up in a self-interested misappropriation of “free speech” as a cloak for its unfettered exploitation of individual attention as fuel for a propaganda-as-service business. Yet other policy positions are available. Twitter announced a total ban on political ads last year — and while the move doesn’t resolve wider disinformation issues attached to its platform, the decision to bar political ads has been widely lauded as a positive, standard-setting example. Twitter total ban on political ads doesn’t resolve wider disinformation issues Google also followed suit by announcing a ban on “demonstrably false claims” in political ads. It also put limits on the targeting terms that can be used for political advertising buys that appear in search, on display ads and on YouTube. Google announcing a ban Still, Facebook prefers to exploit “the absence of regulation,” as its blog post puts it, to not do the right thing and keep sticking two fingers up at democratic accountability — because not applying limits on behavioral advertising best serves its business interests. Screw democracy. “We have based [our policies] on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public,” Facebook writes, ignoring the fact that some of its own staff already pointed out the sketchy hypocrisy of trying to claim that complex ad targeting tools and techniques are open to public scrutiny. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:05:27 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94Af5SnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f09%2ffacebook-wont-ban-political-ads-prefers-to-keep-screwing-democracy%2f/RK=2/RS=v2vXcHIrljQ.W9dJ90cKCcgqRPg- -Adobe Experience Manager now offered as cloud-native SaaS application January 13, 2020 Adobe announced today that Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is now available as a cloud-native SaaS application. Prior to this, it was available on premises or as a managed service, but it wasn’t pure cloud-native. Adobe Obviously being available as a cloud service makes sense for customers, and offers all of the value you would get from any cloud service. Customers can now access all of the tools in AEM without having to worry about maintaining, managing or updating it, giving the marketing team more flexibility, agility and ongoing access to the latest updates. This value proposition did not escape Loni Stark, Adobe’s senior director of strategy and product marketing. “It creates a compelling offer for mid-size companies and enterprises that are increasingly transforming to adopt advanced digital tools but need more simplicity and flexibility to support their changing business models,” Stark said in a statement. AEM provides a number of capabilities, including managing the customer experience in real time. Having real-time access to data means you can deliver the products, services and experiences that make sense based on what you know about the customer in any given moment. What’s more, you can meet customers wherever they happen to be. Today, it could be the company website, mobile app or other channel. Companies need to be flexible and tailor content to the specific channel, as well as what they know about the customer. It’s interesting to note that AEM is based on the purchase of Day Software in 2010. That company originally developed a web content management product, but over time it evolved to become Adobe Experience Manager, and has been layering on functionality to meet an experience platform’s requirements since. Today, the product includes tools for content management, asset management and digital forms. purchase of Day Software The company made the announcement today at NRF 2020, a huge retail conference taking place in New York City this week. NRF 2020 Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:05:39 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94AgZSnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f13%2fadobe-experience-manager-now-offered-as-cloud-native-saas-application%2f/RK=2/RS=Cy3IH3ehjVtLz8dfEBILRqAU2ak- -Pro-privacy search engine Qwant announces more exec changes -- to 'switch focus to monetization' January 9, 2020 More changes have been announced in the senior leadership of French pro-privacy search engine Qwant. President and co-founder Eric Leandri (pictured above) will be moving from an operational to a strategic role on January 15, the company said today — while current deputy managing director for sales and marketing, Jean-Claude Ghinozzi, is being promoted to president. Eric Leandri Leandri will leave the president role on January 15, although he is not departing the business entirely but will instead shift to chair a strategic and scientific committee — where he says he will focus on technology and “strategic vision.” This committee will work with a new governance council, also being announced today, which will be chaired by Antoine Troesch, investment director of Qwant investor Banque des Territories, per the PR. At the same time, Mozilla veteran Tristan Nitot — who was only promoted to a new CEO role at Qwant in September — is returning to his prior job as VP of advocacy. Although Leandri told us that Nitot will retain the spokesman component of the CEO job, leaving Ghinozzi to focus on monetization — which he said is Qwant’s top priority now. Tristan Nitot September “[Nitot] is now executive VP in charge of communications and media,” Leandri told TechCrunch. “He has to take care of company advocacy. Because of my departure he will have now to represent Qwant in [the media]. He will be the voice of Qwant. But that position will give him not enough space and time to be the full-time CEO of the company — doing both is quite impossible. I have done that for years… but it’s very complicated.” “We will now need to focus a lot on monetization and on our core business… to create a real ad platform,” he added, by way of explaining the latest round of exec restructuring. “This needs to have somebody in charge of doing that monetization process — that execution process of the scale of Qwant.” Ghinozzi will be responsible for developing a “new phase” for the search engine so it can scale its business in Europe, Leandri also said, adding: “For my part I take on the strategy and the tech, and I’m a member of the board.” The search engine company is also announcing that it’s closing a new funding round to support infrastructure and scaling — including taking in more financing from existing backers Banque des Territories and publishing giant Axel Springer — saying it expects this to be finalized next month. Leandri would not provide details on the size of the round today, but French news website Liberation is reporting it as €10 million, citing a government source. (Per other reports in the French media, Qwant has been losing tens of millions of euros per year.) Liberation French media Qwant’s co-founder did trail some “very good announcements” he said are coming imminently on the user growth front in France, related to new civil companies switching to the search engine. But again, he declined to publicly confirm full details at this stage — saying the news would be confirmed in around a week’s time. Liberation‘s report points to this being confirmation that the French state will go ahead with making Qwant the default search engine across the administration — giving its product a boost of (likely) millions more regular users, and potentially unlocking access to more government funding. Liberation The move by the French administration aligns with a wider push for digital sovereignty in a bid to avoid being too reliant on foreign tech giants. However, in recent months, doubt had been thrown on the government’s plan to switch wholesale from Google’s search engine to the homegrown search alternative — after local media raised questions over the quality of Qwant’s search results. Google’s raised questions The government has been conducting its own technical audit of Qwant’s search engine. But, per Liberation — which says it obtained an internal government memo earlier this month — the switch will go ahead, and is slated to be completed by the end of April. Qwant has faced further uncomfortable press scrutiny on its home turf in recent months, with additional reports in French media suggesting the business has been facing a revenue crunch — after its privacy-respecting search engine generated lower than expected revenues last year. reports On this, Leandri told us Qwant’s issue boils down to a lack of ad inventory, saying it will be Ghinozzi’s job to tackle that by making sure it can monetize more of the current impressions it’s generating — such as by focusing on serving more ads against shopping-related searches, while continuing to preserve its core privacy/non-tracking promise to users. The business was focused last year on putting in place search engine infrastructure to prepare for scaling user growth in Europe, he suggested — meaning it was spending less time on monetizing user searches. “We started to refocus on the monetization in November and December,” he said. “So we have lost some months in terms of monetization… Now we have started to accelerate our monetization phase and we need now to make it even better in shopping, for example.” Leandri claims Qwant has already seen “a very good ramp up,” after turning its attention back to monetization these past two months — but says beefing up ad inventory including by signing up more ad partners and serving its own ads will now be “the focus of the company.” “For example today on 100 queries we were sometime during the year at 20 ads, just 20% of coverage,” he told us, noting that some “iPhone 11” searches done via Qwant haven’t resulted in any ads being served to users in recent times. “We need to go to 30%-40%… We need to make it better on the shopping queries, brining new customers. We need to do all these things. “Right now we have signed with Havas and Publicis in France for Europe but we need to ad more partners and start adding our own ads, our own shopping ads, our own technology for ads. That’s the new focus.” Additionally, there have also been a number of reports in French media that have alleged HR problems within Qwant. Articles — such as this one by Next Inpact — have reported at length on claims by some employees that Leandri’s management style created a toxic workplace culture in which staff were subject to verbal abuse, threats and bullying. Next Inpact Qwant disputes these reports but it’s notable that the co-founder is stepping back from an operation role at a time when both he and the business are facing questions over a wave of negative domestic press, and with investors also being asked to plough in fresh financing as a key strategy customer (the French government) is scrutinizing the product and the business. The health of workplace culture at technology companies and high-pressure startups has come in for increasing attention in recent years, as workplace expectations have shifted with the generations and digital technologies have encouraged greater openness and provided outlets for people who feel unfairly treated to make their grievances more widely known. Major scandals in the tech industry in recent years include Uber being publicly accused of having a sexist and bullying workplace culture by a former engineer — and, more recently, travel startup Away, whose CEO stepped down in December after a bombshell report in the press exposing a toxic culture. publicly accused December Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:05:57 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94Ag5SnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f09%2fpro-privacy-search-engine-qwant-announces-more-exec-changes-to-switch-focus-to-monetization%2f/RK=2/RS=ydlueF6.pEFl_4TRkMAgi.aVGkM- -Midnite raises $2.5M for its esports betting platform January 8, 2020 Midnite, the London-based esports betting startup from the same team behind daily fantasy football app Dribble, has raised just over $2.5 million in funding. The “strategic” investment is led by gaming-focused venture firm Makers Fund. Midnite Dribble Previous investors in Midnite include London VC firm Venrex Investment Management, as well as unnamed “founders and executives” from leading gaming companies, including Betfair and GVC. The new round brings the total raised by the 2016-founded company to around $4.5 million. “The esports market is seeing rapid year-on-year growth and we believe that betting represents the single biggest opportunity in this space,” Midnite co-fonder Nick Wright tells TechCrunch. “Wagering on esports is expected to exceed $12 billion by the end of 2020, making betting already one of the fastest growing verticals within esports.” However, despite the size of opportunity, Wright says that for most big sports betting sites, esports is “just another tab” in their legacy sports betting offering, but that esports fans are not simply just another type of sports fan. “They are an entirely new customer category and deserve a platform tailored to them,” he says. “This is why Midnite exists.” With that in mind, Wright pitches Midnite as an “entertainment platform” that provides an immersive experience for esports fans. He says fans get the thrill of watching, analysing and betting on their favorite teams and players as they face off in tournaments around the world. “What makes esports differ from other sports is the constant action and its highly dynamic nature,” says the Midnite co-founder. “This is conducive to a variety of live betting opportunities that you can seldom find in real sports. Users can bet on your standard match winners and losers, but they can also bet on unique selections such as next kill or next objective achieved while matches are in-play.” Noteworthy, although operating in an invite-only beta, the startup has already acquired a betting license in the U.K., which Wright points out is the biggest betting market in the world. He says this makes Midnite the only dedicated esports betting platform that accepts customers in the U.K, and that the company is focused on operating globally in jurisdictions that can legally accept customers. “[We] are acquiring additional licenses to do so,” he adds. “In the past, betting on esports has been carried out by unregulated operators, which meant that the unregulated market was several times bigger than the regulated market. Many operators offering esports betting would not be licensed, were not taking responsible gambling seriously or even performing age verification checks. This meant customers want to bet on esports were often placing themselves at risk. “We are creating a safe and responsible environment for these fans. Customer safety is our top priority and we are taking it very seriously. We are doing everything by the book to ensure our community is safeguarded and are compliant with all the regulations in markets where we are operational.” Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:06:08 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94AhZSnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f08%2fmidnite%2f/RK=2/RS=.hRs7SsMC.gUaWSiiSYXXgo_pqU- -Don't wait - First ticket release of 2020 for 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize January 7, 2020 If you haven’t scored a ticket yet to our 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize, now’s your chance. We just released another batch of tickets to the best Silicon Valley soiree. Shake off your post-holiday doldrums and join the movers and shakers of the startup community at Galvanize in San Francisco on February 7. 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Galvanize Last year, nearly 1,000 of you joined us for luscious libations, fantastic food, world-class networking and some crazy karaoke. No one does karaoke like TechCrunch does karaoke. Tickets are limited — and we’re rolling them out in batches. Grab yours now ($85 a pop, right here). If you miss out, keep checking back for the next ticket release. $85 a pop, right here What’s on tap this year? Well, craft beer for one thing, and wine for another. Plus delicious apps (just eat them — no coding required), party games and activities, plenty of photo ops and giveaways. We even have a few surprises for you. Between the food and the fun, be sure to check out a select few early-stage startups exhibiting their products. Interested in doing just that? You can buy demo tables here for $1,500 each — and the price includes four tickets to the party. Remember, we said a “select few,” so get yours before we sell out (only four tables left!). buy demo tables here Here’s the party 4-1-1. (buy tickets and tables here) You never know who you’ll meet at a TechCrunch party — potential investors, the perfect co-founder or maybe a coding wizard. But they have a history of being a place where startup magic happens. Here’s a classic “but wait, there’s more” moment. We’ll also give away some awesome door prizes, like TC swag and tickets to Disrupt SF, our flagship event coming in September 2020. Don’t miss the food, the fun, the community and the opportunity. Join us for the TechCrunch 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize in San Francisco on February 7. We can’t wait to see you! 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:06:21 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94Ah5SnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f07%2fdont-wait-first-ticket-release-of-2020-for-3rd-annual-winter-party-at-galvanize%2f/RK=2/RS=0w4QcKE55nsyHSgrt8WqafX4cf0- -Damon Motors targets Tesla owners with its 200 MPH hyper-safe e-moto January 7, 2020 Damon Motorcycles doesn’t want to become the Tesla of e-moto companies. But the startup does believe its EV two-wheeler is the first to capture the ethos of Tesla owners. Damon Motorcycles That’s the target market for Damon’s new $24,995 Hypersport, according to CEO Jay Giraud. Jay Giraud The Vancouver-based startup unveiled the e-motorcycle today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, after offering a teaser in December. Damon’s Hypersport has a 200 mph top-speed, 200 miles of highway range, 147 ft-lbs of torque, charges to 80% in 20 minutes and weighs less than 500 pounds, Giraud told TechCrunch on a call. The company’s new EV is cloud-connected, manages performance through digital riding modes and will get riders from 0-60 mph in less than 3 seconds. These specs alone would make the Hypersport impressive in an increasingly competitive e-moto market, but they’re only part of the Damon package. The seed-stage company also creates proprietary, digital safety technology engineered to overcome (what it sees as) common flaws in motorcycle design. “We’re trying to change the industry by addressing the issues of safety and handling and comfort and the problems that have persisted with everyone in the industry, including all the e-moto companies today,” Giraud told TechCrunch in December. TechCrunch in December To that end, Damon has positioned its Hypersport as an ultra-fast, smart and safe motorcycle by infusing it with unique tech features. To start, the EV is equipped with the company’s CoPilot system, which uses sensors, radar and cameras to detect and track moving objects around the motorcycle — including blind spots — and alert riders to danger. Damon has also addressed the one-size-fits-all problem in motorcycle design, integrating a system on its Hypersport for adjustable ergonomics. The startup’s debut EV allows riders to electronically shift the motorcycle’s windscreen, seat, foot-pegs and handlebars to accommodate different positions and conditions — from upright city riding to more aggressive high-speed runs. Damon is taking pre-orders for its Hypersport and will skip dealers, opting for a direct-to-consumer sales and service model. The company enters a stagnant American motorcycle market that’s becoming crowded with EV offerings. New motorcycle sales in the U.S. have dropped by roughly 50% since 2008 — with sharp declines in ownership by everyone under 40 — and have never recovered, according to Motorcycle Industry Council stats. Motorcycle Industry Council stats In a bid to revive sales and the interest of younger riders, in 2019 Harley-Davidson became the first of the big gas manufacturers to offer a street-legal e-moto for sale in the U.S. — the LiveWire — which is a forerunner to an HD product-line of electric-powered two-wheelers. the LiveWire Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire Harley’s entry followed several failed electric motorcycle startups — Alta Motors, Mission Motors and Brammo — and put it in the market with existing EV ventures, such as Zero  — which debuted its $19,000, 120 mph SR/F in 2019. Alta Motors debuted its $19,000, 120 mph SR/F High-performance Italian EV company Energica has expanded marketing and sales in the U.S., and 2020 should also see e-moto debuts by California-based Lightning Motorcycles and Fuell, a French and American-founded company with plans to release the $10,000, 150-mile range Fllow. Energica Lightning Motorcycles Fuell Hows does Damon Motorcycles scale in a contracting U.S. motorcycle market with expanding EV entrants? The company’s CEO, Jay Giraud, believes the startup’s melding of superior performance and safety features will give Damon a comparative advantage over other offerings. Jay Giraud, He also sees Damon’s Hypersport (and planned subsequent models) as the first motorcycles that can sell to an existing but largely untapped e-moto market segment: Tesla owners. “They know electric drive…they know what insane acceleration feels like…and they appreciate tech that makes the safety of the EV, on top of the unbelievable performance,” said Giraud — who co-founded Damon with fellow Canadian Dominique Kwong. Dominique Kwong Jay Giraud and Dominique Kwong Jay Giraud and Dominique Kwong But are four-wheel Tesla owners really potential motorcycle buyers? “Sure they are,” said to Giraud. “Tons and tons of Tesla owners own motorbikes and over 1,700 people who filled out an interest form on our website told us they were [Tesla] owners.” Damon is banking on what Giraud referred to as the Tesla-effect. “Within about six months of owning a Tesla…people start looking around for what else in their home and garage should be electric. And those are the customers we’re going after first,” Giraud said. So time and sales stats will tell if Damon can attract affluent four-wheel EV owners to buy $25,000, 200 mph electric motorcycles. We’ll also see if the company’s innovative design can create a Damon effect — shifting market expectations on OEMs and e-moto startups to offer both high-performance and extensive digital-safety features on motorcycles. Talking to Zero Motorcycles’ CEO and taking home the 2020 SR/F Talking to Zero Motorcycles’ CEO and taking home the 2020 SR/F Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:06:40 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94AiZSnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f07%2fdamon-motors-targets-tesla-owners-with-its-200-mph-hyper-safe-e-moto%2f/RK=2/RS=tsTMiLfjdQdpBH9p2T7jZ5g.uAY- -Getaround is latest SoftBank portfolio company to announce layoffs January 7, 2020 Silicon Valley’s top valued car rental startup, Getaround, announced layoffs today, making it the latest SoftBank-backed entity of late to pare down its workforce. Getaround The Information, which first reported the news, pegs the layoffs at 150 employees, amounting to around a quarter of the company. In the report, CEO Sam Zaid seemed to lay at least some of the blame for the layoffs on the effects of SoftBank’s recent struggles: The Information Zaid called SoftBank a “thoughtful partner,” but added that the world’s largest tech investment fund has “had their own challenges, and it’s hard to say that doesn’t have a ripple effect across their whole portfolio.” Reached for comment, a Getaround spokesperson referred us to a blog post from Zaid confirming the layoffs, with him noting that the company was “reducing field operations and the size of several global teams.” Getaround blog post Getaround has raised over $400 million, the bulk of which was in a $300 million Series D round from SoftBank in mid-2018, funding it has used to dramatically scale the size of its operations. Last year, Getaround spent $300 million to acquire European rival Drivy. SoftBank Getaround’s layoffs come as many other SoftBank-backed startups endure struggles of their own. Though none have been quite as dramatic in scale as WeWork, layoffs have also plagued dog-walking startup Wag, car subscription startup Fair, construction company Katerra and, just yesterday, reportedly, at food robotics startup Zume. reportedly SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son has been publicly urging its Vision Fund portfolio companies to focus less on breakneck revenue and user growth and more on generating cash flow. This call was echoed in Zaid’s blog post, where the CEO noted “the importance of balancing growth with efficiency.” For many of the startup’s dependent on SoftBank’s reserves, that wake up call has seemed to lead to some tough choices and some strategy changes needed to hit moving targets. Fair, the SoftBank-backed car subscription startup, lays off 40% of staff, sacks CFO Fair, the SoftBank-backed car subscription startup, lays off 40% of staff, sacks CFO Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:06:52 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JpnKDdeB94Ai5SnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701927/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f07%2fgetaround-is-latest-softbank-portfolio-company-to-announce-layoffs%2f/RK=2/RS=xFGhqYmIvXJc8MHFJAZJCC1kSkw- -Douyin, TikTok app in China, hits 400 million daily active users January 7, 2020 China’s TikTok, which has taken the world by storm, is working its magic in its home nation, too. TikTok, The Chinese version of TikTok, called Douyin, has amassed 400 million daily active users, parent company ByteDance revealed in its annual report this week (in Chinese). This is an impressive growth for the addictive video app, which had 250 million daily active users in January last year. (A ByteDance spokesperson confirmed the figures to TechCrunch.) Chinese version of TikTok annual report this week The report, which describes the user behavior and trends, illustrates the cultural difference between China and the U.S., said Katherine Wu, an investor at New York-based firm Notation Capital . Notation Capital “Things that trend in these two countries are insanely different. For example: knowledge-based content is extremely popular in China, and less so in the U.S. Also, this was wild to me: those creators that did the most dance videos in China are users born in the 60s (!!), whereas in the US, it seems that it’s mostly teenagers who are creating the dances,” she wrote. she wrote ByteDance claimed that Douyin has established itself as the largest knowledge, culture and art platform in China. (Douyin is only available in mainland China.) Indeed, 14.89 million “knowledge-based content videos” were shared on the app last year, it claimed. ByteDance Citing an example, one of the world’s most valued startups claimed that one user alone who posts videos about chemistry reached 130 million people last year. On the art and culture front, videos that revolved around those topics had 543.1 billion plays on Douyin last year, it claimed. (TechCrunch was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the claims.) Education has become a crucial use case for ByteDance. TikTok, which is estimated to have clocked more than $50 million in revenue last year, already counts educational content as one of the most consumed categories on its app across the world. The app launched an educational campaign in India last year, where it has amassed more than 200 million users. estimated to have clocked more than $50 million in revenue last year launched an educational campaign in India last year, where it has amassed more than 200 million users. “The behavioral differences also underscore one major thing to me: there really isn’t a ‘one-size-fit-all’ social app that exists. Different regions like different types of content, even though the medium itself (in this case, short-form video) is the same. Cultural factors (geography, age, local pop culture) play a huge role in how users end up using a product,” Wu added. Marketing research firm eMarketer said on Monday that Douyin’s user growth outpaces those of WeChat and Weibo . But it’s facing challenges from newer entrants such as Tencent-backed video app Kuaishou. WeChat Weibo Tencent-backed video app Kuaishou According to eMarketer, Douyin already makes up 67.9% of China’s mobile social network users and 59% of smartphone users. “These figures will grow to 68.3% and 59.6%, respectively, in 2020,” it estimated. Such user growth and penetration would be music to the ears of ByteDance, which is widely expected to list in Hong Kong this year. But its growing popularity and link to China has also caused some to worry. U.S. senators have warned that user data on TikTok could be sent to China and accessed by the Chinese government. TikTok has denied the accusation. The U.S. Navy last month told its members to not install TikTok on their devices, according to media reports. members to not install TikTok on their devices Some have also questioned the reach of the educational content on TikTok, where certain sensitive topics that are critical of the Chinese government are restricted. ByteDance has denied this accusation, too. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:07:06 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geJaZpKDde2cUAQD2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701929/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f06%2fdouyin-tiktok-app-in-china-hits-400-million-daily-active-users%2f/RK=2/RS=aOKhDDRNhUA4tRDAG39LrBLAkSM- -Perch, now called Orchard, raises $36M to simplify home buying and selling January 7, 2020 Perch, the vertically integrated platform for buying and selling homes, has today announced the close of a $36 million equity round led by Navitas, with participation from existing investor FirstMark Capital, Juxtapose and Accomplice. The company is also announcing that it is rebranding from Perch to Orchard. Perch, Orchard Orchard launched in September of 2017 with a plan to bring the full home selling and buying experience under one roof. Most home buyers are what the industry calls “dual trackers,” which means they are in the process of selling their house and buying a new one at the same time. This usually forces those buyers to either take on a huge financial risk by buying a new home before they’ve sold their last home, or to place an offer on their new home contingent on the sale of their old home, which is unattractive to most sellers. Orchard solves this by making an offer on buyers’ old houses that is guaranteed for 90 days. Orchard co-founder Court Cunningham says that more than 85% of those homes sell at a market price before the 90-day period. Cunningham believes that Orchard’s advantage comes not only in the fact that it has products to serve each part of the process — search, title and mortgage — but that it’s iterated on each of those pieces of the puzzle. For example, Orchard has improved its search functionality to allow users to choose which photo they’re searching for. Let’s say the master bathroom or the kitchen is the most important room in the home to you. Orchard lets you search by pictures of that room as you browse homes. Orchard is also working on a new machine learning-powered search system that would allow users to select five homes they love to help the search algorithm find homes similar to them. With a team of data scientists, Orchard works to price homes as “close to the pin as possible,” according to Cunningham. It’s also worth noting that Orchard compensates its realtors via salary and benefits as opposed to the usual commission framework most real estate agents live off. Cunningham believes this is what makes Orchard a more human tech real estate platform, fully aligning the interests of the real estate agent with the buyer/seller. When a home doesn’t sell before the 90-day period, Orchard buys the home a few points below market value through that guaranteed offer, and then makes small improvements to the home to help it sell. Orchard underwrites the home again and puts it back on the market in a process Cunningham describes as “much more capital efficient than you think.” This is thanks in large part to the $200 million+ debt financing Orchard secured alongside its Series A funding round, and the fact that Orchard’s data scientists can help recycle those homes (and with it, the capital) relatively quickly on the market. Cunningham says the company is only using a fraction of its debt financing. $200 million+ debt financing Orchard secured alongside its Series A funding round Orchard also offers a title business, letting buyers close the transaction via their phone from the comfort of their home. And Orchard shows no signs of slowing. The company currently has a mortgage product in beta. On the heels of this new funding round, Orchard wants to double the size of its team from 150 people to 300 by the end of 2020. Cunningham also expects to see more than 100% revenue growth over the next year. “The greatest challenge is to grow rapidly and build the tech around this that allows us to deliver in a repeatable way,” said Cunningham. “Buying a home is the biggest financial transaction of someone’s life and the human element is really important. So we need to grow quickly but in a way that is highly human and highly consistent.” Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:07:18 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geJaZpKDde2cUAQj2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701929/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f07%2fperch-now-called-orchard-raises-36m-to-simplify-home-buying-and-selling%2f/RK=2/RS=A4WoRMmJXnhwxjdbTygnbQS_pmc- -Ben Horowitz will explain how to create and sustain culture at TC Early Stage SF January 7, 2020 The hardest challenges to tackle are usually the most nebulous. Culture, for example, is hard to define, implement, cultivate and evolve… How do you structure culture within a business or organization? Are there steps to follow? Is there a manual? Interestingly enough, there is. “What You Do Is Who You Are” is the latest book from legendary investor, entrepreneur and founding partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz. We are absolutely thrilled to announce that he’ll be joining us on April 28th at our brand new TC Early Stage event in San Francisco to discuss his new book and the lessons within it. What You Do Is Who You Are brand new TC Early Stage event in San Francisco From the sleeve: To Horowitz, culture is how a company makes decisions, and he explains how to make your culture purposeful by examining four intriguing models of leadership and culture-building well outside the usual business case studies: Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture, who was the leader of the only successful slave revolt in history; the Samurai, who ruled Japan for seven hundred years and shaped modern Japanese culture; Genghis Khan, who built the world’s largest empire; and Shaka Senghor, an American ex-con who created the most formidable prison gang in the yard and ultimately transformed prison culture. Horowitz also authored The New York Times Bestseller “The Hard Thing About Hard Things,” which is one of the past decade’s most practical guides to entrepreneurialism and the challenges that come with it. The 2014 book speaks to founders in a way that business schools can’t, offering empathy and solutions to real-world, human problems that founders face. And let’s not forget the wealth of wisdom and experience that comes with helming Andreessen Horowitz since its inception in 2009. The firm has more than $10 billion under management, with portfolio companies that include Box, Facebook, Lyft, Slack, GitHub, Instagram and Skype. And those are just the exits. Horowitz himself sits on the boards of 14 portfolio companies, including Okta, Lyft, Foursquare, Genius, Medium and Databricks. Suffice it to say, there is plenty to learn from Horowitz at TC Early Stage come April 28 in San Francisco. TC Early Stage TC Early Stage is meant to give founders a place to learn directly from the experts who have come before. All day long, seasoned VCs and operators will be holding breakout sessions where they identify the biggest challenges in their fields, and tangible, actionable insights on how to take on those challenges. These experts will cover a wide range of core startup disciplines, including but not limited to growth, legal, product management, tech stack, recruiting, design and company culture. TC Early Stage Horowitz joins Cyan Banister (How to get your first yes), Asher Abramson (How to create great growth assets for paid channels), Lior Zorea (What VCs want in a term sheet and how you can get what you want), and Dalton Caldwell (How to get into Y Combinator). We’ll be announcing many, many more speakers over the coming weeks, totaling more than 50 breakouts for the entire day. joins Here’s the fine print. Each of the breakout sessions is limited to around 100 attendees. We expect a lot more attendees, of course, so signups for each session are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Buy your ticket today and you can sign up for the breakouts we are announcing today. Pass holders will also receive 24-hour advance notice before we announce the next batch. (And yes, you can “drop” a breakout session in favor of a new one, in the event there is a schedule conflict.) Buy your ticket today TC Early Stage SF 2020 goes down on April 28. You can pick up your ticket and start registering for breakout sessions right now. TC Early Stage SF 2020 pick up your ticket registering for breakout sessions right now Interested in sponsoring TC Early Stage SF? Contact us here and we’ll send you more information. Contact us here Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:07:32 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geJaZpKDde2cUARD2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701929/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f07%2fben-horowitz-will-explain-how-to-create-and-sustain-culture-at-early-stage-sf%2f/RK=2/RS=46t51s2SzcqqcQQNgOAF.cY.SI8- -Blue Origin officially opens its new HQ and R&D center January 7, 2020 Jeff Bezos -founded space technology company Blue Origin officially cut the ribbon to open its new HQ and R&D facility, located in Kent, Wash. — close by to Amazon’s own headquarters. The new facility covers 230,000 square feet and sits on a plot of land over 30 acres in size, and will eventually be the base of operations for around 1,500 Blue Origin employees. Jeff Bezos Blue Origin The new HQ is called the O’Neill Building, named after Princeton University physicist Gerard O’Neill. O’Neill is known for his work with NASA in the 1970s, conceiving potential future technology for sustained human presence in space — including the so-called O’Neill cylinders, which are large habitats designed to spin to replicate Earth’s gravity for long-term residents and for on-board agriculture. Princeton University Bezos last year discussed making O’Neill’s vision of the future a reality, detailing how the habitats might be able to house as many as a million people on each station, to help establish a new extension of humanity’s home on Earth. In total, Blue Origin employs more than 2,500 people, including at its facilities in Cape Canaveral, Fla.; Van Horn, West Texas; and Huntsville, Ala. It also plans to open a dedicated engine manufacturing facility in Alabama this March. 2020 should also see Blue Origin fly its first human passengers aboard New Shepard, its sub-orbital rocket, which is currently well along the path to human certification, and it’s looking to next year to begin operating New Glenn, its orbital launch vehicle. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:07:42 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geJaZpKDde2cUARj2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701929/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f07%2fblue-origin-officially-opens-its-new-hq-and-rd-center%2f/RK=2/RS=WpwT2HfBNnDX9iTjlvZZHARo2JM- -Audi AI:ME concept demonstrates innovative safety through lights January 6, 2020 The Audi AI:ME is a concept for future urban travel. The little car is autonomous, has a surprisingly spacious interior and it’s equipped with a host of exterior lights designed to better communicate with the outside world. No, really. There are lights everywhere. Audi The idea is to surround the vehicle with multi-purpose lights. The front and rear fenders feature an array of lights along their shoulders. You see, this concept is a self-driving vehicle, and the lights demonstrate a possible solution to help autonomous cars communicate with humans. Often, when driving, human drivers communicate through split-second glances and waves of the hand. That’s not possible when the computer is driving the vehicle. These arrays of lights could indicate greater detail about the vehicle’s intentions outside of standard blinkers. Their size and design would make them hard to miss even by someone staring at a smartphone. The fender lights are situated in a way that makes them more visible to those looking down at them — think bikers and pedestrians. Meanwhile, the traditional blinkers are designed to be viewed head-on as if from another vehicle. Sadly, Audi was unable to demonstrate this system in the demo. Does it work? I’m not sure, but it’s worth mentioning as a practical solution to a future problem. Audi The AI:ME has a spacious interior. There isn’t a small car on the market with this much space inside. The concept has an utterly hollow interior, but the production version, if it goes into production, would be equipped with airbags, sound deadening and all sorts of bits missing from this one-off demo vehicle. Once engaged in autonomous mode, the steering wheel retracts into the dash, and a large wood dash extends for use by the driver. The idea, Audi says, is to give the rider a place for their computer or book or whatever. After all, the vehicle is doing the driving, and they’re just there for the ride. Or the driver could use the VR system. The Audi AI:ME is equipped with Holoride’s impressive in-vehicle VR system that matches the vehicle’s movements with custom content on the headset. If the car turns right, the content on the VR headset veers right, too, matching the dynamics correctly. Holoride’s Holoride launched last year at CES. I was impressed in 2019 with the initial demo, and it’s impressive here again. Holoride’s VR solution is designed mainly for passengers, and this demo shows a future where, perhaps, a driver puts his full trust in a computer and spends a few hours playing VR games while sitting in traffic. There are no plans to produce the AI:ME. It’s a concept vehicle designed to showcase potential technology and design. The AI:ME is part of Audi’s four-piece concept family that also includes the luxurious Aicon, the sporty AI:RACE and the rugged AI:Trail. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:07:55 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geJaZpKDde2cUASD2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701929/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f06%2faudi-aime-concept-demonstrates-innovative-safety-through-lights%2f/RK=2/RS=qJSDb45tATtMYlstLpnmAwWzF7w- -Maxar's space robotics head Lucy Condakchian is coming to TC Sessions: Robotics+AI January 6, 2020 TC Sessions: Robotics+AI is creeping closer by the day, and the agenda is packed. Today we’re announcing that Lucy Condakchian, general manager of robotics at Maxar Technologies, will be joining us onstage to talk about the company’s work in space, and in particular NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. TC Sessions: Robotics+AI For decades, Maxar Technologies has been an important supplier for both commercial and scientific missions to space, and its work has been successful enough that this year will mark the fifth Mars mission for which it has provided a robotic arm. Maxar Technologies Condakchian and her team aren’t just working on arms, though; they’re also providing camera systems for Dragonfly, the ambitious mission to explore Saturn’s moon Titan. Maxar also builds and manages satellites, sensors and other space-based assets. Dragonfly, NASA’s Dragonfly will fly across the surface of Titan, Saturn’s ocean moon NASA’s Dragonfly will fly across the surface of Titan, Saturn’s ocean moon Building for space is a challenge few are capable of meeting, but the demand for robotics in orbit and beyond is growing, and both startups and industry stalwarts are gearing up for it. Condakchian will speak to the engineering and logistical difficulties involved — but presumably also the excitement that goes along with sending to another planet something they designed. Our early-bird sale is still on; book your $275 tickets today and save $100 before prices go up. Students, grab your tickets for just $50 here. book your $275 tickets today here Got an early-stage startup? Book a Startup Exhibitor package for $2,200 and you’ll get four (4) tickets along with a demo table to showcase your company at the conference. Book a Startup Exhibitor package Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:08:08 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geJaZpKDde2cUATj2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701929/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f06%2fmaxars-space-robotics-head-lucy-condakchian-is-coming-to-tc-sessions-roboticsai%2f/RK=2/RS=9n9n.4VqRkL9TbppwE4BZl5lCbE- -Online mortgage broker Trussle loses founding CEO January 3, 2020 Trussle, the online mortgage broker backed by the likes of Goldman Sachs, LocalGlobe, Finch Capital and Seedcamp, has lost its founding CEO. Trussle backed by the likes of Goldman Sachs Ishaan Malhi, who co-founded the fintech startup five years ago, has resigned with “immediate effect,” according to a rather brief press release issued by Trussle this morning. Ishaan Malhi, Trussle The company is now searching for Malhi’s replacement and in the interim says it will be led by Chairman Simon Williams and others in the senior leadership team. “Williams will be supported by co-founder Jonathan Galore who helped establish Trussle in 2015 and remains closely involved in the business,” reads the press release. Williams joined Trussle’s board in April 2019, and has had a long stint in financial services. He spent nine years at Citigroup, heading up its International Retail Bank, and more recently served as head of HSBC’s Wealth Management group until 2014. Meanwhile, the departure of Malhi seems rather abrupt, not least as he doesn’t appear to be involved in the recruitment of his successor. As well as resigning from the role of CEO, the Trussle co-founder has resigned from the startup’s board. Trussle itself declined to provide further detail, with a spokesperson for the company advising that any questions with regards to why Malhi has resigned should be put to him. I pinged Malhi for comment but he declined to take my call having committed to spending the day with family. However, he did give a statement to The Telegraph newspaper, telling reporter James Cook: “it was my decision to step down.” telling reporter James Cook More broadly, the story appears to be being spun as a young first-time founder growing a business to a size where more experienced leadership is needed to take it to the next stage. And it’s certainly true that the company has been staffing up in recent months, growing to 120 staff members (as of late November 2019) and bolstering the leadership team. Along with Williams, Trussle announced in November that it had recruited ex-Wallaby Financial co-founder Todd Zino as CTO, and ex-head of Zoopla content strategy Sebastian Anthony as head of Organic Growth and Product Manager. At the time of the announcement, Malhi said in a statement that “culture remains to be our competitive advantage” — a culture that has since seen its founding CEO depart abruptly before a replacement has been found. Although, as one person with inside knowledge of Malhi’s departure framed it, Trussle has been attempting to diversify the startup’s leadership team for a while now and make the company “less of a one-man show.” What’s also clear is that the online mortgage broker space is a tough one and pretty capital-intensive due to high customer acquisition costs compared to traditional brokers where cross-selling is the norm but cost of operations is greater and less scalable. The promise of the online broker model is that once scale is achieved, lower operational costs will start to offset those higher and fiercely competitive acquisition costs. In other words, a classic venture/digitisation bet, but one that is yet to pan out definitively. As another reference point, one source tells me that Trussle is projected to make a £10 million loss in 2019 based on £2 million in revenue. I also understand from sources that the startup recently closed an internal funding round from existing investors — separate from its £13.6 million Series B in May 2018, and that its backers remain bullish. As always, watch this space. Size Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:08:21 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geJaZpKDde2cUAUj2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580701929/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f03%2ftrussle-loses-founding-ceo%2f/RK=2/RS=H3Gj6OF0RcLFxGqt139QSgv_3J8- -Mammoth Biosciences aims to be Illumina for the gene editing generation January 30, 2020 In 1998, the startup company Illumina launched a revolution in the life sciences industry by developing technology to slash the costs of identifying and mapping genetic material. Illumina Now, a little over 20 years later, Mammoth Biosciences is hoping to do the same thing for gene editing tools. Mammoth Biosciences The company, co-founded by Jennifer Doudna, who did some of the pioneering work to discover the gene editing enzyme known as CRISPR, has just raised $45 million as it looks to bring to market products that can be used not only for disease detection, but are more precise editing tools for genetic material. Rather than get bogged down in the patent dispute that raged over the provenance and ownership of applications for the original CRISPR enzyme — the Cas9 discovered by Doudna and developed for clinical applications at the Broad Institute — Mammoth has joined a number of startups in identifying new enzymes with a broader array of properties. get bogged down in the patent dispute “From the very beginning of the company we’ve only worked with novel new enzymes to create these diagnostic products and the new novel diagnostic and editing,” says Trevor Martin, Mammoth Biosciences co-founder and chief executive. Chiefly, the company is touting its Cas14 enzyme, which the company says opens up new possibilities for programmable biology thanks to its small size, diverse targeting ability and high fidelity — meaning that there are no unforeseen side effects to edits made using the enzyme (something that has arisen with Cas9 applications). “There’s not one protein that’s going to be the best at everything,” says Martin. “For any particular product that you’re building, at Mammoth, we have the broadest toolbox.” The Cas14 enzyme can be used to make gene edits in-vivo, meaning in live organisms, instead of ex-vivo, or outside of an organism. The in-vivo use-case could accelerate the time it takes to conduct experiments or develop treatments. “Twenty years from now, when the umpteenth drug gets approved using Crispr and some nuclease named Cas132013, people are going to look back on this patent battle and think, ‘what a godawful waste of money,’ ” Jacob Sherkow a patent law scholar at New York Law School told Wired back in 2018. Jacob Sherkow Already, Horizon Discovery, a Cambridge, U.K.-based gene editing technology developer, is using the new tools developed by Mammoth Bioscience to create new CRISPR tools for Chinese Hamster Ovary cell line editing. Horizon Discovery That partnership is an example of how Mammoth is thinking about the commercialization of the new Cas14 enzyme line and its role in biological engineering. “You will need a full toolbox of CRISPR proteins,” says Martin. “That will allow you to interact with biology in the same way that we interact with software and computers. “From first principles, companies will programmatically modify biology to cure a disease or decrease risk for a disease. That’s going to be really kind of a turning point.” To achieve its vision, Mammoth has managed to nab top talent from the life sciences industry, including Peter Nell, a co-founder of Casebia (a joint venture between Bayer and CRISPR Therapeutics), who came on board as chief business officer, and Ted Tisch, a former executive at Synthego and Bio-Rad, who joined the company as chief operating officer. Bayer CRISPR Therapeutics), The company also nabbed $45 million of funding, including investment firms Mayfield, NFX, Verily (the Alphabet subsidiary) and Brook Byers, which was led by Decheng Capital — bringing the company to more than $70 million in funding. “There are a dozen or so products that are in clinical development with CRISPR,” says Ursheet Parikh, a partner with Mayfield. “Maybe that number would go up by five or 10 without Mammoth, but it will go up by one or two orders of magnitude with Mammoth.” To Parikh, Mammoth is the best positioned of the CRISPR development tools, because the company is building a whole platform that customers can license and use to develop products using gene editing. The thinking, according to Parikh, is as follows, “if this technology can power lots of applications, let’s basically ensure that lots of these applications can come to market and as that happens I get my app store cut.” “It’s an Illumina-like business,” Parikh says. “Just as anybody who is innovating with genomics needs an Illumina sequencer because they want to be able to do the sequencing… if someone wants to do editing… This gives them the access to do the right sequencing.” Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:14:34 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geK9eeLTde5g0AojinBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703262/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fmammoth-biosciences-aims-to-be-illumina-for-the-gene-editing-generation%2f/RK=2/RS=lO58r726JWpqs_kWk6M4kBIFacY- -SpaceX cautions on launch regulation that outpaces innovation January 30, 2020 During the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) 23rd annual Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, D.C., one panel focused on the changing regulatory environment when it comes to private launch activities, and how those are integrated into existing rules and practices for managing commercial air transportation. Panelist Caryn Schenewerk, SpaceX senior counsel and senior director of space flight policy, emphasized that while the company always does the utmost to ensure safety in everything it does, the company also wants to focus on the actual state of the industry today and how it needs to grow as various partners work to establish new rules for the growing commercial launch sector. Federal Aviation Administration’s SpaceX “When aviation started, the Wright brothers weren’t flying over major populated cities,” Schenewerk pointed out. “They were outside Paris in an unpopulated field, and they were at Kitty Hawk on unpopulated beaches. And they were in Ohio in unpopulated areas.” Schenewerk was directly addressing comments made by other panelists, and specifically ALPA Aviation Safety Chair Steve Jangelis, that suggested the emerging commercial launch industries may be looking far ahead to when they’re launching from spaceports located near populated areas, and launching with much more frequency than they are today. In general, Jangelis was advocating for laying the groundwork now for high levels of cooperation and integration between aviation traffic management and rocket launch operators. ALPA Aviation Safety Schenewerk was reluctant to concede any kind of direct equivalency between the commercial air transportation industry and the space launch sector, given their relative dissimilarity. She noted that in terms of sheer volume, there’s a massive difference, with roughly 40 to 50 launches set for 2020 compared to millions of flights for commercial air. Airlines also use essentially the same small handful of airframes from suppliers like Boeing and Airbus, while each launch company has their own, very different vehicle with different conditions for launch and flight. Overall, she suggested then that anticipating some potential future state where the industries were more similar could result in stifling progress toward that ultimate goal. Airbus, “I hope we get to that million launches at some point, but when we are at that point, it’s going to be because we worked our way up the safety trajectory in a way that allows us to operate that way,” Schenewerk said. “Today, SpaceX can’t fly from a spaceport in the middle of the country, because we won’t get through the safety approval. We literally will not be licensed by the FAA to operate from that site, because we will then be flying over large populations of people — and we aren’t at that level of reliability and safety in this industry to fly over large populations of people with these kinds of rockets. Could we get there someday? Yeah, we can get there someday when we’ve had a million flights, and a million prove-outs of our capability, when we have such repeatability that we’re in that level.” Ultimately, Schenewerk’s comments and Jangelis’ responses illustrate that there are still a lot of places where younger companies and emerging technologies like reusable rocket launches are conflicting with the views of more established industries and players operating in some shared spaces. FAA Administrator Steve Dickson also addressed the agency’s ongoing work to establish launch rules, which were released as a draft last year and which Dickson said will likely be finalized sometime this fall, once the FAA has incorporated industry comments and feedback. “Let’s think about that big vision, that big day when lots of things are happening,” Schenewerk said. “But let’s also not yell at our kid for not being able to fly an airplane when they can barely walk — and I think that’s where we are right now: We’re still figuring out how to walk and run in this industry.” Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:14:47 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geK9eeLTde5g0ApjinBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703262/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fspacex-cautions-on-launch-regulation-that-outpaces-innovation%2f/RK=2/RS=aAqN2crsmjNtE4MZcH3mdESn6yQ- -Tracking corporate venture capital's rise over the past decade January 29, 2020 Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. It’s been a busy decade in the venture capital world. Ten years ago there were fewer than 20 known unicorns in the United States. That figure has risen to more than 200 in the intervening period. Back in 2010, global venture capital was estimated by some at around $50 billion. Venture reporter and genial chap Jason D. Rowley put that figure at $295 billion, give or take, at the end of 2019. fewer than 20 known unicorns to more than 200 at around $50 billion Jason D. Rowley put that figure at $295 billion, Hidden in those metrics is not just investment from the venture capital firms most famous in our common mind — Sequoia from the old guard, Andreessen Horowitz from the new. Also included are the efforts of corporate venture capital players. Not as stodgy as they were once considered, corporate venture capital shops (CVCs) have grown in popularity as investment vehicles for cash-rich corporations hoping to avoid being killed off by more vibrant upstarts. The results of that popularity have helped boost rising venture totals. I’ve spent the last day or so picking through a report1 from industry group Global Corporate Venturing that charts how quickly the CVC world grew in the past decade through the end of 2019. Ahead: how fast CVC has grown, how much capital they are putting to work and what their targets are for investing returns. Understanding how the corporate VC landscape has changed will help us understand how venture itself has changed and how startups should plan their next raise. Global Corporate Venturing CVC growth Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:14:56 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geK9eeLTde5g0AqjinBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703262/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2ftracking-corporate-venture-capitals-rise-over-the-past-decade%2f/RK=2/RS=DF6hihPbuyJp0gSg0Ri_HekNmtg- -Startups Weekly: Tech layoffs spread (a bit) January 25, 2020 Are January layoffs just a few post-WeWork jitters? Are January layoffs just a few post-WeWork jitters? TechCrunch has found itself writing about layoffs at a few notable tech companies this week — and not just SoftBank-backed ones. The focus is very much profits, as Alex Wilhelm summed up on Thursday, especially after the failed WeWork IPO and subsequent valuation and headcount decimation. We’ll soon be digging into the topic more, but there does seem to be a certain consumery thread here. And perhaps some fears of negative macro trends bubbling up? 23andMe cut 16%, or 100 people, citing slowing sales for DNA tests. Quora reduced an undisclosed number to focus on revenue. reduced Plenty of tech investors have criticized SoftBank’s approach to writing large checks for large valuations, but they can’t avoid the same fears these days. So does Mozilla, which had to cut 70 people this month after struggling to build revenue products. It still all seems sort of normal, given the very high valuations and recent reconsiderations, at least so far. Layoffs may very well continue this year in a way that is necessary and even healthy in the long run. More on TechCrunch, from Alex: 23andMe  and Mozilla are not alone, however. Playful Studios cut staff just this week, 2019 itself saw more than 300% more tech layoffs than in the preceding year and TechCrunch has covered a litany of layoffs at Vision Fund-backed companies over the past few months, including: 23andMe cut staff just this week more than 300% more tech layoffs than in the preceding year Staff cuts at Zume Personnel reductions at Rappi Cuts at Getaround Layoffs at Oyo Scooter unicorns Lime and Bird have also reduced staff this year. The for-profit drive is firing on all cylinders in the wake of the failed WeWork IPO attempt. WeWork was an outlier in terms of how bad its financial results were, but the fear it introduced to the market appears pretty damn mainstream by this point. (Forsake hope, alle ye whoe require a Series H.) have also reduced staff this year failed WeWork IPO attempt Image: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch Image: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch 2019 venture data had soft spots, maybe 2019 venture data had soft spots, maybe Fresh data sets are in on last year from Crunchbase, as well as PitchBook and the NVCA. Alex identified a few key takeaways: slightly lower early-stage fundings, a big global year overall and some of the above WeWork-attributed drops already surfacing in the Q4 data over on TechCrunch. I have to wonder what we really know right now, though. These are the best publicly accessible funding databases out there, but many companies have stopped filing Form Ds with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in recent years, as Danny Crichton has been covering in this ongoing series. That was a main data source, especially about early-stage stealth companies. this ongoing series The Crunchbase report goes over the global trend for the year, and that’s another confounding factor, actually — how trackable are startup funding dollars across borders these days? And how do you account for remote teams in that mix? And how do you account for crypto…? If you are building a company now at any stage, the financial signs out now are not, in my humble opinion, ones to have any fear over. Especially relative to the other problems that are almost certainly in front of you. There is a lot of money in VC now regardless of anything else, as the PitchBook-NVCA report notes, and there will be for a long time. How to handle a recession How to handle a recession As if on cue, we had a couple guest columnists provide articles about capital efficiency and recession-proofing your company. Shin Kim has a two-parter on TechCrunch and Extra Crunch, where he breaks down why most tech IPOs are not WeWork (in a good way) and how to pace your own fundraising regardless of anything else going on. why most tech IPOs are not WeWork how to pace your own fundraising Schwark Satyavolu, meanwhile, digs into the best practices for startups in the next recession (Extra Crunch membership required), starting with this brutal real-life intro: I founded my first startup, Yodlee, in a strong economy with almost 20 competitors. Ten years and a painful recession later, we were the only game in town. Critical to our success was acquiring our largest competitor, something we never could have done in a strong economy because they never would have been willing to sell. The recession made it untenable for them to fundraise, enabling us not only to buy them, but to do so without cash in an all-equity deal. Yodlee, A proclamation about board diversity A proclamation about board diversity Board representation is a hot topic for companies of all sizes, and none other than Goldman Sachs said this week that it would only take companies public that had at least one underrepresented board member. CEO David Solomon said that companies that had gone public in the last four years with at least one female board member did significantly better than those without, but Megan Dickey notes for Extra Crunch that’s not quite all the way towards the goal: But the lack of people of color on boards is perhaps a more urgent issue. Late last year, a Crunchbase study found that 60% of the most funded VC-backed startups don’t have a single woman on their board of directors. But there are even fewer black people, let alone black women, on boards. A 2018 Deloitte study found that of the Fortune 100 companies, white men held 61.4% of board seats, white women held 19.1%, men of color had 13.7% of board seats and women of color had just 5.8% of board seats. a Crunchbase study found 2018 Deloitte study Connie Loizos, meanwhile, writes for TechCrunch that boards themselves are not all of the way toward the goal: writes for TechCrunch Let’s be real here. Directors of public companies typically meet just four times a year to review quarterly results. It’s important and necessary, sure. But beyond ensuring that strategic objectives are being met and hopefully making useful introductions to the company, these roles are assigned more importance by industry watchers than they should. (They often pay ludicrous amounts given the work involved, too.) ludicrous amounts Even pledging that Goldman is only going to take public companies that give back — say 1% of future profits to the NAACP, as one idea — would instantly put the bank in pole position for those founders and investors who truly want to be progressive. Goldman might miss out on a lot of business in the immediate term, we realize, but we’re guessing it’s a gamble that would pay off over time. Around the horn Lame LPs, founder referenceability and the future of VC signaling (TC) Lame LPs, founder referenceability and the future of VC signaling Why is everyone making OKR software? (EC) Why is everyone making OKR software? Should tech giants slam the encryption door on the government? (TC) Should tech giants slam the encryption door on the government? Where top VCs are investing in adtech and martech (EC) Where top VCs are investing in adtech and martech US mobile app subscription revenue jumped 21% in 2019 to $4.6B across the top 100 apps (TC) US mobile app subscription revenue jumped 21% in 2019 to $4.6B across the top 100 apps Relativity Space could change the economics of private space launches (EC) Relativity Space could change the economics of private space launches Can a time machine offer us the meaning of life? (TC) Can a time machine offer us the meaning of life? #EquityPod Alex and Danny are back on Equity this week; here’s a menu before you listen to the episode here (and if you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do that here): here here Why Front’s latest investment (a $59 million Series C) is a pretty big deal. Not because of how much money it has raised — the firm has raised more in a single, preceding round — but because of who put the capital to work. Front’s latest investment On the venture capital front, Danny and Alex also chewed over signaling risk in venture, and why bigger funds are writing earlier and earlier checks. over signaling risk in venture Also on the docket was the latest from Lambda School, which our former co-host and friend Kate Clark wrote. The gist is that regardless of how you feel about the company, your views are probably a bit too negative, or a bit too positive. (More on the company’s ilk from Extra Crunch here, and here.) the latest from Lambda School here here And three media deals, including The Athletic’s latest investment ($50 million), who might buy the company behind the hit podcast “Serial” and why Spotify might buy The Ringer. Which is about sports, it turns out. The Athletic’s latest investment might buy the company why Spotify might buy The Ringer Want Startups Weekly in your inbox each week? You can sign up for this and TechCrunch’s other newsletters here. here Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:15:23 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ymgLTdeOxAA9hOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703264/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f25%2fstartups-weekly-tech-layoffs-spread-a-bit%2f/RK=2/RS=4SocJiHFbLJV1fg8ld71m4.NPiE- -Goldman Sachs's CEO just called WeWork's pulled IPO -- which Goldman was underwriting -- proof that... January 22, 2020 It’s hard to put a positive spin on a terrible situation, but that didn’t stop Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon earlier today. Asked during a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos about WeWork’s yanked IPO in September, Solomon suggested it was proof that the listing process works, despite that the CFO of Goldman — one of the offering’s underwriters — disclosed last fall that the pulled deal cost the bank a whopping $80 million. Goldman Sachs $80 million Reuters was on the scene, reporting that Solomon acknowledged the process was “not as pretty as everybody would like it to be,” while also eschewing any responsibility, telling those gathered that the “banks were not valuing [WeWork]. Banks give you a model. You say to the company, ‘Well, if you can prove to us that the model actually does what it does, then it’s possible that the company is worth this in the public markets,'” Solomon said. was on the scene Investment banks had reportedly courted WeWork’s business by discussing a variety of figures that led co-founder Adam Neumann to overestimate how it might be received by public market shareholders. According to The New York Times, in 2018, JPMorgan was telling Neumann that it could find buyers to value the company at more than $60 billion; while Goldman Sachs said $90 billion was a possibility, and Morgan Stanley — which has been assigned as lead underwriter of many of the buzziest tech offerings over the last decade — reportedly posited that even more than $100 billion was possible. (By last year, in a pitch for the IPO, it lowered its target to between $18 billion and $52 billion, per the Financial Times.) According to The New York Times per the Financial Times Ultimately, the IPO was canceled several weeks after Neumann was asked to resign and WeWork’s biggest investor, SoftBank — which itself nearly tripled the company’s private market valuation across funding rounds — stepped in to rescue its (at least) $18.5 billion investment in the company. SoftBank itself nearly tripled the company’s private market valuation $18.5 billion Solomon isn’t the only one defending some of the often co-founding logic of IPO pricing. This editor sat down in November with Morgan Stanley’s head tech banker Michael Grimes, who has been called “Wall Street’s Silicon Valley whisperer” for landing a seemingly endless string of coveted deals for the bank. sat down in November Because Morgan Stanley pulled out of the process of underwriting WeWork’s IPO (reportedly after WeWork rejected its pitch to be the company’s lead underwriter), we talked with Grimes instead about Uber, whose offering last year Morgan Stanley did lead. We asked how Uber could have been reportedly told by investment bankers that its valuation might be as high as $120 billion in an IPO when, as we now know, public market shareholders deemed it worth far less. (Its current market cap is roughly half that amount, at $64 billion.) Morgan Stanley pulled out of the process Uber high as $120 billion in an IPO Grimes said matter-of-factly that price estimates can routinely be all over the place, explaining that “if you look at how companies are valued, at any given point of time right now, public companies with growth prospects and margins that are not yet at their mature margin, I think you’ll find on average price targets by either analysts who work at banks or buy-side investors that can be 100%, 200% and 300% different from low to high.” He called that a “typical spread.” The reason, he said, had to do with each bank’s or analyst’s guess at “penetration.” “Let’s say, what, 100 million people or so [worldwide] have been monthly active users of Uber,” said Grimes during our sit-down. “What percentage of the population is that? Less than 1% or something. Is that 1% going to be  2%, 3%, 6%, 10%, 20%? Half a percent, because people stop using it and turn instead to some flying [taxi]? “So if you take all those variable, possible outcomes, you get huge variability in outcome. So it’s easy to say that everything should trade the same every day, but [look at what happened with Google]. You have some people saying maybe that is an outcome that can happen here for companies, or maybe it won’t. Maybe they’ll [hit their] saturation [point] or face new competitors.” Grimes then turned the tables on reporters and others in the industry who wonder how banks could get the numbers so wrong, with Uber but also with a lot of other companies. “It’s really easy to be a pundit and say, ‘It should be higher’ or ‘It should be lower,’ ” Grimes said. “But investors are making decisions about that every day.” Besides, he added, “We think our job is to be realistically optimistic” about where things will land. “If tech stops changing everything and software stops eating the world, there probably would be less of an optimistic bias.” Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:15:38 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ymgLTdeOxAA.BOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703264/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f21%2fgoldman-sachss-ceo-just-called-weworks-pulled-ipo-which-goldman-was-underwriting-proof-that-the-market-works%2f/RK=2/RS=CO79B6nUEgwcTcQH2sbrKfQRpek- -Lighter Capital secures $100M to grow its equity-free financing business January 23, 2020 Lighter Capital announced today that it has secured access to $100 million to lend to growing startups. The firm is best-known for its work with revenue-based financing, in which expanding companies repay borrowed funds out of future receipts. Lighter has also expanded into other, equity-free capital options for startups in the last year. Lighter Capital Lighter is most easily understood as part of the group of firms that provide what TechCrunch has described as “alt-VC,” forms of capital access that do not fit into the traditional venture capital model of selling shares (equity) for cash. With the VC method, venture capitalists raise funds from wealthy capital pools, disbursing the funds in pieces to various private companies for an ownership stake. Those growth-focused firms then try to scale rapidly. Those that succeed become valuable, rendering the venture investment lucrative, and, hopefully, the venture capital fund profitable. TechCrunch has described as “alt-VC,” In alt-VC, various forms of debt are put to work, tailored to companies that are growth-oriented, often existing outside of the realm of what traditional banks would consider lending-ready. Startups that are working in software-as-a-service (SaaS) or e-commerce are often considered ideal candidates for alt-VC in its various forms, as returns that can be generated with marginally deployed capital are calculable with reasonable certainty in those fields. Got all that? Let’s turn to what Lighter Capital is up to. Lighter Capital Working capital Lighter’s new $100 million access to capital (we’ll call it a fund, for lack of a better term) will allow it to accelerate its business, the firm’s CEO Thor Culverhouse told TechCrunch. Lighter has a number of “ideas about how we’re going to grow [its] business,” Culverhouse said in a phone call, and having more “access to capital is a very important element to that growth strategy.” Thor Culverhouse How some founders are raising capital outside of the VC world How some founders are raising capital outside of the VC world According to a release, Lighter has “invested” over $200 million in more than 350 companies to date; however, even though Lighter’s loans return capital and could allow for the recycling of funds, the $100 million in new funds represents a step up in capacity for the company. (Lighter is working with HCG for its capital access.) The new funds will be disbursed in more ways than one. In June of 2019, Lighter added two more traditional forms of debt to its list of offerings: term loans and lines of credit. Culverhouse discussed the additional products with TechCrunch, connecting term loans to revenue-based financing options: We did two things. When you think about the [revenue-based financing] function we have today, it is a term loan, it’s just that the repayment is based on whatever your monthly recurring revenue is. What we noticed is some people liked that flexibility. We [also] noticed some of our customers said, actually, I’d rather have a very predictable payment stream. And so we came out with another term loan that is like any other term loan, it’s just as a predictable payment stream throughout the year. So they’re very, very much alike. And then we came out with a line of credit, which is more traditionally used for working capital. So it’s a 12-month revolver, if you will. Here Lighter Capital describes a link between revenue-based financing and regular loans that is worth chewing on. Revenue-based financing is merely a loan, tuned modestly for the SaaS world. That’s it. It allows for recurring-revenue focused companies to vary their payments over time, but both a term loan to a growth-oriented startup and a revenue-based financing event are pretty similar at their core. Which, naturally, makes Lighter’s move into more traditional loans pretty reasonable. With $100 million to put to work, Lighter is going to move some cash. That, in conjunction with the growing set of firms offering similar services, should help a lot of folks fund their companies’ growth without selling shares. Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:15:51 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ymgLTdeOxAA.hOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703264/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f23%2flighter-capital-secures-100m-to-grow-its-equity-free-financing-business%2f/RK=2/RS=K_XB33izlrE5nJMz8D4xKYgV8kc- -Disney’s 'Myth: A Frozen Tale' should be a case study for anyone filmmaking in VR January 21, 2020 This week, on my way to check out a little ride debuting at Disneyland in California, I stopped by Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank to check out “Myth: A Frozen Tale.” “Myth” is a new VR experience created by a team working at the studio that debuted with the movie but has not yet launched for the public. Walt Disney Animation Studios It uses “Frozen 2” as a jumping off point, but is not a continuation of the story. Instead, it builds off the story of the movie and uses the tech to put the viewer into the world to experience the “spirits” of the film up close. It’s incredibly effective, and an example of what can be done with VR when you have both expansive resources and full intellectual buy-in from an animation master-foundry like WDAS. I tried out “Myth” in the same building where “Frozen 2” was made. The building itself is a living pipeline, with story development on the top floor and departments working on animation and effects filling out the building in a cascade. The VR studio just off the main gathering space is right in the center of this activity, and the team says they used as much of the animation pipeline that was making “Frozen 2” as was possible or effective. For the groundbreaking new VR short, “Myth: A Frozen Tale,” Walt Disney Animation Studios artists, technologists and engineers used stylized art direction to deliver a unique virtual and visceral experience. © 2019 Disney. All Rights Reserved. For the groundbreaking new VR short, “Myth: A Frozen Tale,” Walt Disney Animation Studios artists, technologists and engineers used stylized art direction to deliver a unique virtual and visceral experience. © 2019 Disney. All Rights Reserved. Despite the “Frozen 2” connection, “Myth” is not just a marketing stunt for the film, it’s a real animation title from a team that has already produced the lovely and touching “Cycles” VR short — a team backed by the most effective animation studio on the planet and with access and integration to that apparatus. “Myth” is an introduction to and encounter with the elemental spirits that play a large role in “Frozen 2.” We’re brought into the world through a family gathering around the fire for story time and thrust quickly into another era, where we see the spirits alive and active. The project is presented as a sort of inverse theater in the round, with little movement required on the part of the audience. There are no interactive elements, but viewers will likely react to the scenes anyway, as they’re quite effective. The spirits of fire, earth, air and water make an appearance, and the sense of presence that is such a big part of VR’s innate appeal is put to real work here — especially when it comes to earth and water. Artist Brittney Lee served as the production designer for “Myth” and was the impetus behind its 2D-in-3D aesthetic. If you’re familiar with Lee’s design work, then you know the general look and feel of the fantasy landscape. But the surprise is exactly how well they nailed translating a sort of 2D multi-media look into three-dimensional space. If living illustrations in the vein of Mary Blair excites you, “Myth” is going to blow your shit. The effectiveness of “Myth” has a lot to do with the set of affordances the team has built in. Audio, as always in VR, is an effective tool to guide the viewer’s attention around the space and through an unfolding narrative. But “Myth” uses a few additional tricks that I think would be wise for other creators to study. As you watch, the focus gently and naturally moves around you in a circle (never quite making you turn a full circumference, which is important to avoid distraction for wired setups). There is also, quite deliberately, no aggressive changes in attention that would require a viewer to do a 180-degree turn. Even the surprising and impactful moments are carefully telegraphed to avoid VR whiplash. “We talked about how much interactivity we wanted against how cinematic we needed it to be,” says producer Nicholas Russel. “And, we make cinema, we make films and we wanted to make sure it felt like that.” As that focus changes, the scene gradually desaturates in areas that are not currently in play, and eventually will dim and darken. A sort of organic-feeling “hot or cold” game that it plays with your eyes. This leads to the viewer getting the point pretty quickly that the action is taking place over there not over here. And the potency of the short also has a lot to do with the music-driven narrative. Composer Joe Trapanese roughed out the score early for the project and was able to come to the studio as well, which meant that, very unlike most Disney features, the team was able to animate to the music itself. Director Jeff Gipson says that this leads a lot of people to make a comparison to “Fantasia” or “Peter and the Wolf,” which I definitely think is valid. I mentioned before that the team was able to use the animation pipeline of “Frozen 2” to help them realize the spirit characters. One of the most visceral of these is the Nokk, the water horse that features heavily in the film. As a part of my visit I got to talk to Svetla Radivoeva, animation supervisor and Marc Bryant, effects lead on the Nokk for “Frozen 2.” They worked for seven months along with 15 members of the Technical Animation (Tech Anim) team to make the Nokk happen. There were eight technical artists working full time on the water Nokk and seven on the ice Nokk alone. For the groundbreaking new VR short, “Myth: A Frozen Tale,” Walt Disney Animation Studios artists, technologists and engineers used stylized art direction to deliver a unique virtual and visceral experience. In this visual development piece, Disney Animation artist Brittney Lee creates a stylized look for the fire salamander character. © 2019 Disney. All Rights Reserved. For the groundbreaking new VR short, “Myth: A Frozen Tale,” Walt Disney Animation Studios artists, technologists and engineers used stylized art direction to deliver a unique virtual and visceral experience. In this visual development piece, Disney Animation artist Brittney Lee creates a stylized look for the fire salamander character. © 2019 Disney. All Rights Reserved. Bryant says that robust communication, being in the same building together and continuous sharing of tools and strong simulation rigs allowed them to pull off such a complex character. That intensely developed character was then brought into the world of “Myth,” adapting its design to one of living and moving illustration using Epic’s Unreal engine. Though the strength and beauty of the horse is one of the more technically impressive and emotive moments in the movie, actually being in its presence wasn’t something a “Frozen” fan could expect to happen. “Myth” does that, and it’s a testament to the interlinked way that the animation and VR teams worked on this project that it actually plays. It’s damn good, and so was Gipson’s previous title “Cycles.” Disney is doing some great filmmaking work that just happens to be in VR. “What does it mean to have Disney animation in VR versus we have to make it for this reason or this purpose,” Gipson says, “instead, it’s how do we continue to innovate [in filmmaking].” “It wasn’t a marketing study,” notes VR Technology Supervisor Jose Luis Gomez Diaz, “because we’d say ‘oh, let’s use Olaf,’ who everybody loves. We could have done something with those characters, but this is more the story that Jeff wanted to tell and it’s a good companion to the movie.” The short is designed, they say, to transmit that feeling of what it’s like to be Elsa in front of the Nokk. And it works. You feel that intense sense of presence. After “Cycles” and “A Kite’s Tale,” “Myth” is a strong new entry into Disney’s canon of VR productions, and it’s a clear bright spot in the landscape of virtual filmmaking. Cycles will debut on Disney+ on January 24th after premiering in the U.S. at NYFF 2018, but the VR version isn’t out there yet. It’s a real emotional gut punch of a short and I hope it hits in VR soon. The eventual viewers of “Myth” will not have to intellectually appreciate the energy and cleverness with which this project was tackled, but they will feel it emotionally. It’s quite simply one of the best VR presentations like this I’ve ever seen executed and it should be studied by anyone trying to execute a non-interactive cinematic story in VR. “Myth: A Frozen Tale” is showing in VR at Sundance next week, but Disney says is still exploring different ways to bring it to audiences. Sundance Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:16:07 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ymgLTdeOxAA_BOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703264/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f21%2fdisneys-myth-a-frozen-tale-should-be-a-case-study-for-anyone-filmmaking-in-vr%2f/RK=2/RS=7rM0IvounzXq8tQ0mdeu_r4naso- -Bear Robotics, a company making robot waiters, just raised a $32 million round led by SoftBank January 22, 2020 Back in August, we flagged a filing for you that we found interesting, one for a now 2.5-year-old, 40-person Redwood City, Calif.,-based startup called Bear Robotics that’s been developing robots to deliver food to restaurant customers. The filing listed a $35.8 million target; Bear Robotics founder and CEO John Ha now tells us the final close, being announced today, was $32 million in Series A funding. flagged a filing Bear Robotics The round was led by SoftBank Group, whose other recent robotics bets include the currently beleaguered food truck company Zume and, as we reported yesterday, Berkshire Grey, a seven-year-old, Lexington, Mass.-based company that makes pick, pack and sorting robots for fulfillment centers and that just raised a whopping $263 million in Series B funding led by SoftBank. SoftBank Group, currently beleaguered Berkshire Grey Because we know you’re interested in much more than Bear Robotics’ funding picture, we asked Ha — a former Intel research scientist turned technical lead at Google who in recent years opened and closed his own restaurant — to share more about the company and its robot servers. TC: You were an engineer at Google. Why then start your own restaurant? JH: It’s not like I had a dream of having a restaurant; it was more of an investment. It sounded fun, but it didn’t turn out to be fun. What I was really shocked by was how much hard work is involved and how low [employees’] income is. I felt [as I was forced to close it] that this was going to be my life’s work — to transform the restaurant industry with the skills I have. I wanted to remove the hard work and the repetitive tasks so that humans can focus on the truly human side, the hospitality. At restaurants, you’re selling food and service, but most of your time is spent dealing with hiring people and people not showing up, and I suspect our product will change [the equation]. TC: How did you come up with the first idea or iteration of the robot you’ve created, that you’re calling Penny? JH: First, me and my restaurant staff constantly discussed, ‘If we have this robot, what would it look like and what capacity and features would it need?’ I knew it couldn’t be too big; robots have to be able to move well in narrow spaces. We also focused on the right capacity. And we didn’t want to make a robotic restaurant. I wanted to build a robot that no one really cares about; it’s just in the background, sort of like R2-D2 to Luke Skywalker. It’s a sidekick — a bland robot with a weak personality to get things done for your master. TC Let’s talk parts. How are these things built? JH: It’s self-driving tech that’s been adopted for indoor space, so it can safely navigate from Point A to Point B. A server puts the food on Penny, and it finds a way to get to the table. It has a two-wheel differential drive, plus casters. It’s pretty safe. A lot of similar-looking robots have blind spots, but ours doesn’t. It can detect baby hands on the floor — even something as thin as a wallet that’s fallen from someone’s table. We’re not using robot arms because it’s very difficult to make it 100% safe when you have arms in a crowded space. The material — it’s going to be plastic — is safe and easy to clean and able to work with the sanitizers and detergents used in restaurants. We’ve also had to make sure the wheels won’t accumulate food waste, because that would cause issues with the health department. TC: So this isn’t out in the world yet. JH: We haven’t entered the mass-manufacturing phase yet. TC: Where will these be built, and how will you charge for them? JH: They’ll be made somewhere in Asia — maybe China or some other country. And we haven’t figured out pricing yet but restaurants will be leasing these, not buying them, and there will be a monthly subscription fee that they are paying for a white-glove service, so they don’t have to worry about maintenance or support. TC: How customizable are these Penny robots going to be? Are there different tiers of service? JH: Penny can be configured into several modes. The default is [for it to hold] three trays, so it can carry food to a table or a server can use it for busing help. TC: Will it address the customers? JH: Penny can speak and play sound, but it’s not conversational yet. It can say, ‘Please take your food,’ or play music while it’s moving. That’s where customers may want to personalize the robot for their own purposes. TC: Ultimately, the idea is for this to be sold where — just restaurants? JH: Wherever food is served, so it’s being tested right now in some restaurants, casinos, some homes. [I’m sure we’ll add] nursing homes, too. Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:16:21 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6ymgLTdeOxAA_hOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703264/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f22%2fbear-robotics-a-company-making-robot-waiters-just-raised-a-32-million-round-led-by-softbank%2f/RK=2/RS=hJnQ7H9NshV5b_BwgLJo2HE.w2U- -Goldman Sachs says it won't take startups public without at least one 'diverse' director; it should... January 23, 2020 Some of the biggest banks in the United States are among the most powerful institutions in the world. But like every incumbent, they still have to hustle to stay relevant. Morgan Stanley has increasingly gotten behind investors who say they want to see more direct listings, for example. Some of those investors wield a lot of influence after all, and if you can’t beat them (and you want to stay ahead of the competition), you’d better join them. gotten behind investors Now Goldman Sachs has made an announcement of its own that’s very much a part of the times: its CEO, David Solomon, today told CNBC that beginning this year, Goldman will no longer take companies public if they don’t have at least one “diverse” member on its board of directors. Goldman Sachs told CNBC “Starting on July 1st in the U.S. and Europe, we’re not going to take a company public unless there’s at least one diverse board candidate, with a focus on women,” Solomon said specifically on the network’s “Squawk Box.” Some will, perhaps rightly, see the announcement as little more than marketing. After all, it’s already widely viewed as unacceptable for a company to go public without at least one female board member and preferably far more “diversity” than that. WeWork, for example, tried to go public last year with an all-male board, only to realize soon after that if it wanted to pursue an initial public offering, it had better mix it up a bit. (Of course, by the time it amended its S-1 to name Harvard professor Frances Frei as its first female board member, its offering was already starting to implode.) amended its S-1 Adding one’s first female board member ahead of an IPO is such a cliche at this point that the more interesting question is how close to the filing a related announcement will be made. Airbnb, founded in 2008, brought aboard its first female board member in 2018, so let’s call it two years ahead of its presumed 2020 IPO. A decade is a long time to go without any diversity on a board, but it’s also not atypical. Slack’s first female board member, Sarah Friar, joined the company in March 2017, roughly two years before the company — eight years old at the time — staged its direct listing last year. Similarly, Peloton, the fitness company, now eight years old, brought aboard its first female board director, Pamela Thomas-Graham, in the spring of 2018; in September of last year, it went public. presumed More important to note at all three companies is what’s gone on at the employee level. Slack, for years, has made diversity core to its operations. Airbnb has also made gains in terms of employing a more diverse workforce.  Peloton, which was roundly heckled for a recent “sexist,” “dystopian” advertisement, has a highly diverse management team. core to its operations employing a more diverse workforce advertisement highly diverse management team Indeed, we’re not criticizing Solomon — when it comes to diversity, every little bit helps. But if Goldman Sachs really wants to maintain its place in the banking hierarchy, a much bolder stance would be to only take public companies that have diverse workforces, which is far more important — and beneficial to all stakeholders — than adding a woman and/or person of color to a board of directors as part of preparing an IPO. Let’s be real here. Directors of public companies typically meet just four times a year to review quarterly results. It’s important and necessary, sure. But beyond ensuring that strategic objectives are being met and hopefully making useful introductions to the company, these roles are assigned more importance by industry watchers than they should. (They often pay ludicrous amounts given the work involved, too.) ludicrous amounts Even pledging that Goldman is only going to take public companies that give back — say 1% of future profits to the NAACP, as one idea — would instantly put the bank in pole position for those founders and investors who truly want to be progressive. Goldman might miss out on a lot of business in the immediate term, we realize, but we’re guessing it’s a gamble that would pay off over time. In the meantime, institutionalizing a process that’s already happening and doesn’t have nearly enough real-world impact may be better, just barely, than not institutionalizing that process. Though it’s shocking to note, according to Solomon, about 60 companies in the U.S. and Europe have gone public recently with all-white, male boards. When we reached out to other big banks today to see if they might make a public commitment of their own regarding pre-IPO companies — we wrote to Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and JPMorgan — each of them, which have said in various ways that they are committed to diversity, declined to comment. Said Solomon earlier to CNBC, “We realize that this is a small step, but it’s a step in a direction of saying, ‘You know what, we think this is right, we think it’s the right advice and we’re in a position also, because of our network, to help our clients if they need help placing women on boards . . . So this is an example of us saying, ‘How can we do something that we think is right and help moves the market forward?’” Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:16:35 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6yqiLTdeykMA3wOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703266/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f23%2fgoldman-says-it-wont-take-companies-public-without-at-least-one-diverse-director-heres-what-it-should-have-said%2f/RK=2/RS=cYNsoQRnBtT_9Thkb7NU5jCBF1M- -FloQast raises $40M Series C led by Norwest on record of strong ARR growth, ACV expansion January 21, 2020 This morning FloQast, an LA-area startup, announced that it closed a $40 million Series C led by Norwest Venture Partners. The company also told TechCrunch in an interview that it raised a $20 million inside round between today’s investment and its 2017 Series B. Including today’s infusion, the firm has raised a little over $90 million. FloQast Norwest Venture Partners The small inside round, however, wasn’t executed because the firm was low on options at the time. Instead, FloQast chose it over larger term sheets, using the cash to help launch a new product. It then raised the round we’re discussing today at a higher valuation. What did FloQast launch, and what impact did that choice have on its business? Let’s talk about what FloQast sells to help us answer both questions. FloQast Product FloQast sells what it calls “close management software,” which might not mean much if you aren’t read-up on accounting. So, TechCrunch got FloQast CEO Mike Whitmire on the phone to explain it in more detail. According to the technology executive, his company helps “teams collaborate around the month-end close — we help them communicate [and] stay on the same page with this process that occurs at the end of every month. And then we provide some light automation around [the] tie-out and reconciliation process, which is one of the steps of actually closing the books.” Mike Whitmire Why does all that matter? Because a company can’t report its financial results until its books (accounts) are closed (finalized). So, Whitmire explained, you can’t get to a 10-Q or other bedrock financial report without this sort of work. And given that every company in the world has books that need closing, you can see where FloQast fits into the business landscape. FloQast doesn’t target every business, however. According to Whitmire, when a company reaches “five people in the corporate accounting department” is “where the pain starts to present itself” that FloQast wants to help with. And, in his view, the more complex a business becomes, the larger the need for the sort of help that his company’s software can provide. You can see where we’re going with this by now. If not, here’s some help: If FloQast’s product works for larger companies, how quickly is its revenue (measured in annual recurring revenue, or ARR) growing, and, more precisely, how quickly is its average annual contract value (ACV) expanding? Results Earlier we noted that FloQast decided to raise a small round before its Series C, using that money to launch a new product before raising its later, larger investment. That product, something called “AutoRec,” uses what the company calls “AI” to help reconcile accounts more quickly than would otherwise be possible. AutoRec The wager, launching that product before its Series C, paid off. Last year FloQast’s annual contract value (ACV) rose 60%. That gain was driven, according to the CEO, by the “new AutoRec product [helping add] more value” to contracts, and his company focusing more on upper-market customers. Its ACV growth helped FloQast’s growth stay consistent in percentage terms, with the CEO telling TechCrunch that his firm grows like “clockwork,” doubling its ARR on average every year. And the company’s SaaS metrics look good: Including customer churn, Floqast has a net retention of 115%, which is solid. Summarizing his company’s last year or so, Whitmire said that FloQast “cut [its] cash burn, became very efficient, grew at a similar clip to what we’ve grown historically, maintained our net revenue retention number, and had this massive ACV kick.” It’s not hard to see, then, how FloQast put together its latest round. So, the L.A. area really is more than Snap and Bird. You can build big SaaS companies there, too. Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:16:48 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6yqiLTdeykMA4QOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703266/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f21%2ffloqast-raises-40m-series-c-led-by-norwest-on-record-of-strong-arr-growth-acv-expansion%2f/RK=2/RS=HXkFic2_sK3S5JamjpCM5mc0FJ8- -WorkBoard triples again in 2019, raises $30M from a16z to celebrate January 16, 2020 WorkBoard, a SaaS startup that provides goal setting and management software to other companies, announced today that it has closed a $30 million Series C. The new capital comes less than a year after the startup raised a $23 million Series B. WorkBoard has raised $66.6 million to date, according to Crunchbase. WorkBoard startup raised a $23 million Series B according to Crunchbase Andreessen Horowitz’s David Ulevitch led the round, which saw participation from Microsoft’s M12, GGV and Workday Ventures, each of which had put money into the company in preceding rounds. Andreessen Horowitz’s David Ulevitch Microsoft’s M12 GGV Workday Ventures Why did WorkBoard announce a Series C just 10 months after its Series B? That’s what we wanted to find out. As it turns out, the answer is growth. 3x, twice The company is growing quickly, making it an attractive investment for the venture class. However, it’s useless to explain its growth in numerical terms if we don’t understand why it is growing as quickly as it is. WorkBoard provides software and services to other companies relating to how they plan and track their progress against their plans. More simply, WorkBoard helps other companies set and leverage OKRs, an acronym that stands for “objectives and key results.” If you’d like a longer-winded explanation of how the concept works, my notes on the company’s Series B are the jam. Briefly, OKRs are a planning framework that help companies set their course intelligently, and execute across smaller tasks that add up to the direction they want to go. You complete “key results” over a given period of time, which roll up into your “objectives.” are the jam It’s a pretty okay way to set up a company’s planning system. OKRs are popular in Silicon Valley, where Google popularized the method. It was not clear, at least to your humble servant, how far the idea had spread when WorkBoard raised its Series B last year. What if the startup raised a bunch of money after selling into fertile ground (startups aware of OKRs), but struggled when it went after other, non-tech companies? Whoops. After boosting its annual recurring revenue 3.5x in 2018, WorkBoard tripled its ARR again in 2019, according to CEO Deidre Paknad. Thinking out loud, WorkBoard raised its Series A in December of 2017. It probably had $1 million to $3 million ARR at the time, a wide but regular-ish range of ARR for a startup raising its first institutional (priced) round. Given its 3.5x and 3x results in 2018 and 2019, starting right after that Series A investment, the company’s ARR is now likely over $20 million, and probably closer to $25 million. CEO Deidre Paknad So if it can double this year, the startup may begin to approach IPO scale in 2021, provided that its growth can keep up. On that point, I asked Paknad about her market, especially in regards to how much work she and her employees had to do in terms of market education; did they have to bring the gospel of OKRs to companies, sell them on the idea and then sell its software? Or had the need to teach about OKRs themselves gone down? She indicated that instead of needing to pull the market toward her firm, the trendlines are better than neutral. According to the CEO, it was harder to sell OKR software “five years ago” because “the need to educate” a half decade ago “was intense.” Companies were stuck on their love of PowerPoint and similar, dated tooling. However, that need for “education has declined rapidly” Paknad said. She says that in her company’s experience there is “ever broader recognition that if you want to drive smart growth — not growth at any cost but smart growth,” companies will need to have “everybody in the organization aligned, and you need to be able to see what they [are] aligned on.” OKRs are a natural and well-explored way to attempt to do so. That market movement has helped the company have very efficient operations, in terms of the usual raft of SaaS metrics that we understand. Paknad told TechCrunch a few things that stuck out: way better The investor perspective TechCrunch got Ulevitch, WorkBoard’s newest lead investor, on the phone. Ulevitch called Paknad “a force of nature” who “really connects to customers.” That was all well and good, but more fun were his notes on how the round came together. Paknad told Ulevitch after WorkBoard’s March 2019 Series B that her company would triple in the year. When it did, Ulevitch said he didn’t want to wait any longer to put money into the firm. And the investment came together quickly, with the Andreessen Horowitz investor noting a roughly one-month time frame for the deal’s life cycle. This round isn’t hard to figure out. Fast-growing, efficient SaaS companies make investors dream of the next Slack. Let’s see if WorkBoard can double or triple in 2020. If so, we’ll be chatting with Paknad about exits and IPOs, not middle-sized, middle-stage rounds. Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:17:03 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6yqiLTdeykMA4wOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703266/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f16%2fworkboard-triples-again-in-2019-raises-30m-from-a16z-to-celebrate%2f/RK=2/RS=jd6l780_N4OkWyJOvCq4HzqTyoc- -Say hello to Equity Mondays, the newest podcast from TechCrunch January 6, 2020 Hello TechCrunch readers and Equity listeners alike. This morning we have something new for you that Chris and I are excited about: We’re doubling the pace that we bring Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, to your phone or computer. Chris I Equity Starting this morning and continuing on Monday mornings moving forward, the Equity crew will put together a short, zero-bullshit episode designed to get your week started. What news did you miss over the weekend? What recent venture rounds do you need to know about? What’s ahead in the coming week? And what’s on our minds? That’s what Equity Monday will bring you each and every morning in about seven minutes. We will continue to release the Equity that you know every Friday, with new and familiar hosts. We are excited about 2020 and all things that Equity has coming. Sound good? Let’s talk about what’s going on right now. Hello, Monday The markets are a mess this morning, unsurprising given rising global geopolitical tension and rising energy prices. But inside the world of technology there were warning signs of other sorts. Wired’s latest look at on-demand buses caught our eye, especially in light of what the failure of some pilot tests could mean for ride-hailing giants. And Instagram’s slowing growth looks like a bummer for Facebook, even if you could construe the news as a shot in the arm for tech startups looking to break into the social media space. latest look at on-demand buses slowing growth Looking ahead, it’s CES this week, meaning that half the reporters you know are trapped in Las Vegas, slowly turning into walking plague victims, while the other half are gloating from home that they didn’t have to go. TechCrunch has a great look back at CES history, and The Verge did good work here looking at what to expect from tech companies at the show. has a great look back at CES history The Verge did good work here Three funding rounds caught our eye this morning: TypingDNA’s Callisto Gaming’s Craft.do’s Wrapping things up we had questions about One Medical’s impending IPO. Mostly relating, if we’re being fair, to what the company is really worth. We’re back to the question of what a tech company is, and maybe isn’t. One Medical’s We’re off to get that post done so hit play, catch up and we’ll be back on Friday with Equity as it always has been. Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Let´s Work Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:17:17 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6yqiLTdeykMA5wOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580703266/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f06%2fsay-hello-to-equity-mondays-the-newest-podcast-from-techcrunch%2f/RK=2/RS=9fsMcLJ6h4P7caZnvdaR5_.Bw0M- -With $30 million in fresh funds, The Bouqs plans to plant its flower delivery business in Japan January 30, 2020 The Bouqs plans to take a slice of Japan’s $6 billion flower market this year with a $30 million strategic growth round from Japanese enterprise business investor Yamasa. While The Bouqs still must compete with bigger contenders like 1-800-Flowers and FTD in the U.S., it will now have to take on incumbents like Ayoma Flower Market and FloraJapan, both of which also offer same-day delivery throughout the land of the rising sun. The Bouqs $6 billion flower market So why Japan? According to The Bouqs founder and CEO John Tabis, his company had been looking to expand internationally for awhile and Japan seemed to fit well within that plan. The Bouqs CEO and founder John Tabis The Bouqs CEO and founder John Tabis But as far as bigger competition in any country, Tabis is undeterred, telling TechCrunch there’s plenty of opportunities in the flower delivery business if you know where to look. “There’ve been four or five other startups that tried something similar — some of them no longer exist,” Tabis said. “But the thing that’s worked for us, the first is the way that we’ve sourced is unique and it’s really the foundation of our brand.” flower The Bouqs sprung up in a wave of Silicon Valley funded flower delivery startups like BloomThat, Farm Girl and  Urban Stems, all promising Pinterest -worthy bouquets at the click of a button. But what set it apart was its farm-direct supply chain, cutting out costs from middlemen and delivering flowers that last longer. BloomThat, Pinterest This particular round now puts The Bouqs up top as far as total funding raised among its flower delivery startup peers, bringing in $74 million in total funding to date, with competitor Urban Stems in second place with $27 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Crunchbase Tabis also tells TechCrunch the new funds will further the company’s development into brick-and-mortar stores and that it’s jumping into the wedding biz. As anyone who’s ever planned a wedding will tell you, it’s an industry ripe for disruption — with brides and grooms spending about 8% of the budget on the flowers alone. spending about 8% One other renewed focus for the company will be its subscription business, keeping customers set up with a fresh bunch of flowers once the old bouquet is ready for tossing. “It’s sort of the linchpin of our business that’s grown very nicely…expanding both our revenue and profitability,” Tabis told TechCrunch. The SVP of Yamasa, Norikazu Sano, also mentioned further expansion into Asia for the company in a company press release, so we could see The Bouqs in more international areas over time, if all goes right in Japan. “This financing will enable us to fully realize our vision to create a global network of top-quality farms paired with a category-defining local floral brand enabled by proprietary supply chain technology and vertically integrated sourcing capabilities. We’re so excited for this next phase of the business, and all of the opportunities that lie ahead,” Tabis said. Startup Farm Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:28:31 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKegBMTdefy0AwRSnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704130/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fwith-30-million-in-fresh-funds-the-bouqs-plans-to-plant-its-flower-delivery-business-in-japan%2f/RK=2/RS=oCTaIrk8eFbLNjRT7AG39vHe07U- -Baraja's unique and ingenious take on lidar shines in a crowded industry January 17, 2020 It seems like every company making lidar has a new and clever approach, but Baraja takes the cake. Its method is not only elegant and powerful, but fundamentally avoids many issues that nag other lidar technologies. But it’ll need more than smart tech to make headway in this complex and evolving industry. Baraja To understand how lidar works in general, consult my handy introduction to the topic. Essentially a laser emitted by a device skims across or otherwise very quickly illuminates the scene, and the time it takes for that laser’s photons to return allows it to quite precisely determine the distance of every spot it points at. my handy introduction to the topic WTF is lidar? WTF is lidar? But to picture how Baraja’s lidar works, you need to picture the cover of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” GIFs kind of choke on rainbows, but you get the idea. GIFs kind of choke on rainbows, but you get the idea. Imagine a flashlight shooting through a prism like that, illuminating the scene in front of it — now imagine you could focus that flashlight by selecting which color came out of the prism, sending more light to the top part of the scene (red and orange) or middle (yellow and green). That’s what Baraja’s lidar does, except naturally it’s a bit more complicated than that. The company has been developing its tech for years with the backing of Sequoia and Australian VC outfit Blackbird, which led a $32 million round late in 2018 — Baraja only revealed its tech the next year and was exhibiting it at CES, where I met with co-founder and CEO Federico Collarte. “We’ve stayed in stealth for a long, long time,” he told me. “The people who needed to know already knew about us.” The idea for the tech came out of the telecommunications industry, where Collarte and co-founder Cibby Pulikkaseril thought of a novel use for a fiber optic laser that could reconfigure itself extremely quickly. “We thought if we could set the light free, send it through prism-like optics, then we could steer a laser beam without moving parts. The idea seemed too simple — we thought, ‘if it worked, then everybody would be doing it this way,’ ” he told me, but they quit their jobs and worked on it for a few months with a friends and family round, anyway. “It turns out it does work, and the invention is very novel and hence we’ve been successful in patenting it.” Startups at the speed of light: Lidar CEOs put their industry in perspective Startups at the speed of light: Lidar CEOs put their industry in perspective Rather than send a coherent laser at a single wavelength (1550 nanometers, well into the infrared, is the lidar standard), Baraja uses a set of fixed lenses to refract that beam into a spectrum spread vertically over its field of view. Yet it isn’t one single beam being split but a series of coded pulses, each at a slightly different wavelength that travels ever so slightly differently through the lenses. It returns the same way, the lenses bending it the opposite direction to return to its origin for detection. It’s a bit difficult to grasp this concept, but once one does it’s hard to see it as anything but astonishingly clever. Not just because of the fascinating optics (something I’m partial to, if it isn’t obvious), but because it obviates a number of serious problems other lidars are facing or about to face. First, there are next to no moving parts whatsoever in the entire Baraja system. Spinning lidars like the popular early devices from Velodyne are being replaced at large by ones using metamaterials, MEMS, and other methods that don’t have bearings or hinges that can wear out. Baraja’s “head” unit, connected by fiber optic to the brain. Baraja’s “head” unit, connected by fiber optic to the brain. In Baraja’s system, there are two units, a “dumb” head and an “engine.” The head has no moving parts and no electronics; it’s all glass, just a set of lenses. The engine, which can be located nearby or a foot or two away, produces the laser and sends it to the head via a fiber-optic cable (and some kind of proprietary mechanism that rotates slowly enough that it could theoretically work for years continuously). This means it’s not only very robust physically, but its volume can be spread out wherever is convenient in the car’s body. The head itself also can be resized more or less arbitrarily without significantly altering the optical design, Collarte said. Second, the method of diffracting the beam gives the system considerable leeway in how it covers the scene. Different wavelengths are sent out at different vertical angles; a shorter wavelength goes out toward the top of the scene and a slightly longer one goes a little lower. But the band of 1550 +/- 20 nanometers allows for millions of fractional wavelengths that the system can choose between, giving it the ability to set its own vertical resolution. It could for instance (these numbers are imaginary) send out a beam every quarter of a nanometer in wavelength, corresponding to a beam going out every quarter of a degree vertically, and by going from the bottom to the top of its frequency range cover the top to the bottom of the scene with equally spaced beams at reasonable intervals. But why waste a bunch of beams on the sky, say, when you know most of the action is taking place in the middle part of the scene, where the street and roads are? In that case you can send out a few high frequency beams to check up there, then skip down to the middle frequencies, where you can then send out beams with intervals of a thousandth of a nanometer, emerging correspondingly close together to create a denser picture of that central region. If this is making your brain hurt a little, don’t worry. Just think of Dark Side of the Moon and imagine if you could skip red, orange and purple, and send out more beams in green and blue — and because you’re only using those colors, you can send out more shades of green-blue and deep blue than before. Third, the method of creating the spectrum beam provides against interference from other lidar systems. It is an emerging concern that lidar systems of a type could inadvertently send or reflect beams into one another, producing noise and hindering normal operation. Most companies are attempting to mitigate this by some means or another, but Baraja’s method avoids the possibility altogether. “The interference problem — they’re living with it. We solved it,” said Collarte. The spectrum system means that for a beam to interfere with the sensor it would have to be both a perfect frequency match and come in at the precise angle at which that frequency emerges from and returns to the lens. That’s already vanishingly unlikely, but to make it astronomically so, each beam from the Baraja device is not a single pulse but a coded set of pulses that can be individually identified. The company’s core technology and secret sauce is the ability to modulate and pulse the laser millions of times per second, and it puts this to good use here. Collarte acknowledged that competition is fierce in the lidar space, but not necessarily competition for customers. “They have not solved the autonomy problem,” he points out, “so the volumes are too small. Many are running out of money. So if you don’t differentiate, you die.” And some have. Instead companies are competing for partners and investors, and must show that their solution is not merely a good idea technically, but that it is a sound investment and reasonable to deploy at volume. Collarte praised his investors, Sequoia and Blackbird, but also said that the company will be announcing significant partnerships soon, both in automotive and beyond. Check Car Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:31:57 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6yeTMTdekHUAexqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704275/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f17%2fbarajas-unique-and-ingenious-take-on-lidar-shines-in-a-crowded-industry%2f/RK=2/RS=iWzZ0sys7bkaEzwh7tfKjYwmHNw- -Meet the B2B videoconferencing startup that's gone crazy for online dating January 24, 2020 Founder Andreas Kröpfl has spent almost a decade hard-grafting in the B2B unified communications space, building a videoconferencing business with a patented single-stream system and a claim of no “drop-offs” thanks to “unique low-bandwidth technology.” His Austria-based startup’s current web-based videoconferencing system, eyeson (née Visocon), which launched in 2018, has had some nice traction since launch, as he tells it, garnering a few million customers and getting a nomination nod as a Gartner Cool Vendor last year. eyeson Visocon Eyeson’s website touts ‘no downloads, no lag, no hassle’ video calls. Pricing options for the target B2B users run the gamut from freelance pro to full-blown enterprise. The business itself has pulled in a smidge less than $7 million in investor funding over the years. website But when TechCrunch came across Kröpfl last December, pitching hard in startup alley at Disrupt Berlin, he was most keen to talk about something else entirely: video dating. That’s because last summer the team decided to branch out by building their own video dating app, reusing their core streaming tech for a consumer-focused social experiment. And after a period of internal beta testing — which hopefully wasn’t too awkward within a small (up-til-then) B2B-focused team — they launched an experimental dating app in November in India. The app, called Ahoi, is now generating 100,000 video calls and 250,000 swipes per day, says Kröpfl. Ahoi This is where he breaks into a giggle. The traction has been crazy, he says. In the staid world of business videoconferencing, you can imagine eyeson’s team eyeing the booming growth of certain consumer-focused video products rather enviously. eyeson’s Per Kröpfl, they had certainly noticed different desires among their existing users — which pushed them to experiment. “We saw that private people like the simple fun features (GIF reactions, …) and that business meetings were more focused on ‘drop-off’ [rates] and business features,” he tells us. “To improve both in one product was not working any more. So eyeson goes business plus SaaS.” “Cloning eyeson but make it social,” is how he sums up the experiment. Ahoi is very evidently an MVP at this stage. It also looks like a pretty brave and/or foolish (depending on your view) full-bore plunge into video dating, with nothing so sophisticated as a privacy screen to prevent any, er, unwanted blushes… (Whereas safety screening is an element we’ve recently seen elsewhere in the category — see: Blindlee.) Blindlee There’s also seemingly no way for users to specify the gender they wish to talk to. Instead, Ahoi users state interests by selecting emoji stickers — such as a car, cat, tennis racket, games console or globetrotter. And, well, it goes without saying that even if you like cars a lot you’re unlikely to change your sexual orientation over the category. There are no generic emoji that could be used to specify a sexual interest in men or women. But, er, there’s a horse… Such limits may explain why Ahoi is generating so many early swipes — and rather fewer actual calls — in that the activity sums to (mostly) men looking for women to videochat with and being matched with, er, men. And frustration, sexual or otherwise, probably isn’t the greatest service to try and sell. Still, Kröpfl reckons they’ve landed on a winning formula that makes handy reuse of their core videoconferencing tech — letting them growth hack in a totally new category. Swipe right to video date. “People are disappointed by perfect profiles on Tinder and the reality when meeting people,” he posits. “Wasted time. Especially women do not want to be stalked by men pretending to be someone else. We solve both by a real live conversation where only after a call both can decide to be connected or never see each other again.” Tinder Notably, marketing around the app does talk rather fuzzily about it being a way to “find new pals.” So while Kröpfl frames the experiment as dating, the reality of the product is more “open to options.” Think of it as a bit like Chatroulette — just with slightly more control (in that you have a few seconds to decide if you don’t want to talk to the next in-app match). Chatroulette The very short countdown timer (you get just five seconds to opt out of a matched video chat) is very likely generating a fair number of unintended calls. Though such high-velocity matching might appeal to a certain kind of speed dating addict. Kröpfl says Ahoi has been seeing up to 20,000 new users added daily. They’re bullishly targeting 3 million-plus users this year, and already toying with ideas for turning video dates into a money spinner by offering stuff like premium subscriptions and/or video ads. He says the plan is to turn Ahoi into a business “step by step.” “Everyone loves to make his profile better,” he suggests, floating monetization options down the line. Quality filtering for a fee is another possibility (“everyone is annoyed by being connected to the wrong people”). They picked India for the test launch because it has a lot of people on the same timezone, a large active mobile user-base and cheap marketing is still “easily possible.” He also says that dating apps seemed popular there, in their experience. (Albeit, the team presumably didn’t have a great deal of relevant experience in this category — given Ahoi is an experiment.) The intent is also to open Ahoi to other markets in time too, once they get more accustomed to dealing with all the traffic. Kröpfl notes they had to briefly take the app off the store last month as they worked on adding more server capability. “It is very early and we were not prepared for this usage,” he says, admitting they’ve been “struggling to work on early feedbacks.” “We had to make it invisible temporarily — to improve server capacity and stability.” The contrast in pace of uptake between the stolid (but revenue-generating) world of business meeting-fueled videoconferencing and catnip consumer dating — which is money-sucking unless or until you can hit a critical mass of usage and get the chance to try applying monetization strategies — does sound like it’s been rather irresistible to Kröpfl. Asked what it feels like to go from one category to the other he says “crazy, surprised and thrilling,” adding: “It is somehow also frustrating when all the intense B2B work is not as closely interesting to people as Ahoi is. But amazing that it is possible thanks to an extremely focused and experienced team. I love it.” TechCrunch’s Manish Singh agreed to brave the local video dating app waters in India to check Ahoi out for us. Manish Singh He reported back not having seen any women using the app. Which we imagine might be a problem for Ahoi’s longer-term prospects — at least in that market. “I spoke with one guy, who said his friend told him about the app. He said he joined to talk to girls but so far, he is only getting matched with boys,” said Singh. “I saw several names appear on the app, but all of them were boys, too.” He told us he was left wondering “why people are on these apps, and why they have so much free time on a weekday.” For “people” it seems safe to conclude that most of Ahoi’s early adopters are men. As The Wall Street Journal reported back in 2018, India’s women are famously cool on dating apps — in that they’re mostly not on them. (We asked Kröpfl about Ahoi’s gender breakdown but he didn’t immediately get back to us on that. Update: We’re told the app’s male to female ratio is 85:15. “India is challenging,” Kröpfl admits.) Wall Street Journal That market quirk means those female users who are on dating apps tend to get bombarded with messages from all the lonely heart guys with not much to swipe. Which, in turn, could make a video dating app like Ahoi an unattractive prospect to female users — if there’s any risk at all of being inundated with video chats. And even if there are enough in-app controls to prevent unwelcome inundation by default, women also might not feel like they want their profile to be seen by scores of men simply by merit of being signed up to an app — as seems inevitable if the gender balance is so skewed. Add to that, if the local perception among single women is that men on dating apps are generally a turn-off — because they’re too eager/forward — then jumping into any unmoderated video chat is probably not the kind of safe space these women are looking for. No matter, Kröpfl and his team are clearly having far too much fun growth hacking in an unfamiliar, high-velocity consumer category to sweat the detail. What’s driving Ahoi’s growth right now? “Performance marketing mainly,” he says, pointing also to “viral engagement by sharing and liking profiles.” Notably, there are a lot of reviews of Ahoi on Google Play already — an unusual amount for such an early app. Many of them appear to be five-star write-ups from accounts with European-sounding names and a sometimes robotic grasp of language. “Eventhough Ahoi has been developed recently, it had high quality for user about calling, making friends and widing your knowlegde [sic],” writes one reviewer with atrocious spelling whose account is attached to the name “Dustin Stephens.” “Talking with like minded people and same favor will creat a fun and interesting atmosphere. Ahoi will manage for you to call like condition above,” says another apparently happy but not entirely clear user, going by the name “Elisa Herring.” There’s also a “Madeleine Mcghin,” whose profile uses a photo of the similarly named child who infamously disappeared during a holiday in Portugal in 2007. “My experience with this app was awesome,” this individual writes. “It gives me the option to find new people in every country.” Another less instantly tasteless five-star reviewer, “Stefania Lucchini,” leaves a more surreal form of praise. “A good app and it will bring you extra income, I would say it’s a great opportunity to have AHOI and be a part of it but it’s that it will automatically ban you even if you don’t show it. Marketing. body part, there are still 5 stars for me,” she (or, well, “it”) writes. Among the plethora of dubious five-star reviews a couple of one-star dunks stand out — not least because they come from accounts with names that sound like they might actually come from India. “Waste u r time,” says one of these, who uses the name “Prajal Pradhan.” dubious This pithy drop-kick has been given a full 72 thumbs-up by other Play Store users. Check Car Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:32:18 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6yeTMTdekHUAfRqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704275/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f24%2fmeet-the-b2b-videoconferencing-startup-thats-gone-crazy-for-online-dating%2f/RK=2/RS=Fwxz_qtC8aNTS.5y2a.O5UefN5M- -Newly funded Legacy, a sperm testing and freezing service, conveys a message to men: get checked January 31, 2020 Legacy, a male fertility startup, has just raised a fresh, $3.5 million in funding from Bill Maris’s San Diego-based venture firm, Section 32, along with Y Combinator and Bain Capital Ventures, which led a $1.5 million seed round for the Boston startup last year. Legacy $1.5 million We talked earlier today with Legacy’s founder and CEO Khaled Kteily about his now two-year-old, five-person startup and its big ambitions to become the world’s preeminent male fertility center. Our biggest question was how Legacy and similar startups convince men — who are generally less concerned with their fertility than women — that they need the company’s at-home testing kits and services in the first place. Legacy’s similar startups “They should be worried about [their fertility],” said Kteily, a former healthcare and life sciences consultant with a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. “Sperm counts have gone down 50 to 60% over the last 40 years.” More from our chat with Legacy, a former TechCrunch Battlefield winner, follows; it has been edited lightly for length. former TechCrunch Battlefield winner TC: Why start this company? KK: I didn’t grow up wanting to be the king of sperm [laughs]. But I had a pretty bad accident — a second-degree burn on my legs after having four hot Starbucks teas spill on my lap in a car — and between that and a colleague at the Kennedy School who’d been diagnosed with cancer and whose doctor suggested he freeze his sperm ahead of his radiation treatments, it just clicked for me that maybe I should also save my sperm. When I went into Cambridge to do this, the place was right next to the restaurant Dumpling House and it was just very awkward and expensive and I thought, there must be a better way of doing this. TC: How do you get started on something like this? KK: This was before Ro and Hims began taking off, but people were increasingly comfortable doing things from their own homes, so I started doing research around the idea. I joined the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. I started taking continuing education classes about sperm… TC: Women are under so much pressure from the time they turn 30 to monitor their fertility. Aside from extreme circumstances, as with your friend, do men really think about testing their sperm? KK: Men should be worried about it, and they should be taking responsibility for it. What a lot of folks don’t know is for every one in seven couples that are actively trying to get pregnant, the man is equally responsible [for their fertility struggles]. Women are taught about their fertility but men aren’t, yet the quality of their sperm is degrading over the years. Sperm counts have gone down by 50 to 60% over the last 40 years, too. 50 to 60% TC: Wait, what? Why? KK: [Likely culprits are] chemicals in plastics, chemicals in what we eat eat and drink, changes in lifestyle; we move less and eat more, and sperm health relates to overall health. I also think mobile phones are causing it. I will caveat this by saying there’s been mixed research, but I’m convinced that cell phones are the new smoking in that it wasn’t clear that smoking was as dangerous as it is when the research was being conducted by companies that benefited by [perpetuating cigarette use]. There’s also a generational decline in sperm quality [to consider]; it poses increased risk to the mother but also the child, as the risk of gestational diabetes goes up, as well as the rate of autism and other congenital conditions. gestational diabetes the rate of autism congenital conditions TC: You’re selling directly to consumers. Are you also working with companies to incorporate your tests in their overall wellness offerings? KK: We’re investing heavily in business-to-business and expect that to be a huge acquisition channel for us. We can’t share any names yet, but we just signed a big company last week and have a few more in the works. These are mostly Bay Area companies right now; it’s an area where our experience as a YC alum was valuable because of the founders who’ve gone through and now run large companies of their own. TC: When you’re talking with investors, how do you describe the market size? KK: There are four million couples that are facing fertility challenges and in all cases, we believe the man should be tested. So do [their significant others]. Almost half of purchases [of our kits] are by a female partner. We also see men in the military freezing their sperm before being deployed, same-sex couples who plan to use a surrogate at some point and transgender patients who are looking at a life-changing [moment] and want to preserve their fertility before they start the process. But we see this as something that every man might do as they go off to college, and investors see that bigger picture. TC: How much do the kits and storage cost? KK: The kit costs $195 up front, and if they choose to store their sperm, $145 a year. We offer different packages. You can also spend $1,995 for two deposits and 10 years of storage. TC: Is one or two samples effective? According to the Mayo Clinic, sperm counts fluctuate meaningfully from one sample to the next, so they suggest semen analysis tests over a period of time to ensure accurate results. KK: We encourage our clients to make multiple deposits. The scores will be variable, but they’ll gather around an average. TC: But they are charged for these deposits separately? KK: Yes. TC: And what are you looking for? KK: Volume, count, concentration, motility and morphology [meaning the shape of the sperm]. TC: Who, exactly, is doing the analysis and handling the storage? KK: We partner with Andrology Labs in Chicago on analysis; it’s one of the top fertility labs in the country. For storage, we partner with a couple of cryo-storage providers in different geographies. We divide the samples into four, then store them in two different tanks within each of two locations. We want to make sure we’re never in a position where [the samples are accidentally destroyed, as has happened at clinics elsewhere]. happened at clinics elsewhere TC: I can imagine fears about these samples being mishandled. How can you assure customers this won’t happen? KK: Trust and legitimacy are core factors and a huge area of focus for us. We’re CPPA and HIPAA compliant. All [related data] is encrypted and anonymized and every customer receives a unique ID [which is a series of digits so that even the storage facilities don’t know whose sperm they are handling]. We have extreme redundancies and processes in place to ensure that we’re handling [samples] in the most scientifically rigorous way possible, as well as ensuring the safety and privacy of each [specimen]. TC: How long can sperm be frozen? KK: Indefinitely. TC: How will you use all the data you’ll be collecting? KK: I could see us entering into partnerships with research institutions. What we won’t do is sell it like 23andMe. Check Car Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:32:35 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6yeTMTdekHUAgxqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704275/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f31%2flegacy-test%2f/RK=2/RS=nWXTLzyp_qeKYNdhjbwz7SGCYQc- -Uber is bringing audio recording, irregular ride checks and authentication code safety features to... January 9, 2020 Uber said today it is beginning to roll out three safety features in India as the American ride-hailing firm looks to improve its service in one of its most important overseas markets. Uber The new features include an intervention from Uber when there is a long unplanned stop in a ride, and the introduction of a four-digit authentication code to ensure a passenger is getting in the right car. Both the features are rolling out to users starting today, company executives said at a press event in New Delhi. Uber Uber has previously rolled out these features in the U.S., and Ola, its local rival in India, has also offered these functionalities for a long time. Uber said it will also allow riders and drivers in India to record their entire trip and send it to the company if they are feeling uncomfortable. This feature, Uber said, will be in the testing phase in the country later this year. (Ola does not offer this feature, but local bus ridesharing service Shuttl has tested this in the past.) previously rolled out these features in the U.S. The first feature, dubbed Ride Check, activates in the event of a long, unexpected stop or other irregularities in a ride. When Uber detects that, it calls both the rider and the driver to check if everything is alright. The company relies on the driver partner’s smartphone to detect any interruption. Uber’s Sachin Kansal talks about new safety features at an event in New Delhi Uber’s Sachin Kansal talks about new safety features at an event in New Delhi Ola has been testing a similar feature, called “Guardian,” since September 2018. The startup said last month that it was rolling out Guardian in more than a dozen Indian cities, as well as in Perth, Australia. Perth, Uber is also rolling out a feature that would require passengers to provide a four-digit pin to verify if they are in the right car. Until they have provided the authentication code, the ride will not begin. India’s Ola has provided this feature for several years. Additionally, Uber said it has partnered with Manas Foundation, which has conducted thousands of customised gender sensitivity workshops for driver partners in India to make the platform safer for women. More than 50,000 driver partners have already been trained, the company said. Sachin Kansal, senior director of Global Safety Products at Uber, said the company has been piloting and refining these features in different markets globally. “Privacy is incredibly important for Uber and all these tools are designed keeping that in mind. We will continue to refine these technologies so we can help make every ride a 5-star experience for all.” Check Car Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:32:48 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ6yeTMTdekHUAiRqnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704275/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f09%2fuber-is-bringing-audio-recording-irregular-ride-checks-and-authentication-code-safety-features-to-india%2f/RK=2/RS=FlMlaK13Fz._lluMTX6Rs6ZRcQQ- -Amazon-backed Rivian will integrate Alexa into its electric pickup and SUV January 6, 2020 Rivian will integrate Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa into the R1T pickup and R1S SUV, the company’s first electric vehicles that are set to debut at the end of the year. Rivian Amazon’s Rivian said Monday it also plans to extend the Alexa integration to 100,000 electric delivery trucks that Amazon has ordered from the automaker. The electric vans are expected to start delivering packages to customers in 2021. The integration into the R1T and R1S will give owners access to standard Alexa features, such as playing music, placing calls and navigation, as well as the ability to control the climate, open and close the trunk and other vehicle features. Rivian said it plans to give Alexa other capabilities designed for its vehicles. For instance, owners will be able to remotely tap into the camera embedded in Rivian’s pickup truck from Amazon screen-based services like Echo Show and Fire TV to check on whatever gear is stashed there. The integration also will allow access to certain Alexa features when the vehicle is offline, a decision meant to match up with how these vehicles might be used. Rivian’s vision is to “enable exploration without compromises and provide our owners the best digital experience, no matter where their adventure takes them,” said Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe. “We want this to be the most comprehensive, most seamless Alexa integration in the market.” The Rivian announcement made ahead of CES 2020 is the latest to illustrate Amazon’s continued push into the automotive world. Lamborghini also announced Monday plans to bring Alexa to its Huracán EVO sports car. Amazon has been moving into the car for a few years now through the integration of Alexa and car-focused delivery services, as well as its direct investment in Rivian. The e-commerce company also launched its Amazon Key service to let customers give delivery drivers access to their house with the help of a compatible keypad on their door and a smart security camera. But in 2018, that service expanded to the car with its Key by Amazon In-Car delivery service. direct investment expanded to the car GM and Volvo were the first participants in the Key by Amazon In-Car delivery service. Ford joined the in-car delivery service in April 2019. Check Car Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:33:00 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrEze2bMTde4gcAaf6nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704283/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f06%2famazon-backed-rivian-will-integrate-alexa-into-its-electric-pickup-and-suv%2f/RK=2/RS=IGZdaQzDdPK0px.n7SFZVXOXlAQ- -Arvind Krishna will replace Ginni Rometty as IBM CEO in April January 30, 2020 IBM announced today that the board of directors has elected IBM senior vice president for Cloud and Cognitive Software Arvind Krishna to replace current CEO Ginni Rometty. He will take over on April 6th after a couple of months of transition. Rometty will remain with the company as chairman of the board. IBM IBM Krishna reportedly drove the massive $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat at the end of 2018, and there was some speculation at the time that Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst was the heir apparent, but the board went with a more seasoned IBM insider for the job, while naming Whitehurst as president. Red Hat Jim Whitehurst In a statement Rometty called Krishna the right man for the job, as she steps back after more than eight years on the job. “Through his multiple experiences running businesses in IBM, Arvind has built an outstanding track record of bold transformations and proven business results, and is an authentic, values-driven leader. He is well-positioned to lead IBM and its clients into the cloud and cognitive era,” she said in a statement. She added that in choosing Krishna and Whitehurst, the board chose a technically and business savvy team to lead the company moving forward. It’s clear that the board went with two men who have a deep understanding of cloud and cognitive computing technologies, two areas that are obviously going to be front and center of technology for the foreseeable future, and areas where IBM needs to thrive. Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, sees the CEO-president model as a sound approach. “It’s and inside-outside model. To truly understand IBM, you have to come from the inside [like Krishna], but to truly innovate you need someone on the outside [like Whitehurst] and that CEO-president model is helping,” he said. Patrick Moorhead, founder and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategies, says that he was surprised by the timing of the announcement, which seemed to come out of nowhere. “I am a bit surprised at the speed of this announcement as I don’t believe there was a formal succession plan with a named successor. IBM has always had these and it was always apparent who the next CEO would be,” he said. That was not the case this time. But like Wang, Moorhead likes the approach of having an “outsider” and long-time IBMer working in tandem. “Krishna spearheaded many of the next-generation IBM initiatives like the Red Hat acquisition, blockchain and quantum. I am also very pleased to see Whitehurst appointed president as now there’s an outsider and a long-time IBMer running the company in the number one and two spots,” he said. Wang believes the new leaders have to honestly assess the company’s strengths and weaknesses and find ways to compete with today’s cloud companies for the hearts and minds of the enterprise customers. “Today IBM is in an interesting position where the world has changed, and people go to Amazon or Salesforce or they go to Google or Workday or Microsoft. Companies still have a lot of IBM, they still trust IBM, but the new leadership team needs to figure out where the technology gaps are, which ones they need to build, which ones they need to partner, and in some cases say, this is not our market,” he said. Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:37:55 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKegKMzde1EAAgBGnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704651/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2farvind-krishna-will-replace-ginni-rometty-as-ibm-ceo-in-april%2f/RK=2/RS=iZGyVR5BJMIT0gzLzb3g3pnnmYo- -Greylock's Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo to talk fundraising at Early Stage SF 2020 January 29, 2020 Early Stage SF is around the corner, on April 28 in San Francisco, and we are more than excited for this brand new event. The intimate gathering of founders, VCs, operators and tech industry experts is all about giving founders the tools they need to find success, no matter the challenge ahead of them. Early Stage SF Struggling to understand the legal aspects of running a company, like negotiating cap tables or hiring international talent? We’ve got breakout sessions for that. Wondering how to go about fundraising, from getting your first yes to identifying the right investors to planning the timeline for your fundraise sprint? We’ve got breakout sessions for that. Growth marketing? PR/Media? Building a tech stack? Recruiting? We. Got. You. Hoffman + Guo Today, we’re very proud to announce one of our few Main Stage sessions that will be open to all attendees. Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo will join us for a conversation around “How To Raise Your Series A.” Reid Hoffman Sarah Guo Reid Hoffman is a legendary entrepreneur and investor in Silicon Valley. He was an Executive VP and founding board member at PayPal before going on to co-found LinkedIn in 2003. He led the company to profitability as CEO before joining Greylock in 2009. He serves on the boards of Airbnb, Apollo Fusion, Aurora, Coda, Convoy, Entrepreneur First, Microsoft, Nauto and Xapo, among others. He’s also an accomplished author, with books like “Blitzscaling,” “The Startup of You” and “The Alliance.” Reid Hoffman accomplished author Sarah Guo has a wealth of experience in the tech world. She started her career in high school at a tech firm founded by her parents, called Casa Systems. She then joined Goldman Sachs, where she invested in growth-stage tech startups such as Zynga and Dropbox, and advised both pre-IPO companies (Workday) and publicly traded firms (Zynga, Netflix and Nvidia). She joined Greylock Partners in 2013 and led the firm’s investment in Cleo, Demisto, Sqreen and Utmost. She has a particular focus on B2B applications, as well as infrastructure, cybersecurity, collaboration tools, AI and healthcare. Sarah Guo Zynga, The format for Hoffman and Guo’s Main Stage chat will be familiar to folks who have followed the investors. It will be an updated, in-person combination of Hoffman’s famously annotated LinkedIn Series B pitch deck that led to Greylock’s investment, and Sarah Guo’s in-depth breakdown of what she looks for in a pitch. LinkedIn Series B pitch deck that led to Greylock’s investment in-depth breakdown of what she looks for in a pitch They’ll lay out a number of universally applicable lessons that folks seeking Series A funding can learn from, tackling each from their own unique perspectives. Hoffman has years of experience in consumer-focused companies, with a special expertise in network effects. Guo is one of the top minds when it comes to investment in enterprise software. We’re absolutely thrilled about this conversation, and to be honest, the entire Early Stage agenda. agenda How it works Here’s how it all works: There will be about 50+ breakout sessions at the event, and attendees will have an opportunity to attend at least seven. The sessions will cover all the core topics confronting early-stage founders — up through Series A — as they build a company, from raising capital to building a team to growth. Each breakout session will be led by notables in the startup world. Don’t worry about missing a breakout session, because transcripts from each will be available to show attendees. And most of the folks leading the breakout sessions have agreed to hang at the show for at least half the day and participate in CrunchMatch, TechCrunch’s app to connect founders and investors based on shared interests. Here’s the fine print. Each of the 50+ breakout sessions is limited to around 100 attendees. We expect a lot more attendees, of course, so signups for each session are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Buy your ticket today and you can sign up for the breakouts that we’ve announced. Pass holders will also receive 24-hour advance notice before we announce the next batch. (And yes, you can “drop” a breakout session in favor of a new one, in the event there is a schedule conflict.) Grab yourself a ticket and start registering for sessions right here. Interested sponsors can hit up the team here. Grab yourself a ticket and start registering for sessions right here here Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:38:10 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKegKMzde1EAAghGnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704651/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2fgreylocks-reid-hoffman-and-sarah-guo-to-talk-fundraising-at-early-stage-sf-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=0R7HOnUzNRuzYuM.FumYn9RZy1w- -What is our meaning in life in a world of technology? January 29, 2020 The informal TechCrunch book club is now venturing into the short story “Exhalation,” the second piece in Ted Chiang’s eponymous collection. Ted Chiang’s eponymous collection Today’s story gets at the meaning of existence, climate change, community and connection all within a beautifully intricate story that runs for just a few handfuls of pages. I was hooked, and so let’s talk about some of the messages Chiang wants to send as part of the piece. Some quick notes: danny+bookclub@techcrunch.com https://techcrunch.com/book-review/ Thoughts on “Exhalation” Chiang has constructed a magnificent story around the most basic and forgettable of substances: air. He starts the story with what otherwise appears to be a normal day in the life of an everyday human, but within a few paragraphs, we learn that the narrator is “going to the filling stations” and it slowly dawns on us that the narrator — and all the people that populate this imaginative world — are actually some form of cybernetic beings, dependent on a mechanical supply of air for their machined bodies. We learn that these filling stations, where people pick up their air supply, aren’t just refueling utilities, but are key community outposts where connections are formed between people. “For the filling stations are the primary venue for social conversation, the places from which we draw emotional sustenance as well as physical.” But that’s not all, Chiang writes. “… there is camaraderie derived from the awareness that all our air comes from the same source…” As we learn as the story progresses, air isn’t just present in this universe — it is fundamentally the connective substance not only between every individual, but also the past and the future. Memories held in the brains of these individuals aren’t inscribed, but are rather reconfigured as air passes through them. Therefore, what is memorable — what is most visible — is ultimately a function of what is not even seen. The narrator describes this discovery as he investigates his own brain in an experiment: Watching the oscillations of these flakes of gold, I saw that air does not, as we had always assumed, simply provide power to the engine that realizes our thoughts. Air is in fact the very medium of our thoughts. All that we are is a pattern of air flow. What’s incredible about this story is that Chiang pushes this metaphor another layer deeper. The narrator learns that the world relies on the pressure difference between the air in the atmosphere and the air in each individual’s body, and that this difference is decreasing. Suddenly, the fate of the entire universe has become clear: There may well be air everywhere, but it’s the differential that matters, and that differential is slowly receding with every breath, every twitch of a limb and stray thought. Equilibrium — and therefore death — is just around the corner. Gloriously, Chiang describes the dawn of time: The universe began as an enormous breath being held. Who knows why, but whatever the reason, I am glad that it did, because I owe my existence to that fact. All my desires and ruminations are no more and no less than eddy currents generated by the gradual exhalation of our universe. And until this great exhalation is finished, my thoughts live on. This is an ambitious leap and one that springs beautifully from the page. We have gone from air as individual sustenance, to air as community resource and connective tissue, to air as the very meaning of existence, tied into a fate where we already know how the final chapter will be written. Here is the substance we never think about, and instead of being nothing it is actually everything we care about. There is a parallel here of course to our own world. In much the way the everyday actions of the individuals in this short story deplete the pressure difference of their world and ultimately make it uninhabitable, there is clearly a connection to our own present crisis regarding climate change. How should we handle the fatalism of those climate trendlines that show Earth eventually dying off sometime in the future? The story doesn’t try to minimize that fatalism. In fact, it actively diminishes the idea that there are technical solutions to these problems. Our narrator describes a sect known as the “Reversalists,” who attempt to build a machine that can increase the difference in air pressure in the universe. But our narrator isn’t optimistic, and essentially argues that such a machine is impossible to design. Instead, the story exhorts us to revel in the limited time we have in this universe, even knowing that the world is going to come to an inevitable end. “Because even if a universe’s life span is calculable, the variety of life that is generated within it is not.” Rather than spending our limited time trying to push back the end (of the universe or of our own demise), we should instead ignore that fatal ending and focus on the present, and the wonders that we get to experience while the world is alive for us. I can go on and on about air here, and indeed, multiple re-readings of this chapter have revealed new connections and symbols that are absolutely fascinating. But I want to move on to two other points that I think this short story wants to tell. In the story, our narrator is an anatomist, who learns about a strange set of facts — that clocks appear to be changing speed in multiple districts in this universe. They learn about these facts, but unlike anyone else, they seem willing to ask more fundamental and deeper questions about why basic mechanics of the universe aren’t what they seem: Most people suspected fraud, a practical joke perpetrated by mischief-makers. I had a different suspicion, a darker one that I dared not voice, but it decided my course of action; I would proceed with my experiment. Our narrator explains that there is a reigning theory about the workings of the brain called the inscription hypothesis, which they reject. By the end of the story though, we see how our narrator’s experiment of opening their own brain and investigating its workings eventually overturned that hypothesis. It’s not only a commentary on the scientific method, but I also feel that there is a point here about asking even the hardest questions about the data that we are seeing in our universe. We talk about this all the time in the startup world, but here we have in clear relief a person who didn’t just accept the prevailing theory of how something worked, or ignored the facts and data from their universe, or avoided approaching the hardest questions they stumbled upon. Instead, they confronted them, and also did so individually, without the consent or approval of others. That’s a reminder that sometimes, when we are on the frontiers of science, that the hardest questions sometimes can’t be answered in collaboration with others — that the air that connects us breaks down here. The other symbol I loved here is around the “experiment” itself. Our narrator builds a machine that allows them to dissect their own brain, and in the process allows them to see the true meaning of the universe. Chiang spends a sizable part of the story building up the dissection, going through with it and discussing its implications, and it isn’t hard to see why. The brain dissection is a beautiful metaphor for literally “opening our minds” to new experiences and ideas. Our narrator carefully prepares to open their mind, splaying their brain out in a painstaking and careful order to understand its inner workings. As they do this though, they discover who they really are, and also the fate of the universe along the way. It’s a gorgeous symbol, and like so much of this story, a layered opinion about what it means to be an individual and how we relate to each other. As Chiang closes out, “Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so. I feel I have the right to tell you this because, as I am inscribing these words, I am doing the same.” Some questions for “What’s Expected of Us” Next week, we will read the ultra-short story (four pages!), the third part of “Exhalation” the collection. It’s an interesting meditation on free will versus destiny, and asks a lot of questions in a taut story. Have comments on what you read? Send them to me at danny+bookclub@techcrunch.com danny+bookclub@techcrunch.com Can a time machine offer us the meaning of life? Can a time machine offer us the meaning of life? Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:38:24 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUANcanBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2fwhat-is-our-meaning-in-life-in-a-world-of-technology%2f/RK=2/RS=Up61KnyW59CNHH0uATBCPqrZoXM- -Stanford's Doggo quadrupedal robot and siblings Pupper and Woofer are coming to TC Sessions:... January 29, 2020 Animal-like, four-legged robots have been a crowd-pleaser since Boston Dynamics’ BigDog, and Stanford’s Doggo shows how the technology can be made open source, accessible and educational. Doggo’s creators will bring the diminutive robot, plus its smaller and larger siblings Pupper and Woofer, to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI on March 3. Boston Dynamics’ TC Sessions: Robotics + AI on March 3 P.S. Early-bird ticket sales end this Friday — book your tickets today and save $150. book your tickets today We first heard of Doggo last year when the Stanford Robotics Club showed off the highly capable design, which uses mostly off-the-shelf parts and can be assembled by anyone… as long as “anyone” has considerable experience building robots and a couple thousand dollars to spend. We first heard of Doggo last year Still, a couple thousand is an order of magnitude or two lower than most quadrupedal robots go for, and project lead Nathan Kau told TechCrunch they’ve seen a ton of interest. “I had no idea how many people were going to pick it up,” he said. “It’s complicated! But I get emails every day from people building this thing, from all over. The first team to get it running, to my knowledge, was in Sri Lanka.” In order to further push the lower bounds of who can build and experiment with a robot like this, the team is building a smaller, even less expensive robot called Pupper. They hope to get the cost down to the level where even high school clubs can afford one. “It’s less than $500 in development materials if you make it by yourself,” said Kau. “We imagine that if it becomes a kit and we have a partnership with the part manufacturers, it could be much less. We built it as a platform for learning, so it uses a Raspberry Pi and everything is programmed in Python. It’s about as complicated as building a drone, I’d say.” You’ll be able to see Doggo and Pupper in action at the event, and they’ll be joined by one more robot: Woofer, a jumbo-sized step up from the others. It’s earlier in development than the other two, but to keep things simple it shares much of its codebase with the others. Grab your tickets to the show today and get to see these awesome robots in person and hear from today’s leading minds in the industry. Early-bird tickets expire this Friday, January 31, so book yours today and save $150 before prices go up. Grab your tickets to the show today book yours today Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:38:37 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUAN8anBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2fstanfords-doggo-quadrupedal-robot-and-siblings-pupper-and-woofer-are-coming-to-tc-sessions-roboticsai%2f/RK=2/RS=R.iR6JgrsUX2H7EGi3lTdF44RgA- -72 hours left to save $150 on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 January 28, 2020 We’re counting the days (35 to be precise) until TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place on March 3 in Berkeley, Calif. But we’re also counting the days that you can save on the price of admission. The early-bird pricing ends in just three days, on January 31. Buy your ticket right here before that bird flies south, and you’ll save $150. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Buy your ticket right here This single-day conference features interviews, panel discussions, Q&As and demos with the leaders, founders and investors focused on the future of robotics and AI. TechCrunch editors will interview the people making it happen, explore the promise, expose the hype and address the challenges of these revolutionary industries. The lineup, as impressive as ever, also includes workshops and demos, because who doesn’t want to see robots in action? From autonomous cars and assistive robotics to advances in agriculture and outer space, our conference agenda covers the leading edges of the complex and exciting world of robots and AI. agenda Here’s a taste of what we’re serving: We’ve added a new, exciting element this year. It’s Pitch Night, a sort of mini Startup Battlefield. The night before the conference, 10 teams will pitch to an audience of VCs and other influencers at a private event. Judges will choose five finalists, and those teams will pitch again from the Main Stage at the conference. We’re taking applications until February 1, so apply right here. It’s free, and a great way to showcase your startup to the people who can supercharge your startup dreams. Pitch Night apply right here Don’t miss your chance to learn from, share with and pitch to the brightest minds, makers, investors and researchers in robotics and AI. And don’t miss out on serious savings. Buy an early-bird ticket to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 — before prices go up on January 31 — and you’ll keep $150 in your wallet. Buy an early-bird ticket to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:38:49 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUAOcanBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2f72-hours-left-to-save-150-on-tickets-to-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=c_q4_6WeInE74T7DNOEeYmpUufQ- -India's InterviewBit secures $20M to grow its advanced online computer science program January 28, 2020 InterviewBit, a Bangalore-based startup that runs an advanced online computer science program for college graduates and young professional engineers, has raised $20 million in one of the largest Series A financing rounds in the education sector. InterviewBit, The five-year-old startup’s Series A round was led by Sequoia India and Tiger Global. Global Founders Capital and some others participated in the round. The startup said it is also rebranding its online coding program, earlier called InterviewBit Academy, to Scaler Academy. Two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the financing round valued InterviewBit between $100 million and $110 million. Global Founders Capital InterviewBit pivoted nine months ago to operate on an income-sharing model, where students have the option to pay much of the coaching fee after they have landed a job. The concept, also known as human capital contract, has been around for decades, but is beginning to see some traction now. InterviewBit beginning to see some traction now The startup said more than 2,000 students have enrolled in its six-month program to date, where it runs live-streamed sessions to coach aspiring software engineers for competitive job interviews in their industry. It has so far run seven batches, one of which is being conducted in the U.S. At stake is the future of millions of students who graduate each year in India, but are massively unprepared to secure a good job. A recent study by Aspiring Minds found that the employability of Indian engineers continues to be as low as 20%. “With that in mind, Scaler Academy’s meticulously structured six-month online program effectively enhances the coding skills of professionals by creating a modern curriculum with exposure to the latest technologies,” the startup said. found InterviewBit said it has received more than 200,000 applications to join these classes. And “several hundred” of those who enrolled in the program have landed jobs at tech companies such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Students enrolled in Scaler Academy are mentored and taught by tech leaders and subject matter experts working with organizations including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Netflix. The startup says it works with more than 600 companies. The startup, which is part of Sequoia India’s Surge accelerator program, will use the new fund to scale up its enrollment and launch in new markets. It also plans to invest in its curriculum and live teaching product. part of Sequoia India’s Surge accelerator program “Within a short period of time, Scaler Academy has made a huge impact on the capabilities of our students, who spend, on average four-five hours/day on our online and live learning platform,” said Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founder of InterviewBit. “We are very excited that our work results in a step function change in the careers of our students — and so we have rebranded it to Scaler Academy, a platform for pursuing excellence in software programming,” he added. Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:39:02 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUAO8anBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f27%2finterviewbit-secures-20m-to-grow-its-advanced-online-computer-science-program-in-india%2f/RK=2/RS=DjnJOlH0lYOrG..phFgGuRbPsLw- -4 days left to save $150 on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 January 27, 2020 The countdown to savings continues, and you have just four days left to score the best price on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020. Join 1,500 of the brightest minds and innovators in robotics and machine learning — technologists, founders, investors, engineers and researchers. Buy an early-bird ticket now before prices go up on January 31, and you’ll keep $150 in your pocket. Why spend more when you don’t have to? TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Buy an early-bird ticket now Get ready for a full day focused on the future of two technologies with the potential to change everything about the way we live. We have an outstanding lineup of speakers, interviews and panel discussions covering a range of topics. And of course, plenty of demos, too. speakers We won’t just parrot the hype, either. Our editors will ask the hard questions, and the conference agenda includes discussions about the ethics and ramifications inherent with these potent technologies. Here’s a just sample of what’s on tap: There’s plenty more waiting for you, including the finalists of our first Pitch Night. This group of intrepid robotics and AI startup founders made the cut (10 teams will pitch the night before the conference at a private event). The finalists will pitch again at the conference from the Main Stage. Think your startup has what it takes to throw down in a pitch-off? We’re accepting applications until February 1. Talk about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for focused exposure — apply right here today! Pitch Night apply right here today TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 draws the top people in the industry, which makes it prime networking territory. Whether you’re looking for funding, hunting for the perfect startup to add to your portfolio or searching for the next generation of engineers, this is where you need to be. Come work it to your advantage. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place in Berkeley on March 3, and we’ve packed a lot of value and opportunity into one day. Make the most of it — and remember, you’ll save $150 if you buy an early-bird ticket before prices go up on January 31. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 buy an early-bird ticket Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics & AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:39:15 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUAPcanBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f27%2f4-days-left-to-save-150-on-tickets-to-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=o2eu.eE2p6_UvwWglWE_tfTUX3I- -Early-bird savings end next Friday on tickets to Robotics+AI 2020 January 24, 2020 TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020 is gearing up to be one amazing show. This annual day-long event draws the brightest minds and makers from these two industries — 1,500 attendees last year alone. And if you really want to make 2020 a game-changing year, grab yourself an early-bird ticket and save $150 on tickets before prices go up after January 31. TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020 grab yourself an early-bird ticket and save $150 Not convinced yet? Check out some agenda highlights featuring some of today’s leading robotics and AI leaders: Stuart Russell UC Berkeley Human Compatible Tye Brady Amazon Robotics Amazon Lucy Condakchian Maxar Technologies Maxar Technologies Anca Dragan Waymo UC Berkeley Jur van den Berg Ike See the full agenda here. here If you’re a startup, nab one of the five demo tables left and showcase your company to new customers, press, and potential investors. Demo tables run $2,200 and come with four attendee tickets so you can divide and conquer the networking scene at the conference. nab one of the five demo tables Students, get your super-reduced $50 ticket here and learn from some of the biggest names in the biz and meet your future employer or internship opportunity. get your super-reduced $50 ticket here Don’t forget, the early-bird ticket sale ends on January 31. After that, prices go up by $150. Purchase your tickets here and save an additional 18% when you book a group of four or more. here Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:39:29 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUAP8anBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f24%2fearly-bird-savings-end-next-friday-on-tickets-to-roboticsai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=Ks7_EJvXlbPFadZ35kTVeClYq4E- -Hot off the press: New tickets to the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize January 21, 2020 Party on, startuppers. We’ve just printed up a fresh batch of tickets to our 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize in San Francisco on February 7. If you haven’t snagged yours yet, don’t wait, because tickets to this event fly off the proverbial shelf. Buy your ticket right now. 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Buy your ticket right now Our annual winter soiree features 1,000 of Silicon Valley’s brightest minds, makers and visionaries relaxing over passed canapes and delightful libations. It’s the perfect way to meet your colleagues, expand your network, shake off the winter blues and just have some fun. Let’s face it — networking works better in a relaxed setting. You never know who you’ll meet at a TechCrunch party — it might be a relationship that takes your business to new heights. Our parties have a history of creating startup magic. We’re not kidding when we say this is a popular event. Case in point: Our demo table packages sold out in a flash. As you swill and chill, be sure to check out the up-and-coming startups showcasing their tech. We have a limited number of tickets left, and they’re going fast. In addition to networking, comradery and great food and drink, our Winter Party comes replete with party games, activities and photo ops. Bring your best karaoke chops and impress the crowd. Oh, and no TechCrunch party is complete without door prizes, TC swag and a chance to win tickets to Disrupt SF, our flagship event coming in September 2020. Don’t miss out on the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize on February 7 in San Francisco. Tickets are going fast — get yours now while you still can! 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize Tickets are going fast — get yours now Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the 3rd Annual Winter Party at Galvanize? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. Galvanize? filling out this form Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:39:41 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUAQcanBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f21%2fhot-off-the-press-new-tickets-to-the-3rd-annual-winter-party-at-galvanize%2f/RK=2/RS=qnv6V2v5IJ0vKNmKNVW_YfVD3cE- -Discount student tickets available for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 January 17, 2020 “Revolutionary” may be an over-used adjective, but how else to describe the rapid evolution in mobility technology? Join us in San Jose, Calif., on May 14 for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020. Our second annual day-long conference cuts through the hype and explores the current and future state of the technology and its social, regulatory and economic impact. TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 If you’re a student with a passion for mobility and transportation tech, listen up. We can’t talk about the future if we’re not willing to invest in the next generation of mobility visionaries. That’s why we offer student tickets at a deep discount — $50 each. Invest in your future, save $200 and spend the day with more than 1,000 of mobility tech’s brightest minds, movers and makers. student tickets at a deep discount As always, you can count on a program packed with top-notch speakers, panel discussions, fireside chats and workshops. We’re in the process of building our agenda, but we’re ready to share our first two guests with you: Boris Sofman and Nancy Sun. Boris Sofman Sofman is the engineering director at Waymo and former co-founder and CEO of Anki. Sun is the co-founder and chief engineer of Ike Robotics. Read more about Sofman and Sun’s accomplishments here. We can’t wait to hear what they have to say about automation and robotics. Waymo Read more about Sofman and Sun’s accomplishments here Keep checking back, because we’ll announce more exciting speakers in the coming weeks. You’ll also have plenty of time for world-class networking. What better place for a student to impress — and possibly score a great internship or job? You might even meet a future co-founder or an investor. That knocking sound you hear is opportunity. Open the door. Hold up… you’re not a student but still love a bargain? We’ve got you covered, too. You can save $100 if you purchase an early-bird ticket before April 9. purchase an early-bird ticket Be part of the revolution. Join the mobility and transportation tech community — the top technologists, investors researchers and visionaries — on May 14 at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 in San Jose. Get your student ticket today. TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 Get your student ticket Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:39:54 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUAQ8anBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f17%2fdiscount-student-tickets-available-for-tc-sessions-mobility-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=tCdbyZ9hcObFPcjwVimD5lPwXJI- -Startups Weekly: In a crowded field of unicorns, ClassPass becomes another unicorn January 12, 2020 I hope you’ve all had a good week. Normally I’m behind the scenes (where I’m most comfortable), but I’ll be managing the Startups Weekly newsletter until I assign it to someone else. More on that in a few weeks. Want it in your inbox? Sign up here for this and other great newsletters we have to offer, including ones on space and transportation. For now, let’s get on with it, shall we? here A unicorn workout Working out never did a body so good as it did for ClassPass this week. The popular startup that created a way to help people exercise more easily just became a unicorn with an influx of Series E cash. The latest funding, in the amount of $285 million, was led by L Catterton and Apax Digital, with participation from existing investor Temasek. It brings ClassPass’s total known raise to about $550 million. We reported a couple of weeks ago that ClassPass, then at a $536.4 million valuation, was sniffing around for the round, which would promote it to the unicorn club. reported “We are motivated by the impact we’ve had on members and partners, including 100 million hours of workouts that have already been booked,” said ClassPass Founder and Chairman Payal Kadakia in a statement about the raise. “This investment is a significant milestone that will further our mission to help people stay active and spend their time meaningfully.” Payal Kadakia Photo: ClassPass Photo: ClassPass Funding real estate A couple of real estate-ish startups got some attention this week. Los Angeles-based Luxury Presence raised $5.4 million to help it help agents round out their digital marketing arsenals. raised $5.4 million In other real estate funding this week, Orchard, previously known as Perch, announced that it has raised $36 million. The company solves the problem that so-called “dual-trackers” face: selling their home while trying to buy one. It’s stressful and costs a lot of money. As Jordan Crook wrote in her story on the raise: “Orchard solves this by making an offer on buyers’ old houses that is guaranteed for 90 days. Orchard co-founder Court Cunningham says that more than 85% of those homes sell at a market price before the 90-day period.” Jordan Crook her story Image via Getty Images / Feng Yu Image via Getty Images / Feng Yu Lora DiCarlo’s return to CES Brian Heater had a chat with Lora DiCarlo CEO Lora Haddock about the sex tech company’s return to CES. But the interview wasn’t conducted at a table in a crowded press room in some random hotel. It was in a truck with a big, glass trailer. It’s Vegas, obviously, so why not? Brian Heater As Brian put it: Driving down the Las Vegas Strip in a transparent box is a curious, extremely Vegas experience: puzzled tourists and confused CES attendees gawk from the sidewalks. Four of us are sitting in a makeshift living room with fuzzy white carpet: CEO Lora Haddock, Enzo Ferrari Drift DiCarlo (her fuzzy black-and-white Pomeranian), and a colleague, who holds Enzo in their lap. A four-foot-tall faux sex toy sits in a corner, swaying occasionally. Last year, you might recall, the consumer tech show awarded Lora DiCarlo with an innovation award, but then took it back. They also banned the company from the show floor, stating it didn’t fit into a product category. Months later, they scored some funding and got an apology from the CES show runners. took it back Months later Read the interview on Extra Crunch. Read the interview on Extra Crunch SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 03: Lora DiCarlo Founder & CEO Lora Haddock speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 at Moscone Convention Center on October 03, 2019 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch) SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 03: Lora DiCarlo Founder & CEO Lora Haddock speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 at Moscone Convention Center on October 03, 2019 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch) Around the horn Sisense gets $100M at a $1B valuation for accessible big data analytics Lily AI raises a $12.5M Series A to accelerate its e-commerce recommendation tech A venture firm that invests ‘from Park City to Kansas City’ just closed its third fund This startup just raised $7M, led by Google, to authenticate people based on their typing style MasterClass co-founder’s new educational startup, Outlier, raises $11.7M Twitter co-founder Biz Stone backs tutoring platform Scoodle Just Spices, the German spice mix startup, raises €13M Series B Union Square Ventures leads legal tech startup Juro’s $5M Series A Midnite raises $2.5M for its esports betting platform Extra Crunch Over on Extra Crunch we published a bunch of great stuff this week, including stories about Ring and its evolving stance on security and privacy, how gig economy companies are trying to keep workers classified as independent contractors, and whether online privacy will make a comeback this year. Here are a few more: Layoffs at Lime and Getaround herald rise of profit-hungry unicorns An interview with Sisense CEO Amir Orad after the company’s $100M raise How some founders are raising capital outside of the VC world How startups fill the gap between revenue and investment Tech layoffs rise as cost-cutting comes into vogue Head here if you aren’t a subscriber yet for a super-discounted first month. here #EquityPod Alex Wilhelm was back on the mic this week with Danny Crichton, TechCrunch’s managing editor. Their docket included news of Lily AI’s $12.5 million Series A, Insight’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Armis Security, a round for a self-driving forklift startup called Vecna and SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Listen to the episode here, and if you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do that here. here here But that’s not the only Equity news I have for you. Alex wants to help you all get started each week with Equity Mondays. In his own words: The Equity crew will put together a short, zero-bullshit episode designed to get your week started. What news did you miss over the weekend? What recent venture rounds do you need to know about? What’s ahead in the coming week? And what’s on our minds? That’s what Equity Monday will bring you each and every morning in about seven minutes. The good news is it’ll show up in the Equity feed you already know and love. Have a listen to the first Monday edition here. here Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:40:16 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUARcanBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f12%2fstartups-weekly-in-a-crowded-field-of-unicorns-classpass-becomes-another-unicorn%2f/RK=2/RS=LKDI9vvJrE0apstuQH.qJTafHog- -Save over $200 with discounted student tickets to Robotics + AI 2020 January 15, 2020 If you’re a current student and you love robots — and the AI that drives them — you do not want to miss out on TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020. Our day-long deep dive into these two life-altering technologies takes place on March 3 at UC Berkeley and features the best and brightest minds, makers and influencers. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 We’ve set aside a limited number of deeply discounted tickets for students because, let’s face it, the future of robotics and AI can’t happen without cultivating the next generation. Tickets cost $50, which means you save more than $200. Reserve your student ticket now. Reserve your student ticket now Not a student? No problem, we have a savings deal for you, too. If you register now, you’ll save $150 when you book an early-bird ticket by January 31. register now More than 1,000 robotics and AI enthusiasts, experts and visionaries attended last year’s event, and we expect even more this year. Talk about a targeted audience and the perfect place for students to network for an internship, employment or even a future co-founder. What can you expect this year? For starters, we have an outstanding lineup of speaker and demos — more than 20 presentations — on tap. Let’s take a quick look at just some of the offerings you don’t want to miss: That’s just a sample — take a gander at the event agenda to help you plan your time accordingly. We’ll add even more speakers in the coming weeks, so keep checking back. take a gander at the event agenda TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place on March 3 at UC Berkeley. It’s a full day focused on exploring the future of robotics and a great opportunity for students to connect with leading technologists, founders, researchers and investors. Join us in Berkeley. Buy your student ticket today and get ready to build the future. TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 Buy your student ticket today Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:40:28 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7JQNMzde1BUAR8anBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704653/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f15%2fsave-over-200-with-discounted-student-tickets-to-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=HtTH0lWIwQzxHlCBP3Z_QkGHzcA- -Equity Monday: Away's CEO plans comeback while SaaS valuations rise and epiFI raises January 13, 2020 Good morning friends, and welcome back to TechCrunch’s Equity Monday, a short-form audio hit to kickstart your week. Regular Equity episodes still drop Friday morning, so if you’ve listened to the show over the years don’t worry — we’re not changing the main show. (Here’s last week’s episode with Danny Crichton, which was a lot of fun.) TechCrunch’s Equity Monday last week’s episode Danny Crichton What was on our minds this morning? Brian Heater’s CES overview of sleeptech from the weekend, which made the argument that not all gadgets are bad for our sleep, even if there is some irony in using tech to help cure our tech-addled brains. Here’s to something a bit more substantial than blackout shades. Brian Heater’s CES overview of sleeptech Also, Facebook closed out last week after setting some record valuations — so much for the techlash — and Casper’s IPO filing landed to much impact just as everyone was trying to get away from their desks and onto their couches. Facebook and Casper’s IPO filing Looking at the coming week, earnings season is upon us, but not quite yet for companies that we care about, the recently public tech and venture-backed firms of the world. There are some big names that are reporting this month, but over the next five days expect things to be a bit quiet. Pending news, of course. And in terms of the Twitter forecast, with the CEO of Away coming back to her company as early as today, expect your timeline to feature one topic in particular. Can you guess what it is? CEO of Away coming back to her company This morning we also took a look at two funding rounds: TechCrunch Crunchbase News And we wrapped with notes on the Casper IPO filing, and why it’s attracting so much commentary, and criticism. Hit play, and let’s get this week started! Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:40:42 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1.EPMzdejOYAluynBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704655/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f13%2fequity-monday-aways-ceo-plans-comeback-while-saas-valuations-rise-and-epifi-raises%2f/RK=2/RS=ijLZv439AH61T.eZyZRmaX2Up6Y- -Going fast: Buy a demo table at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020 January 8, 2020 Startup founders, set your sites on TC Sessions: Robotics+AI, which takes place on March 3, 2020. This annual day-long event draws the brightest minds and makers from these two industries — 1,500 attendees last year alone. And if you really want to make 2020 a game-changing year, grab yourself a demo table and showcase your early-stage robotics or AI startup in front of those big names and serious influencers. TC Sessions: Robotics+AI Simply purchase an Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package — the price includes four tickets to the event, so bring your crew, flex your networking mojo and take in some of the many discussions throughout the day. Get yours before they’re gone — only eight left. Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package The day’s programming covers a wide range of crucial issues focused on robotics and AI. TC editors conduct in-depth interviews and moderate panel discussions and Q&As with the industries’ leading minds, makers, technologists, researchers and investors. You’ll enjoy workshops, demos and plenty of networking opportunities. We’re talking topics that appeal to every hungry startup founder. Like a panel discussion on investing featuring Eric Migicovsky, Kelly Chen and Dror Berman — all top VCs in robotics and AI. featuring Eric Migicovsky, Kelly Chen and Dror Berman These folks have their fingers on the pulse of robotics, AI and automation. They’ll be on hand to share insights on future industry trends, talk about the most compelling startups and what they look for when it comes to funding. We’ll be sharing details and the names of plenty more speakers in the coming weeks, so keep checking back. You can always check out last year’s program to get a sense of what to expect. check out last year’s program Did you know we have a new twist to this year’s Session? It’s a pitch competition — Pitch Night. It takes place the night before, it doesn’t cost a thing and it’s open to founders of early-stage startups focused on robotics and AI. There’s only one small hoop to jump through: apply here by February 1. Pitch Night apply here by February 1 TC Sessions: Robotics+AI takes place on March 3, 2020 at UC Berkeley. Buy your Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package today, and come impress the top technologists, makers, thinkers, researchers and investors. Make 2020 your game-changing year. TC Sessions: Robotics+AI Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form. filling out this form Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:40:56 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1.EPMzdejOYAmOynBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704655/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f08%2fgoing-fast-buy-a-demo-table-at-tc-sessions-robotics-ai-2020%2f/RK=2/RS=iEjzaOQPa17TTBxQPhDuMqja7cQ- -Say hello to Equity Mondays, the newest podcast from TechCrunch January 6, 2020 Hello TechCrunch readers and Equity listeners alike. This morning we have something new for you that Chris and I are excited about: We’re doubling the pace that we bring Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, to your phone or computer. Chris I Equity Starting this morning and continuing on Monday mornings moving forward, the Equity crew will put together a short, zero-bullshit episode designed to get your week started. What news did you miss over the weekend? What recent venture rounds do you need to know about? What’s ahead in the coming week? And what’s on our minds? That’s what Equity Monday will bring you each and every morning in about seven minutes. We will continue to release the Equity that you know every Friday, with new and familiar hosts. We are excited about 2020 and all things that Equity has coming. Sound good? Let’s talk about what’s going on right now. Hello, Monday The markets are a mess this morning, unsurprising given rising global geopolitical tension and rising energy prices. But inside the world of technology there were warning signs of other sorts. Wired’s latest look at on-demand buses caught our eye, especially in light of what the failure of some pilot tests could mean for ride-hailing giants. And Instagram’s slowing growth looks like a bummer for Facebook, even if you could construe the news as a shot in the arm for tech startups looking to break into the social media space. latest look at on-demand buses slowing growth Looking ahead, it’s CES this week, meaning that half the reporters you know are trapped in Las Vegas, slowly turning into walking plague victims, while the other half are gloating from home that they didn’t have to go. TechCrunch has a great look back at CES history, and The Verge did good work here looking at what to expect from tech companies at the show. has a great look back at CES history The Verge did good work here Three funding rounds caught our eye this morning: TypingDNA’s Callisto Gaming’s Craft.do’s Wrapping things up we had questions about One Medical’s impending IPO. Mostly relating, if we’re being fair, to what the company is really worth. We’re back to the question of what a tech company is, and maybe isn’t. One Medical’s We’re off to get that post done so hit play, catch up and we’ll be back on Friday with Equity as it always has been. Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:41:10 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1.EPMzdejOYAnOynBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704655/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f06%2fsay-hello-to-equity-mondays-the-newest-podcast-from-techcrunch%2f/RK=2/RS=UvWHOY8foRR3vC4NoHcQLlMOhq8- -Software and the war against complexity January 5, 2020 Look around: what is happening? Australia, AI, Ghosn, Google, Suleimani, Starlink, Trump, TikTok. The world is an eruptive flux of frequently toxic emergent behavior, and every unexpected event is laced with subtle interconnected nuances. Stephen Hawking predicted this would be “the century of complexity.” He was talking about theoretical physics, but he was dead right about technology, societies, and geopolitics too. Google, Stephen Hawking the century of complexity Let’s try to define terms. How can we measure complexity? Seth Lloyd of MIT, in a paper which drily begins “The world has grown more complex recently, and the number of ways of measuring complexity has grown even faster,” proposed three key categories: difficulty of description, difficulty of creation, and degree of organization. Using those three criteria, it seems apparent at a glance that both our societies and our technologies are far more complex than they ever have been, and rapidly growing even moreso. paper The thing is, complexity is the enemy. Ask any engineer … especially a security engineer. Ask the ghost of Steve Jobs . Adding complexity to solve a problem may bring a short-term benefit, but it invariably comes with an ever-accumulating long-term cost. Any human mind can only encompass so much complexity before it gives up and starts making slashing oversimplifications with an accompanying risk of terrible mistakes. Steve Jobs You may have noted that those human minds empowered to make major decisions are often those least suited to grappling with nuanced complexity. This itself is arguably a lingering effect of growing complexity. Even the simple concept of democracy has grown highly complex — party registration, primaries, fundraising, misinformation, gerrymandering, voter rolls, hanging chads, voting machines — and mapping a single vote for a representative to dozens if not hundreds of complex issues is impossible, even if you’re willing to consider all those issues in depth, which most people aren’t. Complexity theory is a rich field, but it’s unclear how it can help with ordinary people trying to make sense of their world. In practice, people deal with complexity by coming up with simplified models close enough to the complex reality to be workable. These models can be dangerous — “everyone just needs to learn to code,” “software does the same thing every time it is run,” “democracies are benevolent” — but they were useful enough to make fitful progress. Complexity theory In software, we at least recognize this as a problem. We pay lip service to the glories of erasing code, of simplifying functions, of eliminating side effects and state, of deprecating complex APIs, of attempting to scythe back the growing thickets of complexity. We call complexity “technical debt” and realize that at least in principle it needs to be paid down someday. “Globalization should be conceptualized as a series of adapting and co-evolving global systems, each characterized by unpredictability, irreversibility and co-evolution. Such systems lack finalized ‘equilibrium’ or ‘order’; and the many pools of order heighten overall disorder,” to quote the late John Urry. Interestingly, software could be viewed that way as well, interpreting, say, “the Internet” and “browsers” and “operating systems” and “machine learning” as global software systems. quote Software is also something of a best possible case for making complex things simpler. It is rapidly distributed worldwide. It is relatively devoid of emotional or political axegrinding. (I know, I know. I said “relatively.”) There are reasonably objective measures of performance and simplicity. And we’re all at least theoretically incentivized to simplify it. So if we can make software simpler — both its tools and dependencies, and its actual end products — then that suggests we have at least some hope of keeping the world simple enough such that crude mental models will continue to be vaguely useful. Conversely, if we can’t, then it seems likely that our reality will just keep growing more complex and unpredictable, and we will increasingly live in a world of whole flocks of black swans. I’m not sure whether to be optimistic or not. My mental model, it seems, is failing me. Minds Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:41:22 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE1.EPMzdejOYAoOynBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580704655/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f05%2fsoftware-and-the-war-against-complexity%2f/RK=2/RS=Hlq45Nmr2zkQRkDWobc2TumsqdQ- -After sale to Ford, Spin charges ahead with plans to scale up January 29, 2020 Electric scooter startup Spin was long considered to be a bit of an underdog in the micromobility space. Before selling to Ford, Spin had raised just $8 million, while competitors Lime and Bird had raised hundreds of millions. Today, the former underdog is backed by one of the world’s largest transportation companies and has set its sights on becoming an industry leader that sets standards for both vehicles and labor practices. “We’ve gone from the scrappy upstart, the guy who was least-funded, the guys who kept to their principles and always deployed working with cities, who realized that there would be a chance for a long-term kind of business here,” Spin co-founder Euwyn Poon told TechCrunch. “Now, through the Ford acquisition, we can take an even longer-term view.” When Ford bought Spin in a deal worth about $100 million in November 2018, Spin employed just 24 people. Now, the company has a few hundred staffers across 70 markets. Spin’s blueprint for growth is what brought Ford to the table, Poon said. Spin in a deal worth about $100 million in November 2018 “The acquisition happened at a time when Bird and Lime had probably raised about $700 million each, so they were scaling out,” Poon said. “When Ford was looking to get into this space, instead of doing it themselves or acquiring a larger company, they found us as a great partner because we had these great principles and a big blueprint for scaling out. The capital injection they provided to us has put us in our path so, with the addition of Ford, we’ve been able to tap on their capital resources and have acquired a lot of expertise in the hardware side and a lot of expertise on the regulatory side as well.” decision blueprint Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:44:19 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geK.K9NDdevv0Ab0SnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580705085/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f29%2fa-look-at-spin-after-sale-to-ford%2f/RK=2/RS=p9HigK35sAmVVhUXqN17drAXhxc- -Snapchat launches Bitmoji TV: zany 4-min cartoons of your avatar January 30, 2020 If you were the star of every show, would you watch more mobile television? Snapchat is betting that narcissism drives resonance for its new weekly videos that put you and your friends’ customizable Bitmoji avatars into a flurry of silly animated situations. Bitmoji TV premieres on Saturday morning, and it’s remarkably funny, exciting and addictive. Think cartoon SNL on fast-forward, with you playing a secret agent, a zombie president or a Moonlympics athlete. premieres It’s a style of content only Snapchat could pull off that relies on ubiquitous personalized avatars only Snapchat owns. The company says 70% of its daily active users, or 147 million of its 210 million, have made themselves a Bitmoji. Snapchat bought Bitmoji’s parent company Bitstrips in 2016 for a steal at $62.5 million, and it’s paying off. Amidst a sea of premium video and haphazard Stories that blur together across streaming services and social apps, Snapchat finally found something Facebook can’t copy. Bitstrips “We really believe that we have invented a new category of entertainment. It’s scripted but it’s personalized. You could take that in a million directions,” says Bitmoji co-founder and CEO Ba Blackstock, who wrote and directed Bitmoji TV. “First and foremost, I hope that everyone who watches this has kind of a mind-blowing experience that they’ve never had before.” Bitmoji TV, which TechCrunch was first to report Snapchat was building last month, will have its own Snapchat Show page where users can subscribe to get notifications and see new episodes on the Discover Page. Users can visit this page on mobile or tap and hold on the Snapcode below while pointing at it with the Snapchat camera to open Bitmoji TV. Bitmoji TV, which TechCrunch was first to report visit this page The show is designed to be PG-13, with some bleeped out swearing and a little bloody violence. The shows are made out of Bitmoji’s Toronto office and are based on North American TV, film and advertising. Each episode cuts away and back to a main story, with the first two centered around an America’s Best Bitmoji game show and a Mime Cops hostage negotiation. Interspersed are “channel flips” between shorter single-gag clips that take your avatar into sit-coms, soap operas, action movies and infomercials. The gags are ridiculous. At the basketball “Moonlympics,” a player jumps up for a dunk, but low gravity causes him to crash through the glass dome and suck all the other players into space. At Cannibal High, an school announcement says “Attention students, we’re all deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Vice Principal Schneider. To honor his legacy, today the cafeteria will be serving Vice Principal Schneider.” You’re not alone it Bitmoji TV. There’ll be occasional celebrity guests like Randy Jackson, Andy Richter and Jon Lovitz. But your co-star in these segments is the Bitmoji of whichever person you last interacted with on Snapchat. That lets you control whether you want your best friend, your significant other or some rando alongside you. That decision will change the way you interpret the jokes and scenes. Your Bitmoji won’t talk, but their’s will. Getting philosophical, Blackstock explains that “When you say words to me, it’s not just your words in a vacuum. They’re coming from you. You’re the medium . . . In any narrative fiction you learn about the characters, they have a back story, they have relationships that exist under the story that color it.” Who you make your supporting actor lends personal subtext that enriches each story. That’s one reason you can’t download or easily share clips of your version of Bitmoji TV, and Snap instead just lets you share a link to watch the real thing. Blackstock says it just doesn’t have the same effect if you’re not in the spotlight. One thing you won’t find in Bitmoji TV, at least at first, are advertisements. The initial 10-episode season won’t have them. But that does seem to be the plan. When I asked Blackstock about monetizing the show, he said, “You can imagine. Discover has a business model of showing ads.” Since it make Bitmoji TV, Snapchat would get to keep that ad money rather than paying it out with revenue shares to partners or by buying content. Just as we’ve seen music and video streaming apps move to cut royalty expenses by creating content in-house, Snap seems to have the same idea. Snapchat has yet to monetize Bitmoji directly beyond its merchandise store where you can get yours on t-shirts and mugs. Surprisingly, it doesn’t sell premium or branded clothes and looks for Bitmoji, nor does it allow brands to pay to have their apparel featured. Snap did recently start letting people mix-and-match clothes for their Bitmoji, and when asked if that could foreshadow a revenue opportunity, Blackstock said, “You gotta build the store before you start selling the clothes . . . this was a foundational evolution designed to not only improve the experience for users but to set the stage for things to come.” You and your friends seeing your avatar’s fresh outfit on Bitmoji TV might make people care more about what their digital mini-mes wear. Having watched the first three episodes, I’m pretty certain Bitmoji TV is going to be a hit. The show embodies the whimsy of Snapchat and the youth culture of the community who uses it. It’s rare to see something so premium but so unabashedly kooky. It’s reminiscent of the Rick and Morty “Interdimensional Cable” episodes that similarly feature rapid-fire snippets of fake and absurd TV shows. Yet “the idea for Bitmoji TV actually precedes Bitmoji. It’s something I’ve been thinking about since those days [before Snapchat acquired it]. In a way it precedes Bitstrips. I’ve been making comics and cartoons since I was a little kid,” Blackstock tells me. “How I met two of the co-founders of Bitstrips was passing them comics in class. Even after school when we had jobs I would draw comics of my co-founder that were very compromising and I would fax them to his office to try to get him fired,” he recalls with a hearty laugh. Now he has the budget to make them TV-worthy, but just as crazy. Snapchat has a good hunch it’s going to work because it’s been testing a comic-stripped down version called Bitmoji Stories. These still or lightly animated slideshows use the same idea of starring the avatars of you and your friends, but without full-motion video or constant audio. Indeed, 130 million people have watched Bitmoji Stories since they launched in late 2018. Bitmoji Stories As Blackstock tells me, “They were easier to make at a high volume and release ongoingly, which we could put out as a prelude to get our audience ready for personalized content — but also for us to learn from and see how people responded and figure out our own processes in terms of production.” Snapchat had animators and engineers work hand in hand to build a rendering system for Bitmoji Stories and TV. That helps it rapidly produce the personalizable content that can flex to accommodate any shaped avatar without them clipping into their surroundings. Tonight, Bitmoji TV will receive an in-person “silent disco-style” premiere at Los Angeles’ Soho House. Guests will scan a code on the big screen, don headphones and each watch on their own phone with themselves as the star. Snapchat’s head of original content Sean Mills tells me that “New technology will unlock new kinds of storytelling,” citing “the power of bringing a user into the experience with their best friends.” Bitmoji TV has certainly found a way to turn vanity into engagement. It’s more compelling than the mediocre originals on Facebook Watch. And it’s technologically innovative, unlike the planned lineup for Quibi. If the modern era of visual communication began with the selfie, Snap honed it into a messaging tool. A few words were more interesting with a friend’s face behind it. The original Bitmoji chat stickers let your face say whatever you wanted even without having to get on camera. Snapchat’s new Cameo feature grafts your face into GIFs to express even more complex feelings. And now with Bitmoji TV, an animated version of your face can live out your wildest fantasies or weirdest dreams. That’s something worth tuning into. Snapchat’s new Cameo feature Snapchat Cameos edit your face into videos Snapchat Cameos edit your face into videos Digital Comics Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:47:38 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7FtrNTdeXUsAPwenBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580705260/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fbitmoji-tv%2f/RK=2/RS=2I8JeFI_UyWQfuwKtK9wb9soYXU- -NASA reveals the payloads for the first commercial Moon cargo deliveries January 23, 2020 NASA has finalized the payloads for its first cargo deliveries scheduled to be carried by commercial lunar landers, vehicles created by companies the agency selected to take part in its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. In total, there are 16 payloads, which consist of a number of different science experiments and technology experiments, that will be carried by landers built by Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines. Both of these landers are scheduled to launch next year, carrying their cargo to the Moon’s surface and helping prepare the way for NASA’s mission to return humans to the Moon by 2024. NASA Astrobotic’s Peregrine is set to launch aboard a rocket provided by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), while Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander will make its own lunar trip aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Both landers will carry two of the payloads on the list, including a Laser Retro-Reflector Array (LRA) that is basically a mirror-based precision location device for situating the lander itself; and a Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing (NDL) — a laser-based sensor that can provide precision navigation during descent and touchdown. Both of these payloads are being developed by NASA to ensure safe, controlled and specifically targeted landing of spacecraft on the Moon’s surface, and their use here is crucial in building robust lunar landing systems to support Artemis through the return of human astronauts to the Moon and beyond. SpaceX Besides those two payloads, everything else on either lander is unique to one vehicle or the other. Astrobotic is carrying more, but its Peregrine lander can hold more cargo — its payload capacity tops out at around 585 lbs, whereas the Nova-C can carry a maximum of 220 lbs. The full list of what each lander will have on board is available below, as detailed by NASA. detailed by NASA Overall, NASA has 14 contractors that could potentially provide lunar payload delivery services through its CLPS program. That basically amounts to a list of approved vendors, who then bid on whatever contracts the agency has available for this specific need. Other companies on the CLPS list include Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and more. Starting with these two landers next year, NASA hopes to fly around two missions per year each year through the CLPS program. CLPS list include Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and more Astrobotic Payloads Surface Exosphere Alterations by Landers Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations PROSPECT Ion-Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS) for Lunar Surface Volatiles Neutron Spectrometer System Neutron Measurements at the Lunar Surface Fluxgate Magnetometer Intuitive Machines Payloads Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies Magnetis Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:57:23 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKeWJNzdeWDcA0aanBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580705801/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f23%2fnasa-reveals-the-payloads-for-the-first-commercial-moon-cargo-deliveries%2f/RK=2/RS=nf851dPDyvnVAVeWwdrWFu_iv2M- -After delays, noise-adapting NuraLoop earbuds are coming soon and sound great January 11, 2020 A few buffet mistakes aside, NuraLoop proved the biggest disappointment of my 2019 CES. When the headphones showed up at the show as dummy units, it hurt my heart a little. The original Nuraphones made an appearance on my 2017 best of the year list, and the idea of a portable version I could take on long flights seemed almost too good to be true. biggest disappointment And for a full year, it was exactly that. Understandably, the Australian startup ran into a few roadblocks attempting to bring the product to market. It’s still a young company, even though its first-gen product went over remarkably well. The noise-adapting headphones were extremely well-thought-out, right down to the package. The hangup for their portable, in-ear counterparts is pretty surprising, to be honest. For much of the year, Nura just couldn’t crack the code of the cable, of all things. It’s a doubly odd sticking point, given how many of its competitors have ditched the cabling altogether. It should be noted upfront, however, that the decision to keep things tethered is more pragmatic than aesthetic (honestly, it wouldn’t have been choice from a design standpoint). Nura As CEO Dragan Petrovic mentioned in a briefing at the show this week, the customer base for the original over-ears includes a pretty strong base of professional musicians. The cable includes a magnetic adapter for an analog headphone jack, so they can be used on stage monitors. There are a number of other times that still require cables — I’m writing this on a plane, for example. What am I supposed to do, just stare at Gemini Man? There are other benefits, including a stated 16+ hours of battery life without requiring a charging case. Also, you can wear them around your neck while not in use, if that’s a thing you like to do. It’s never fun to have to delay a product, of course. In the year between CESes, Apple launched the AirPods Pro. The devices are two distinctly different approaches to the category, but Apple’s product does edge into NuraLoop’s territory, with a built-in fit check and great noise canceling. Again, different products with different audiences, but one has to wonder how many folks waiting for the NuraLoop pulled the trigger on the new AirPods, instead. I’m happy to report that the sound quality on the NuraLoop is still extremely excellent. Sure, you lose the over-ear immersive bass effect without the ear cups, but the customized sound profile is still firmly intact. The calibration is more or less the same, and when you’re done, you can swap between profiles to see how big a difference the customization makes (hint: it’s big). The headphones are a bit on the bulky side. I’m definitely going to go exercise with them as soon as I get a review pair to see how well they stay put. The control scheme is clever — a touch well on the outside of each ear that perform a variety of different functions. The year-long wait was less than ideal, but if you held out, you’ll probably find them worth it. NuraLoop is another excellent product from the small Australian startup, which has managed to distinguish itself well in an overly crowded category. They run $200 and will start shipping in March. Magnetis Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:57:34 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKeWJNzdeWDcA2KanBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580705801/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f11%2fafter-delays-noise-adapting-nuraloop-earbuds-are-coming-soon-and-sound-great%2f/RK=2/RS=BzCr6P.hIPA0qpZ9A2RALYEFM9I- -The ThinkPad X1 Fold is Lenovo’s first foldable screen PC January 6, 2020 I know, I know. Laptops fold. Convertibles fold. I get it, you’re being pedantic. So let’s just move past all of that and talk about this funky new thing from Lenovo. The company just announced the ThinkPad X1 Fold — the delivery of the device it teased back in May of last year. The product is probably best described as the lovechild of a foldable phone and a laptop. You’ve got to hand it to Lenovo — while it’s true not every device is a runaway success, the company is more than happy to experiment with interesting concepts in between more straight-laced office-minded offerings. More than anything, the X1 Fold is the latest in a long line of convertible form factors attempting to bring the best of tablets and laptops to a single form factor. Maybe there’s a seed of an idea here. We’ll see the thing in person, soon, but if early foldable phones are any indication, it could be a bit rough going at first. That said, Lenovo’s new Motorola Razr might be the closest of all to sticking the landing. The laptop has a 13.3-inch display when unfolded, making it fairly compact. There’s also a magnetic Bluetooth keyboard that can sit on the bottom half of the screen for a full laptop effect, or be detached to be used with the fully unfolded screen (the $24 stand is not included). When the system’s not in use, it sits in the middle, charging wirelessly. I’m not sure how practical any of this is until I get a chance to try it out, but honestly, it’s pretty cool. The screen is pOLED, manufactured by LG. Lenovo says the durability tests have been “extensive,” though if past is prologue, sometimes some real-world testing is required to really put a system through its paces. The folding mechanism is reinforced with a carbon fiber plate. The Fold is expected to drop at some point in the middle of the year, priced at around $2,499, with Windows 10. There’s a Windows 10X version that will be available down the road, as well. Magnetis Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 17:57:45 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geK.OPNzdePOkAQgunBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580705808/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f06%2fthe-thinkpad-x1-fold-is-lenovos-first-foldable-screen-pc%2f/RK=2/RS=ljdXCF3nXz18c5oQ_IL89JPPQQ8- -Google's latest user-hostile design change makes ads and search results look identical January 23, 2020 Did you notice a recent change to how Google search results are displayed on the desktop? Google I noticed something last week — thinking there must be some kind of weird bug messing up the browser’s page rendering because suddenly everything looked similar: A homogenous sea of blue text links and favicons that, on such a large expanse of screen, come across as one block of background noise. I found myself clicking on an ad link — rather than the organic search result I was looking for. Here, for example, are the top two results for a Google search for flight search engine ‘Kayak’ — with just a tiny ‘Ad’ label to distinguish the click that will make Google money from the click that won’t… Turns out this is Google’s latest dark pattern: The adtech giant has made organic results even more closely resemble the ads it serves against keyword searches, as writer Craig Mod was quick to highlight in a tweet this week. dark pattern tweet Last week, in its own breezy tweet, Google sought to spin the shift as quite the opposite — saying the “new look” presents “site domain names and brand icons prominently, along with a bolded ‘Ad’ label for ads”: tweet But Google’s explainer is almost a dark pattern in itself. If you read the text quickly you’d likely come away with the impression that it has made organic search results easier to spot since it’s claiming components of these results now appear more “prominently” in results. Yet, read it again, and Google is essentially admitting that a parallel emphasis is being placed — one which, when you actually look at the thing, has the effect of flattening the visual distinction between organic search results (which consumers are looking for) and ads (which Google monetizes). Another eagle-eyed user Twitter, going by the name Luca Masters, chipped into the discussion generated by Mod’s tweet — to point out that the tech giant is “finally coming at this from the other direction”. point out ‘This’ being deceptive changes to ad labelling; and ‘other direction’ being a reference to how now it’s organic search results being visually tweaked to shrink their difference vs ads. Google previously laid the groundwork for this latest visual trickery by spending earlier years amending the look of ads to bring them closer in line with the steadfast, cleaner appearance of genuine search results. Except now it’s fiddling with those too. Hence ‘other direction’. Masters helpfully quote-tweeted this vintage tweet (from 2016), by journalist Ginny Marvin — which presents a visual history of Google ad labelling in search results that’s aptly titled “color fade”; a reference to the gradual demise of the color-shaded box Google used to apply to clearly distinguish ads in search results. vintage tweet Those days are long gone now, though. Now a user of Google’s search engine has — essentially — only a favicon between them and an unintended ad click. Squint or you’ll click it. This visual trickery may be fractionally less confusing in a small screen mobile environment — where Google debuted the change last year. But on a desktop screen these favicons are truly minuscule. And where to click to get actual information starts to feel like a total lottery. last year A lottery that’s being stacked in Google’s favor because confused users are likely to end up clicking more ad links than they otherwise would, meaning it cashes in at the expense of web users’ time and energy. Back in May, when Google pushed this change on mobile users, it touted the tweaks as a way for sites to showcase their own branding, instead of looking like every other blue link on a search result page. But it did so while simultaneously erasing a box-out that it had previously displayed around the label ‘Ad’ to make it stand out. That made it “harder to differentiate ads and search results,” as we wrote then — predicting it will “likely lead to outcry”. There were certainly complaints. And there will likely be more now — given the visual flattening of the gap between ad clicks and organic links looks even more confusing for users of Google search on desktop. (Albeit, the slow drip of design change updates also works against mass user outcry.) Google’s new look for mobile search results puts site owners and publishers first Google’s new look for mobile search results puts site owners and publishers first We reached out to Google to ask for a response to the latest criticism that the new design for search results makes it almost impossible to distinguish between organic results and ads. But the company ignored repeat requests for comment. Of course it’s true that plenty of UX design changes face backlash, especially early on. Change in the digital realm is rarely instantly popular. It’s usually more ‘slow burn’ acceptance. But there’s no consumer-friendly logic to this one. (And the slow burn going on here involves the user being cast in the role of the metaphorical frog.) Instead, Google is just making it harder for web users to click on the page they’re actually looking for — because, from a revenue-generating perspective, it prefers them to click an ad. It’s the visual equivalent of a supermarket putting a similarly packaged own-brand right next to some fancy branded shampoo on the shelf — in the hopes a rushed shopper will pluck the wrong one. (Real life dark patterns are indeed a thing.) It’s also a handy illustration of quite how far away from the user Google’s priorities have shifted, and continue to drift. “When Google introduced ads, they were clearly marked with a label and a brightly tinted box,” said UX specialist Harry Brignull. “This was in stark contrast to all the other search engines at the time, who were trying to blend paid listings in amongst the organic ones, in an effort to drive clicks and revenue. In those days, Google came across as the most honest search engine on the planet.” Brignull is well qualified to comment on dark patterns — having been calling out deceptive design since 2010 when he founded darkpatterns.org. darkpatterns.org “I first learned about Google in the late 1990s. In those days you learned about the web by reading print magazines, which is charmingly quaint to look back on. I picked up a copy of Wired Magazine and there it was – a sidebar talking about a new search engine called ‘Google’,” he recalled. “Google was amazing. In an era of portals, flash banners and link directories, it went in the opposite direction. It didn’t care about the daft games the other search engines were playing. It didn’t even seem to acknowledge they existed. It didn’t even seem to want to be a business. It was a feat of engineering, and it felt like a public utility. “The original Google homepage was recognised a guiding light of purism in digital design. Search was provided by an unstyled text field and button. There was nothing else on the homepage. Just the logo. Search results were near-instant and they were just a page of links and summaries – perfection with nothing to add or take away. The back-propagation algorithm they introduced had never been used to index the web before, and it instantly left the competition in the dust. It was proof that engineers could disrupt the rules of the web without needing any suit-wearing executives. Strip out all the crap. Do one thing and do it well.” “As Google’s ambitions changed, the tinted box started to fade. It’s completely gone now,” Brignull added. The one thing Google very clearly wants to do well now is serve more ads. It’s chosen to do that deceptively, by steadily — and consistently — degrading the user experience. So a far cry from “public utility”. And that user-friendly Google of old? Yep, also completely gone. LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:01:17 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7Fp2ODdesF0AYdOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706038/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f23%2fsquint-and-youll-click-it%2f/RK=2/RS=1c_Ocj3Uiv9qZdq1nVGuDPf.Gs4- -Quibi's Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman offer a deeper look at the new streaming service January 8, 2020 Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman took the stage this morning at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to offer a deeper look into the technology behind the soon-to-launch mobile streaming service. Quibi The company had already revealed much about its intentions with Quibi, including how it’s the first streaming service designed exclusively for mobile devices, not the living room TV. Quibi But until today’s keynote — and briefings with reporters yesterday — what Quibi hadn’t yet discussed in detail was the underlying, patent-pending technology that takes advantage of mobile devices to push forward a new form of storytelling. Specifically, Quibi is using a new engineering technology it’s calling “Turnstyle,” which allows the viewer to move between portrait mode viewing and landscape viewing, seamlessly — and without any black bars to fill the rest of the screen when switching to landscape video. This technology, when demoed, worked very well. The shift from portrait to landscape and back again was smooth and fast — an almost imperceptible transition. And the video in either orientation was crisp, clear and high-def, thanks to the high production values of Quibi’s commissioned projects. The end result is something that, though watched on a phone, wouldn’t ever be confused with user-gen services like YouTube or TikTok. “[YouTube] is the most ubiquitous, democratized, incredibly creative platform,” Whitman told me. “But they make content for hundreds of dollars a minute. We make it for $100,000 a minute. It’s a whole different level — it’s Hollywood-quality content.” On Quibi, there are three tiers of content — unscripted shows, movies delivered in short chapters and “Daily Essentials.” On the unscripted side, you’ll find documentaries and docu-series, as well as other shows about food, fashion, travel, animals, cars, comedy, sports and more. Daily Essentials, meanwhile, deliver the day’s news and information — including also weather, sports and horoscopes — in five to six-minute “quick bites.” While these two categories could potentially be delivered on other video platforms, Quibi’s riskier bet is on movies told in chapters. That is, instead of releasing a two-hour film as a single, long video to consume, Quibi movies are told in seven to 10-minute segments. In year one, 35 of Quibi’s total 175 shows will be movies. Every day, Quibi will deliver one episode of its movies told in chapters, plus five episodes of its episodic and unscripted series and 25 daily essentials. Combined, that’s more than three hours of premium, original content per day. “If you think about network television, and how much they produce for prime time, it’s 35% more than network TV does Monday through Friday,” Quibi CEO Meg Whitman said. Meg Whitman The service plans to launch with eight movies, and will then release a new movie every other Monday, she noted. But even if you don’t tune in on release day, the content will remain available so you can binge through what you’ve missed. This idea of shorter-form storytelling is something Katzenberg — a former Hollywood executive best known for his time as chairman of Walt Disney Studios, and for being the “K” in Dreamworks SKG — has been thinking about for decades, he said. Since 1999, in fact. “I started a little company with [Steven] Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer called Pop.com. It lasted about 12 minutes,” he explained, referring to a Quibi precursor that was likely before its time. a Quibi precursor that was likely before its time “I’ve been a storyteller my whole life. That’s the thing that got me the most interested and excited,” he continued. “And I think what you’ll see is that every great innovation that has happened in Hollywood has actually been driven by a new technology.” With Quibi’s support for full-screen, high-quality portrait-mode viewing, the service can cater to an on-the-go user base — a user base that often fills spare minutes on social networks or messaging. But turning the phone is only one way that Quibi will leverage mobile. Spielberg’s Quibi show “After Dark,” for example, will use viewers’ locations to determine what time they can watch the show — it will only be allowed after sunset. In the future, Quibi’s filmmakers could tap into other mobile sensors and smartphone features, like the GPS or the haptics to make the phone vibrate. They could tell stories through the phone’s messaging system or even have your phone ring as part of a story. An exercise-themed show could tap into the phone’s pedometer for an interactive experience. Turnstyle, in other words, is just step one. But what Quibi can’t know yet is how users will respond to these sorts of interactions. Will they find them clever, or gimmicky? Will they aid the storytelling experience or ultimately get in the way? And while Quibi wants to bring back the “watercooler” experience of weekly shows, it also doesn’t know if users growing up in the Netflix era will actually watch shows on the release schedule it intends, or save them to binge in longer stretches of time — perhaps even casting them to the TV via Chromecast or Airplay, which Quibi will support. Despite an overabundance of streaming services, Quibi has attracted big-name talent to help kick off its first year, including Academy Award winners Steven Spielberg, Peter Farrelly and Guillermo del Toro; directors like Antoine Fuqua, Lena Waithe, Sam Raimi and Catherine Hardwicke; and stars like Stephan James, Chrissy Tiegen, Laurence Fishburne, Dave Franco, Bill Murray, Emily Mortimer and Kevin Hart, to name a few. Quibi isn’t opposed to working with younger creators or even YouTubers, but Katzenberg notes that Quibi won’t be making YouTube shows, but rather Hollywood-style programming. “If there are good actors and good talent on YouTube who can transition to that, then we’re happy to have them,” he says of the YouTuber crowd. “But it’s highly differentiated…we’re not trying to do a high-end version of what they’re doing. We’re actually trying to bring the ecosystem of broadcast, cable, streaming, television and television storytelling and bringing that to this world,” he notes. Quibi officially debuts on April 6, 2020 and will cost $4.99 per month with ads or $7.99 per month without ads. Interested users can sign up to be Quibi Insiders on the service’s homepage, in order to get exclusive looks at new shows and the first news of product updates. can sign up to be Quibi Insiders Update: During the presentation, Katzenberg, Whitman and other Quibi executives tried to paint the service as something that sits at the intersection of creativity and technology, and between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Whitman described Quibi as “the very first entertainment technology platform optimized for mobile viewing,” adding that, “We needed to make space for creators and engineers to be in the same conversation.” For one thing, the creators needed to make movies and shows that were viewable in both landscape and portrait mode. CTO Rob Post said the directors and showrunners are actually delivering two edits, one in each orientation, and then Quibi stitches and encodes them together into a single experience, allowing viewers to swap seamlessly. And Conrad said that when creators started to experiment with Turnstyle, they came up with innovative approaches like the one found in the short film “Nest” and its follow-up Quibi show “Wireless” — where landscape mode features a traditionally-shot thriller, then switching to portrait mode will show you what the main character is seeing on their phone. The keynote also featured a number of Quibi partners, including Google Cloud (Quibi is using Google’s infrastructure for content delivery) and T-Mobile, which will be bundling Quibi as part of its services (although they didn’t offer specifics). Google and T-Mobile are also among the companies who have supposedly bought out the service’s first year of ad inventory, worth $150 million. bought out the service’s first year of ad inventory, “Quibi is the next big thing,” declared T-Mobile’s incoming CEO Mike Sievert. T-Mobile’s incoming CEO LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:01:34 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7Fp2ODdesF0AY9OnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706038/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f08%2fquibi-ces%2f/RK=2/RS=jqrfQDkjxYQmu_ntxRyEJljPbKY- -Unicorn fever as One Medical's IPO pops 40% after conservative pricing January 31, 2020 Shares of One Medical are worth $19.50 this morning after the venture-backed unicorn priced its IPO at $14 per share last night. The company opened at $18 before rising further, according to Yahoo Finance data. At its current price, One Medical is worth about 40% more than its IPO price, a strong debut for the company. priced its IPO at $14 per share last night to Yahoo Finance The result is a boon for One Medical, which raised $532.1 million during its time as a private company. At $14 per share, the company was worth $1.71 billion. At 19.50, One Medical is worth $2.38 billion, a winning result for a company said to be worth around $1.5 billion as a private company. raised $532.1 million For investors The Carlyle Group, J.P. Morgan, Redmile Group, GV and Benchmark (among others), the debut is a success, pricing their stakes in the company higher once again. For other unicorns, the news is even better. One Medical, a company with gross margins under the 50% mark, deeply minority recurring revenue and 30% revenue growth in 2019 at best is now worth about 8.5x its trailing revenues. That is about as good a signal as one could imagine for venture-backed companies that aren’t in as good shape as Slack or Zoom were letting them know that now is the time to go public. as Slack or Zoom were Unicorn directions It’s possible to read One Medical’s new revenue multiple in a few ways. You can be positive, saying that its valuation and resulting metrics are signs of investor optimism for the medical service company. Or you could go negative and assume that its pricing looks like a case of the market being more excited about a brand than a set of accounting results. LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:01:43 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7Fp2ODdesF0AadOnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706038/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f31%2fone-medicals-ipo-pops-40-after-conservative-pricing-in-boon-to-unicorn-liquidity%2f/RK=2/RS=Y3CNZrPorIU0LqVgLEtZ2jqMcJc- -First thoughts on One Medical's IPO pricing January 31, 2020 Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re digging into One Medical’s IPO pricing, especially as it relates to the company’s valuation and resulting revenue multiples. Our goal this morning is to understand how the IPO process priced One Medical last night, and what its resulting value could mean for other tech-enabled companies. One Medical’s One Medical, a popular and modern medical provider, is a venture-backed company now worth $14 per share, or about $1.7 billion. Is that a lot? Or do those metrics fit well next to its fundamentals? Let’s find out. Pricing LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:01:51 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrJ7Fp2ODdesF0Aa9OnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706038/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f31%2ffirst-thoughts-on-one-medicals-ipo-pricing%2f/RK=2/RS=CY8bfxaWBAgWq6uuO1YAfigy6gY- -Being a child actress prepared me for a career in venture capital January 30, 2020 Share on Twitter Anathem Ventures It takes guts to be a VC, but being a child actress prepared me well for the challenge. In addition to the serial rejection even the most successful actors experience in audition after audition, life on set isn’t always a picnic. When I was on “The Wonder Years,” we filmed an episode called “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” in which my character, Becky Slater, attempts to run over longtime foe Kevin Arnold with her bicycle. During a dress rehearsal, as I sped up on the ancient, too-tall 1960’s-era bike, my front wheel hit a thick sound cable that hadn’t been there during a prior run-through; I went over the handlebars and spent the evening in the emergency room. A few days later, barely off crutches, I was back on set and back on the bike. We filmed the scene, and the episode was one of the series’ most successful and memorable. No one has ever accused me of timidity. Many years later, armed with degrees from Yale and Harvard Law — plus years of experience advising companies as a lawyer and investing in them as a VC — I launched my own venture capital fund, Anathem Ventures. The grit and perseverance I first honed on studio soundstages serves me well, and these are also the qualities I look for in the founders I back. Anathem Ventures CEO/founder Crystal McKellar Anathem Ventures CEO/founder Crystal McKellar LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:02:00 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geK.F5ODdeuYQAOx2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706041/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fbeing-a-child-actress-prepared-me-for-a-career-in-venture-capital%2f/RK=2/RS=h_zcVwBXhkAcJKIitHjjdWUETrk- -IPO pricing for One Medical and Casper will set the tone for 2020's unicorn debuts January 30, 2020 Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. As One Medical looks to become the first venture-backed company to price its IPO in 2020 this afternoon and Casper aims to price its own shares next Wednesday, the market is gearing up for a pair of tests. One Medical looks to become Casper aims to price its own shares If you listen to the Nasdaq and the NYSE, IPO volume in 2020 will prove vibrant. A surprise, perhaps, in the wake of the WeWork meltdown that many had expected might reduce IPO cadence. One Medical and Casper, though, are charging ahead, meaning that their debuts will help set the tone for the 2020 IPO market. One Medical Casper, If they struggle with weak pricing and slow initial trading, their disappointing offerings could slow the IPO market. If they price well and are welcomed by the street, however, the opposite. Let’s take a look at how many IPOs are coming, what One Medical and Casper are hoping for and what their results might mean for unicorn liquidity. Don’t forget that we’re still living in the midst of a unicorn liquidity crisis — there are hundreds of private companies worth $1 billion or more around the world that need an exist, and the market is creating them faster than it can get them out the door. If IPOs stumble in 2020, lots just won’t make it out before the market turns. One Medical Casper the midst of a unicorn liquidity crisis An IPO crowd Yesterday, CNBC reported notes from Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman and NYSE President Stacey Cunningham, each speaking about their expected IPO cadence in 2020. Friedman said there are “lot of companies looking to tap the public markets in the first half,” implying a strong flow of potential debuts. CNBC reported Adena Friedman Stacey Cunningham LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:02:09 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geK.F5ODdeuYQAQx2nBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706041/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fipo-pricing-for-one-medical-and-casper-will-set-the-tone-for-2020s-unicorn-debuts%2f/RK=2/RS=mS26Enr91sJg.a5IOaWV2jjR1e8- -Mammoth Biosciences aims to be Illumina for the gene editing generation January 30, 2020 In 1998, the startup company Illumina launched a revolution in the life sciences industry by developing technology to slash the costs of identifying and mapping genetic material. Illumina Now, a little over 20 years later, Mammoth Biosciences is hoping to do the same thing for gene editing tools. Mammoth Biosciences The company, co-founded by Jennifer Doudna, who did some of the pioneering work to discover the gene editing enzyme known as CRISPR, has just raised $45 million as it looks to bring to market products that can be used not only for disease detection, but are more precise editing tools for genetic material. Rather than get bogged down in the patent dispute that raged over the provenance and ownership of applications for the original CRISPR enzyme — the Cas9 discovered by Doudna and developed for clinical applications at the Broad Institute — Mammoth has joined a number of startups in identifying new enzymes with a broader array of properties. get bogged down in the patent dispute “From the very beginning of the company we’ve only worked with novel new enzymes to create these diagnostic products and the new novel diagnostic and editing,” says Trevor Martin, Mammoth Biosciences co-founder and chief executive. Chiefly, the company is touting its Cas14 enzyme, which the company says opens up new possibilities for programmable biology thanks to its small size, diverse targeting ability and high fidelity — meaning that there are no unforeseen side effects to edits made using the enzyme (something that has arisen with Cas9 applications). “There’s not one protein that’s going to be the best at everything,” says Martin. “For any particular product that you’re building, at Mammoth, we have the broadest toolbox.” The Cas14 enzyme can be used to make gene edits in-vivo, meaning in live organisms, instead of ex-vivo, or outside of an organism. The in-vivo use-case could accelerate the time it takes to conduct experiments or develop treatments. “Twenty years from now, when the umpteenth drug gets approved using Crispr and some nuclease named Cas132013, people are going to look back on this patent battle and think, ‘what a godawful waste of money,’ ” Jacob Sherkow a patent law scholar at New York Law School told Wired back in 2018. Jacob Sherkow Already, Horizon Discovery, a Cambridge, U.K.-based gene editing technology developer, is using the new tools developed by Mammoth Bioscience to create new CRISPR tools for Chinese Hamster Ovary cell line editing. Horizon Discovery That partnership is an example of how Mammoth is thinking about the commercialization of the new Cas14 enzyme line and its role in biological engineering. “You will need a full toolbox of CRISPR proteins,” says Martin. “That will allow you to interact with biology in the same way that we interact with software and computers. “From first principles, companies will programmatically modify biology to cure a disease or decrease risk for a disease. That’s going to be really kind of a turning point.” To achieve its vision, Mammoth has managed to nab top talent from the life sciences industry, including Peter Nell, a co-founder of Casebia (a joint venture between Bayer and CRISPR Therapeutics), who came on board as chief business officer, and Ted Tisch, a former executive at Synthego and Bio-Rad, who joined the company as chief operating officer. Bayer CRISPR Therapeutics), The company also nabbed $45 million of funding, including investment firms Mayfield, NFX, Verily (the Alphabet subsidiary) and Brook Byers, which was led by Decheng Capital — bringing the company to more than $70 million in funding. “There are a dozen or so products that are in clinical development with CRISPR,” says Ursheet Parikh, a partner with Mayfield. “Maybe that number would go up by five or 10 without Mammoth, but it will go up by one or two orders of magnitude with Mammoth.” To Parikh, Mammoth is the best positioned of the CRISPR development tools, because the company is building a whole platform that customers can license and use to develop products using gene editing. The thinking, according to Parikh, is as follows, “if this technology can power lots of applications, let’s basically ensure that lots of these applications can come to market and as that happens I get my app store cut.” “It’s an Illumina-like business,” Parikh says. “Just as anybody who is innovating with genomics needs an Illumina sequencer because they want to be able to do the sequencing… if someone wants to do editing… This gives them the access to do the right sequencing.” LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:02:23 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE19h8ODde8TUA6BSnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706045/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f30%2fmammoth-biosciences-aims-to-be-illumina-for-the-gene-editing-generation%2f/RK=2/RS=V2.0SvlAIBLxEPJQrBcehhLhFL8- -Directly nabs $20M led by Samsung to help make customer service chatbots more intelligent, adds new... January 28, 2020 Chatbots have had a patchy track record in the world of tech, where early efforts not only failed to deliver on the magical idea of a computer producing the exact answers you were looking for in a chat-based Q&A, they even produced surprising (and not in a good way) results instead. Things have moved along, though, and today a startup that’s built a platform to help improve chatbots’ responses is announcing a round of funding from a key strategic investor, a sign of demand and evidence that its solution is working. failed not in a good way Directly — which has built a platform to help train companies’ chatbots by crowdsourcing experts and analysing chatbot usage to better “teach” the AI systems underpinning them — has raised $20 million in funding led by Samsung NEXT (Samsung’s VC arm), with participation also from Industry Ventures, AvidBank and existing investors M12 (Microsoft’s VC), Costanoa Ventures, True Ventures and Northgate. Directly Along with this, the company is announcing some executive news. Mike de la Cruz, who had been the company’s chief business officer and has held executive roles overseeing customer service products at SAP, HP Enterprise and elsewhere, is stepping up to be the new CEO. Antony Brydon, who co-founded the company with Jeff Patterson (currently head of product), is moving over from the CEO role to become head of platform, where he will focus on how and where to take Directly’s technology beyond its current market focus on chatbots built for customer service. Directly’s The idea is to hand over the focus on business growth to an expert, while giving a company founder the chance to help figure out how best to focus the company to forge into newer areas. “We are thrilled to have Mike at the helm of Directly,” Mark Selcow, partner at Costanoa Ventures, said in a statement. “He has driven record-setting growth for the company in 2019, and we look forward to the impact he’s going to have into 2020 and beyond.” Brydon and de la Cruz have known each other since college, which speaks to a long friendship and trust in each other, too — a good sign, in my opinion. The valuation is not being disclosed, except Brydon and de la Cruz, in a joint interview this week, confirmed to TechCrunch that it is north of $100 million. When this round was being raised, PitchBook data noted that the valuation was $110 million, which roughly lines up with that. noted They added that the idea is that this funding was opportunistic — Samsung is a customer, along with biggies like Microsoft (also a strategic investor), and Airbnb (not an investor!). The bigger plan is to raise a much larger Series C round in 2021 — which implies it has enough runway for at least the next year. Directly has emerged at a key time in the world of customer service, and in AI. Although call centres are still a fundamental cornerstone of how businesses interface with users, the rise of social media and messaging services has created an opportunity to complement and in some cases replace how those more traditional channels work. While in many cases human agents are still at the other end of those messaging-based, text-based conversations, sometimes you only might think they are; or when they really are, they are still using a lot of AI tools to help them be as informative as they can be. That’s where Directly comes into the picture. While there may be some true superstars in the world of customer service who know the product they are representing backwards and forwards, chances are that the vast majority of people helping customers are not omniscient gurus, and are just human like the people complaining or asking questions. Directly has therefore built a platform that helps businesses identify and reach out to “experts” in the business or product in question, collect knowledge from them, and then fold that into a company’s AI to help train it and answer questions more accurately. It also looks at data input and output into those AI systems to figure out what is working, and what is not, and how to fix that, too. The information is typically collected by way of question-and-answer sessions, and Directly has even built a way to compensate these experts both for submitting information as well as to pay out royalties when their knowledge has been put to use, “just as you would in traditional copyright licensing in music,” Brydon noted. This system is used for technical support for games — Microsoft uses it to power its Xbox assistant for example — or devices, or for those who are engaging in building businesses on platforms, such as in the case of Airbnb providing an assistant to hosts to help answer questions about how to list on the platform. At a time when we are talking a lot about bias in AI and other pitfalls of how these systems are trained, a company that is working on ways of giving the best shot possible, by limiting the training data just to what is most likely to be correct and verifiable, is an interesting prospect that lines up with the approaches that companies like Samasource and others focused on ethical AI are taking. It seems ironic, however, that tech giants like Microsoft and Samsung, which have put a significant amount of investment into acquiring businesses and organically building their own customer-facing AI systems — Samsung’s Bixby is built in part through the acquisition of Viv and a multitude of other related deals; ditto Microsoft’s Cortana — would rely on another company to help these along. But the role that Directly occupies somewhat sits outside the core technology, which needs computer vision, natural language processing, a larger machine learning engine and more to process all of the inbound data. acquisition of Viv Cortana Training those AI systems — the area that Directly is focusing on — is likely to remain a key area for how these are used and developed, as it could be many years before we see what Brydon refers to as the “Holy Grail,” a general AI that can do the training for itself and work across a diverse range of fields and specific interests. In the meantime, it can take as little as 100 experts, but potentially many more, to train a system, depending on how much the information needs to be updated over time. The Xbox implementation, for example, includes 1,000 experts, but has to date answered around 2 million questions (and will likely answer multiples of that as games and consoles get updated). The longer-term picture is that Directly is likely to work with a growing number of businesses as the use of chatbots continues to expand among organisations. With that bigger trend, it’s also likely to run into some of the biggest players in consumer information, like Google and Amazon. Neither are customers of Directly yet — and truth be told, they might just as easily end up competitors — but it makes for an interesting prospect, as AI finally starts to get more intelligent. LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:02:38 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE19yIODdefcQAltWnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706056/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f28%2fdirectly-nabs-20m-led-by-samsung-to-help-make-customer-service-chatbots-more-intelligent-adds-new-ceo%2f/RK=2/RS=BmuP9qB7HsfYqPcAiHvKSfXYY1s- -Kraftful raises $1M to help smart home companies make better apps January 24, 2020 If a thousand companies make their own smart light bulb, do a thousand companies also have to design a light switch app to control them? Kraftful, a company out of Y Combinator’s Summer 2019 class, doesn’t think so. Kraftful builds the myriad components that an IoT/smart home company might need, puzzle piecing them together into apps for each company without requiring them to reinvent the light switch (or the padlock button, or the smart thermostat dial) for the nth time. Kraftful Kraftful Because no company wants an app that looks identical to a competitor’s, much of what Kraftful produces is built to be tailored to each company’s branding — all the surface-level stuff, like iconography, fonts, colors, etc. are all customizable. Under the hood, though, everything is built to be reusable. This focus on finding the parts that can be built once makes sense, especially given the team’s background. CEO Yana Welinder and CTO Nicky Leach were previously head of Product and a senior engineer, respectively, at IFTTT — the web service made up of a zillion reusable, interlinking “recipe” applets that let you hook just about anything (Gmail, Instagram, your cat’s litter box, whatever) into anything else to let one trigger actions on the other. Kraftful founders Nicky Leach and Yana Welinder Kraftful founders Nicky Leach and Yana Welinder So why now? More smart devices are coming onto the market every day, many of them from legacy appliance companies that don’t have much (or any) history in building smartphone apps. Good apps are the exception — the Philips Hue app is one of the better ones out there, and even it’s a little wonky sometimes. Many of them are… really bad. Bad apps get bad App Store reviews, and bad reviews dent sales. And even for those who dive in and buy it without checking the reviews first, bad apps means returned devices. According to this iQor survey from 2018, 22% of smart home customers give up and return the products before getting them to work. this iQor survey from 2018 “We kind of looked around and realized that 80% of all smart home apps have zero, one or two stars on the App Store,” Welinder tells me. Knowing what’s working and what’s not with buyers is a strength of Kraftful’s approach; behind the scenes, they can run all sorts of analytics on how users are actually interacting with components in the apps they’re powering and adjust all of them accordingly. If they make a tweak to the setup process in one app, do more users actually get all the way through it? Great. Now roll that out everywhere. “If you look at some of the leading smart lock apps, they all have very… very similar interfaces. They’ve basically gotten to a standardized user experience, but they’ve all be developed individually,” says Welinder. “So all of these companies are spending the resources designing and developing these apps, but they’re not getting the benefit of being standardized across the board and being able to leverage data from all of these apps to be able to improve them all at once” Kraftful builds the app for both iOS and Android, tailors it to the brand’s needs, offers cloud functionality like push notifications and activity history, provides analytics for insights on how users are actually using an app and keeps everything working as OS updates roll out and as device display sizes grow ever larger. Of course, the entire concept of a dedicated app for a smart home device has some pretty fierce competition — between Apple’s HomeKit and Google Home, the platform makers themselves seem pretty set on gobbling up much of the functionality. But most buyers still expect their shiny devices to have their own apps — something branded and purpose-built, something for the manual to point them to. Power users, meanwhile, will always want to do things beyond what the all-encompassing solutions like HomeKit/Home are built for. Folks at Google seem to agree with Kraftful’s approach — the team counts the Google Assistant Investments Program as one of the investors in the $1 million they’ve raised. Other investors include YC, F7 Ventures, Cleo Capital, Julia Collins (co-founder of Zume Pizza and Planet Forward), Lukas Biewald (co-founder of CrowdFlower), Nicolas Pinto (co-founder of Perceptio) and a number of other angel investors. Welinder tells me they’re already working with multiple companies to start powering their apps; NDAs prevent her from saying who, at this point, but she notes that they’re “some of the largest brands that provide smart lights, plugs/switches, thermostats and other smart home products.” LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:02:50 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE19yIODdefcQAmNWnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706056/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f24%2fkraftful-raises-1m-to-help-smart-home-companies-make-better-apps%2f/RK=2/RS=XQMRPnDfjcwP_DTYgSghO5Y6vEQ- -Glovo exits the Middle East and drops two LatAm markets in latest food delivery crunch January 21, 2020 The new year isn’t even a month old and the food delivery crunch is already taking big bites. Spain’s Glovo has today announced it’s exiting four markets — which it says is part of a goal of pushing for profitability by 2021. Glovo Also today, Uber confirmed rumors late last year by announcing it’s offloading its Indian Eats business to local rival Zomato — which will see it take a 9.99% stake in the Indian startup. Uber confirmed In other recent news Latin America focused on-demand delivery app Rappi announced 6% staff layoffs. recent news On-demand food delivery apps may be great at filling the bellies of hungry consumers fast but startups in this space have yet to figure out how to deliver push-button convenience without haemorrhaging money at scale. So the question even some investors are asking is how they can make their model profitable? Middle East exit The four markets Glovo is leaving are Turkey, Egypt, Uruguay and Puerto Rico. The exits mean its app footprint is shrinking to 22 markets, still with a focus on South America, South West Europe, and Eastern Europe and Africa. Interestingly, Glovo is here essentially saying goodbye to the Middle East — despite its recent late stage financing round being led by Abu Dhabi state investment company, Mubadala. (It told us last month that regional expansion was not part of Mubadala’s investment thesis.) last month Commenting on the exits in a statement, Glovo co-founder and CEO, Oscar Pierre, said: “This has been a very tough decision to take but our strategy has always been to focus on markets where we can grow and establish ourselves among the top two delivery players while providing a first-class user experience and value for our Glovers, customers and partners.” Oscar Pierre, Last month Pierre told us the Middle East looks too competitive for Glovo to expand further. told us In the event it’s opted for a full exit — given both Egypt and Turkey are being dropped (despite the latter being touted as one of Glovo’s fastest growing markets just over a year ago, at the time of its Series D). just over a year ago “Leaving these four markets will help us to further strengthen our leadership position in South West and Eastern Europe, LatAm and other African markets, and reach our profitability targets by early 2021,” Pierre added. Glovo said its app will continue to function in the four markets “for a few weeks” after today — adding that it’s offering “support and advice to couriers, customers and partners throughout this transition”. “I want to place on record our thanks to all of our Glovers, customers and partners in the markets from which we’re withdrawing for their hard work, dedication, commitment and ongoing support,” Pierre added. The exits sum to Glovo withdrawing from eight out of a total 306 cities. It also said the eight cities collectively generated 1.7% of its gross sales in 2019 — so it’s signalling the move doesn’t amount to a major revenue hit. The startup disclosed a $166M Series E raise last month — which pushed the business past a unicorn valuation. Pierre told us then that the new financing would be used to achieve profitability “as early as 2021”, foreshadowing today’s announcement of a clutch of market exits. $166M Series E raise last month Glovo has said its goal is to become the leading or second delivery platform in all the markets where it operates — underlining the challenges of turning a profit in such a hyper competitive, thin margin space which also involves major logistical complexities with so many moving parts (and people) involved in each transaction. As food delivery players reconfigure their regional footprints — via market exits and consolidation — better financed platforms will be hoping they’ll be left standing with a profitable business to shout about (and the chance to grow again by gobbling up less profitable rivals or else be consumed themselves). So something of a new race is on. Back in November in an on-stage interview at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin, Uber Eats and Glovo discussed the challenges of turning a profit — with Glovo co-founder Sacha Michaud telling us he expects further consolidation in the on-demand delivery space. (Though the pair claimed there had been no acquisition talks between Uber and Glovo.) Uber Michaud said then that Glovo is profitable on a per unit economics basis in “some countries” — but admitted it “varies a lot country by country”. Spain and Southern Europe are the best markets for Glovo, he also told us, confirming it generates operating profit there. “Latin America will become operation profitable next year,” he predicted. Glovo’s Sacha Michaud: ‘I think there will be consolidation’ Glovo’s Sacha Michaud: ‘I think there will be consolidation’ Glovo’s exit from Egypt actually marks the end of a second act in the market. The startup first announced it was pulling the plug on Egypt in April 2019 — but returned last summer, at the behest of its investor Delivery Hero (a rival food delivery startup which has a stake in Glovo), according to Michaud’s explanation on stage. Delivery Hero However there was also an intervention by Egypt’s competition watchdog. And local press reported the watchdog had ordered Glovo to resume operations — accusing it and its investor of colluding to restrict competition in the market (Delivery Hero having previously acquired Egyptian food delivery rival, Otlob). local press What the watchdog makes of today’s announcement of a final bow out could thus be an interesting wrinkle. Asked about Egypt, a Glovo spokesperson told us: “Egypt has been a very complex market for us, we were sad to leave the first time and excited to return when we did so last summer. However, our strategy has always been to be among the top two delivery players in every market we enter and have a clear path to profitability. Unfortunately, in Egypt there is not a clear path to profitability.” Whither profitability? So what does a clear path to profitability in the on-demand delivery space look like? Market maturity/density appears to be key, with Glovo only operating in one city apiece in the other two markets it’s leaving, Uruguay and Puerto Rico, for example — compared to hundreds across its best markets, Spain and Italy, where it says it’s operating out of the red. This suggests that other markets in South America — where Glovo similarly has just a toe-hold, of a single or handful of cities, and less time on the ground, such as Honduras or Panama — could be vulnerable to further future exits as the company reconfigures to try to hit full profitability in just around a year’s time. But there are likely lots of factors involved in making the unit economics stack up so it’s tricky to predict. Food delivered on-demand makes up the majority of Glovo’s orders per market but its app also touts being able to deliver ‘anything’ — from groceries to pharmaceuticals to the house keys you left at home — which it claims as a differentiating factor vs rival food-delivery-only apps. A degree of variety also looks to be a key ingredient in becoming a sustainable on-demand delivery business — as scale and cross selling appear to where the unit economics can work. Groceries are certainly a growing focus for Glovo which has been investing in setting up networks of dark supermarkets to support fast delivery of convenience style groceries as well as ready-to-eat food — thereby expanding opportunities for cross-selling to its convenience-loving food junkies at the point of appetite-driven (but likely loss-making) lunch and dinner orders. Last year Michaud told us that market “maturity” supports profitability. “At the end of the day the more orders we have the better the whole ecosystem works,” he said. While Uber Eats’ general manager for Northern and Eastern Europe, Charity Safford, also pointed to “scale” as the secret sauce for still elusive profits. “Where we start to see more and more trips happening this is definitely where we see the unit economics improving — so our job is really to figure out all of the use cases we can put into people’s hands to get that application used as much as possible,” she said. It’s instructive that Uber is shifting towards a ‘superapp’ model — revealing its intent last year to fold previously separate lines of business, such as rides and Eats, into a single one-stop-shop app which it began rolling out last year. So it’s also able to deliver or serve an increasing number of things (and/or services). such as rides and Eats The tech giant has also been testing subscription passes which combine access to a range of its offerings under one regular payment. subscription passes In some markets Glovo also has a ‘Prime’ monthly subscription, offering unlimited deliveries of anything its couriers can bike to your door, for a fixed monthly cost — which it launched back in 2018. When it comes to the quest for on-demand profitability all roads seem to lead to trying to become the bit of Amazon’s business that Amazon hasn’t already built out and swiped. LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:03:12 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE19yIODdefcQAmtWnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706056/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f21%2fglovo-exits-the-middle-east-and-drops-two-latam-markets-in-latest-food-delivery-crunch%2f/RK=2/RS=L3HozRINo8OCL8IgW2HUSJDByBU- -Deep tech VCs on what they view as some of the most impactful young startups right now January 18, 2020 During this week’s Democratic debate, there was a lot of talk, unsurprisingly, about ensuring the future of this country’s children and grandchildren. Climate change was of particular interest to billionaire Tom Steyer, who said repeatedly that addressing it would be his top priority were he elected U.S. president. Democratic debate As it happens, earlier the same day, we’d spent time on the phone with two venture capitalists who think of almost nothing else every day. The reason: they both invest in so-called deep tech, and they meet routinely with startups whose central focus is on making the world habitable for generations of people to come — as well as trying to produce outsize financial returns, of course. The two VCs with whom we talked know each other well. Siraj Khaliq is a partner at the global venture firm Atomico, where he tries to find world-changing startups that are enabled by machine learning, AI, and computer vision. He has strong experience in the area, having cofounded The Climate Corporation back in 2006, a company that helps farmers optimize crop yield and that was acquired by Monsanto in 2013 for roughly $1 billion. Siraj Khaliq Atomico Seth Bannon is meanwhile a founding partner of Fifty Years, a nearly five-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage fund whose stated ambition is backing founders who want to solve the world’s biggest problems. The investors’ interests overlap so much that Khaliq is also one of Fifty Years’s investors. Fifty Years Fifty Years’s From both, we wanted to know which companies or trends are capturing their imagination and, in some cases, their investment dollars. Following are excerpts from our extended conversation earlier this week. (We thought it was interesting; hopefully you will, too.) TC: Seth, how would you describe what you’re looking to fund at your firm? SB: There’s a Winston Churchill essay [penned nearly 100 years ago] called “Fifty Years Hence” that describes what we do. He predicts genomic engineering, synthetic biology, growing meat without animals, nuclear power, satellite telephony.  Churchill also notes that because tech changes so quickly that it’s important that technologists take a principled approach to their work. [Inspired by him] we’re backing founders who can make a ton of money while doing good and focusing on health, disease, the climate crisis . . . nearly 100 years ago] TC: What does that mean exactly? Are you investing in software? SB: We’re not so enthusiastic about pure software because it’s been so abstracted away that it’s become a commodity. High school students can now build an app, which is great, but it also means that competitive pressures are very high. There are a thousand funds focused on software seed investing. Fortunately, you can now launch a synthetic biology startup with seed funding, and that wasn’t possible 10 years ago. There are a lot of infrastructural advancements happening that makes [deep tech investing even with smaller checks] interesting. TC: Siraj, you also invest exclusively on frontier, or deep tech, at Atomico . What’s your approach to funding startups? Atomico SK: We do Series A [deals] onward and don’t do seed stage. We primarily focus on Europe. But there’s lot of common thinking between us and Seth. As a fund, we’re looking for big problems that change the world, sometimes at companies that won’t necessarily be big in five years but if you look out 10 years could be necessary for humanity. So we’re trying to anticipate all of these big trends and focus on three or four theses a year and talk as much as we can with academics and other experts to understand what’s going on. Founders then know we have an informed view. Last year, we focused on synthetic biology, which is a becoming so broad a category that it’s time to start subdividing it. We were also doing AI-based drug discovery and quantum computing and we started to spend some time on energy as well. We also [continued an earlier focus on ] the future of manufacturing and industry. We see a number of trends that make [the latter] attractive, especially in Europe where manufacturing hasn’t yet been digitized. TC: Seth, you mentioned synthetic biology infrastructure. Can you elaborate on what you’re seeing that’s interesting on this front? SB: You’ve maybe heard of directed evolution, technology that allows biologists to use the power of evolution to get microbes or other biological machines to do what they want them to do that would have been impossible before. [Editor’s note: here, Bannon talks a bit about Frances Arnold, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist who was awarded the honor in 2018 for developing the technique.] So we’re excited to back [related] startups. One, Solugen, enzymatically makes industrial chemicals [by combining genetically modified enzymes with organic compounds, like plant sugars]. Hydrogen peroxide is a $6 billion dollar industry, and it’s currently made through a petroleum-based process in seven-football-field-long production plants that sometimes explode and kill people. Solugen sometimes explode TC: Is this then akin to Zymergen, which develops molecules in order to create unique specialty materials? Zymergen SB: Zymergen mainly works as a kind of consultant to help companies engineer strains that they want. Solugen is a vertically integrated chemicals company, so it [creates its formulations], then sells directly into industry. Solugen TC: How does this relate to new architectures? SB: The way to think about it is that there’s a bunch of application-level companies, but as synthetic biology companies start to take off, there’s a bunch of emerging infrastructure layer companies. One of these is Ansa Biotechnologies, which has a fully enzymatic process for writing DNA. Like Twist, which went public, they make DNA to sell to customers in the biotech industry. But whereas Twist is using a chemical process to make DNA, Ansa’s approach is fully enzymatic. [Editor’s note: More on the competition in this emerging space here.] Ansa Biotechnologies Twist here Also, if you look at plant-based alternatives to meat, they’re more sustainable but also far more expensive than traditional beef. Why is that? Well plant-based chicken is more expensive because the processing infrastructure being used is more than 10 years behind real chicken processing, where you’ll see robot arms that cut up chicken so efficiently that it looks like a Tesla factory. [Alternative meat] companies are basically using these extruders built in the ’70s because the industry has been so small, and that’s because there’s been a lot of skepticism from the investment community in these companies. Or there was. The performance of Beyond Meat’s IPO ended it. Now there’s a rush of founders and dollars into that space, and whenever you have a space where the core infrastructure has been neglected, there’s opportunity. A former mechanical engineer with Boeing has started a company, Rebellyous Foods, to basically build the AWS for the plant-based food industry, for example. She’s using [the machines she’s building] to sell plant-based chicken nuggets, [but that’s the longer-term plan]. Rebellyous Foods for example TC: Siraj, you say last year you started to spend time on energy. What’s interesting to you as it relates to energy? SK: There’s been some improvement in how we capture emissions, but [carbon emissions] are still very deleterious to our health and the planet’s health, and there are a few areas to think about [to address the problem]. Helping people measure and control their consumption is one approach, but also we think about how to produce new energy, which is a shift we [meaning mankind] need to undertake. The challenge [in making that shift] is often [capital expenditures]. It’s hard for venture investors to back companies that are [building nuclear reactors], which makes government grants the best choice for early innovation oftentimes. There is one company, Seaborg, that has figured out a clever reactor. It’s not a portfolio company but it’s [compelling]. Seaborg SB: We also really like what Seaborg is doing. These [fourth generation] nuclear companies have a whole host of approaches that allow for smaller, safer reactors that you wouldn’t mind having in your backyard. But Siraj put his finger on it: as an early-stage deep tech investor, we have to consider the capital plan of a company, and if it needs to raise billions of dollars, early investors will get really diluted, so early-stage venture just isn’t the best fit. TC: There are other areas you like, though, because costs have fallen so much. SB: Yes. Satellite telephony used to be one of those areas. Some of the satellites in space right now cost $350 million [to launch] and took three to four years to build, which would be really hard for any early-stage investor to fund. But now, a new generation of companies is building satellites for one-tenth of the cost in months, not years. That’s a game changer. They can iterate faster. They can build a better product. They don’t have to raise equity to build and launch either; they can raise from a debt financier [from whom they can] borrow money and pay it back over time. That model isn’t available to a company like Uber or Lyft, because those companies can’t say, ‘X is going to cost us Y dollars and it will pay back Z over time.’ TC: What of concerns that all these cheap satellites are going to clog up the sky pretty quickly? SB: It’s a real concern. Most [of today’s satellites] are low earth satellites, and the closer to the earth they are, the brighter they are; they reflect the sun more, the more satellites we’re seeing instead of stars. I do think it’s incumbent on all of these companies to think about how they are contributing to the future of humanity. But when you connect the unconnected, educational outcomes improve, health improves, inequality decreases, and the stability of governments improves, so maybe the developed world needs to sacrifice a bit. I think that’s a reasonable tradeoff. If on the other hand, we’re putting up satellites to help people buy more crap . . . TC: It’s like the argument for self-driving cars in a way. Life becomes more efficient, but they’ll require far more energy generation, for example. There are always second-order consequences. SK: But think of how many people are killed in driving accidents, versus terrorist attacks. Humans have many great qualities, but being able to drive a lethal machine consistently isn’t one of them. So when we take that into perspective, it’s really important that we build autonomous vehicles. You [voice] a legitimate concern, and often when there are step changes, there are discontinuities along the way that lead to side effects that aren’t great. That comes down to several things. First, infrastructure will have to keep up. We’ll also have to create regulations that don’t lead to the worst outcomes. One our investments, Lilium in Munich, has built an entirely electric air taxi service that’s built on vertical takeoff. It’s nimble. It’s quiet enough to operate in city environments. Lilium On roads, cars are constrained by 2D terrain and buildings, but [in the air] if you can do dynamic air traffic control, it opens up far much efficient transport. If you can get from downtown London to Heathrow [airport] in five minutes versus 50 minutes in a Tesla? That’s far more energy efficient. LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:03:32 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE19yIODdefcQAnNWnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706056/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f17%2fdeep-tech-vcs-on-what-they-view-as-some-of-the-most-impactful-young-startups-right-now%2f/RK=2/RS=aPJ8pTDZDgowSer2VzRI6eArbaA- -US patents hit record 333,530 granted in 2019; IBM, Samsung (not the FAANGs) lead the pack January 14, 2020 We may have moved on from a nearly-daily cycle of news involving tech giants sparring in courts over intellectual property infringement, but patents continue to be a major cornerstone of how companies and people measure their progress and create moats around the work that they have done in hopes of building that into profitable enterprises in the future. IFI Claims, a company that tracks patent activity in the US, released its annual tally of IP work today underscoring that theme: it noted that 2019 saw a new high-watermark of 333,530 patents granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. IFI Claims US Patent and Trademark Office The figures are notable for a few reasons. One is that this is the most patents ever granted in a single year; and the second that this represents a 15% jump on a year before. The high overall number speaks to the enduring interest in safeguarding IP, while the 15% jump has to do with the fact that patent numbers actually dipped last year (down 3.5%) while the number that were filed and still in application form (not granted) was bigger than ever. If we can draw something from that, it might be that filers and the USPTO were both taking a little more time to file and process, not a reduction in the use of patents altogether. 15% jump on a year before But patents do not tell the whole story in another very important regard. Namely, the world’s most valuable, and most high profile tech companies are not always the ones that rank the highest in patents filed. Consider the so-called FAANG group, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google: Facebook is at number-36 (one of the fastest movers but still not top 10) with 989 patents; Apple is at number-seven with 2,490 patents; Amazon is at number-nine with 2,427 patents; Netflix doesn’t make the top 50 at all; and the Android, search and advertising behemoth Google is merely at slot 15 with 2,102 patents (and no special mention for growth). FAANG group Amazon, Netflix Indeed, the fact that one of the oldest tech companies, IBM, is also the biggest patent filer almost seems ironic in that regard. IBM, As with previous years — the last 27, to be exact — IBM has continued to hold on to the top spot for patents granted, with 9,262 in total for the year. Samsung Electronics, at 6,469, is a distant second. Samsung Electronics, These numbers, again, don’t tell the whole story: IFI Claims notes that Samsung ranks number-one when you consider all active patent “families”, which might get filed across a number of divisions (for example a Samsung Electronics subsidiary filing separately) and count the overall number of patents to date (versus those filed this year). In this regard, Samsung stands at 76,638, with IBM the distant number-two at 37,304 patent families. Part of this can be explained when you consider their businesses: Samsung makes a huge range of consumer and enterprise products. IBM, on the other hand, essentially moved out of the consumer electronics market years ago and these days mostly focuses on enterprise and B2B and far less hardware. That means a much smaller priority placed on that kind of R&D, and subsequent range of families. Two other areas that are worth tracking are biggest movers and technology trends. In the first of these, it’s very interesting to see a car company rising to the top. Kia jumped 58 places and is now at number-41 (921 patents) — notable when you think about how cars are the next “hardware” and that we are entering a pretty exciting phase of connected vehicles, self-driving and alternative energy to propel them. Others rounding out fastest-growing were Hewlett Packard Enterprise, up 28 places to number-48 (794 patents); Facebook, up 22 places to number-36 (989 patents); Micron Technology, up nine places to number-25 (1,268), Huawei, up six places to number-10 (2,418), BOE Technology, up four places to number-13 (2,177), and Microsoft, up three places to number-4 (3,081 patents). Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Microsoft, In terms of technology trends, IFI looks over a period of five years, where there is now a strong current of medical and biotechnology innovation running through the list right now, with hybrid plant creation topping the list of trending technology, followed by CRISPR gene-editing technology, and then medicinal preparations (led by cancer therapies). “Tech” in the computer processor sense only starts at number-four with dashboards and other car-related tech; with quantum computing, 3-D printing and flying vehicle tech all also featuring. Indeed, if you have wondered if we are in a fallow period of innovation in mobile, internet and straight computer technology… look no further than this list to prove out that thought. Ten Fast Growing Technologies IFIClaims Unsurprisingly, US companies account for 49% of U.S. patents granted in 2019 up from 46 percent a year before. Japan accounts for 16% to be the second-largest, with South Korea at 7% (Samsung carrying a big part of that, I’m guessing), and China passing Germany to be at number-four with 5%. LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:03:46 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE19yIODdefcQAntWnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706056/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f14%2fus-patents-hit-record-333530-granted-in-2019-ibm-samsung-not-the-faangs-lead-the-pack%2f/RK=2/RS=vubt3a8u4GpuonuAH6ji8gzVV90- -DuckDuckGo still critical of Google's EU Android choice screen auction, after wining a universal... January 10, 2020 Google has announced which search engines have won an auction process it has devised for an Android “choice screen” — as its response to an antitrust intervention by the region’s competition regulator. Google announced The prompt is shown to users of Android smartphones in the European Union as they set up a device, asking them to choose a search engine from a list of four that always includes Google’s own search engine. Android In mid-2018 the European Commission fined Google $5 billion for antitrust violations attached to how it operates the Android platform, including related to how it bundles its own services with the dominant smartphone OS, and ordered it to remedy the infringements — while leaving it up to the tech giant to devise a fix. European Commission fined Google $5 billion for antitrust violations Google responded by creating a choice screen for Android users to pick a search engine from a short list — with the initial choices seemingly based on local market share. But last summer it announced it would move to auctioning slots on the screen via a fixed sealed-bid auction process. last summer The big winners of the initial auction, for the period March 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020, are pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo — which gets one of three paid-for slots in all 31 European markets — and a product called Info.com, which will also be shown as an option in all those markets. (Per Wikipedia, the latter is a veteran metasearch engine that provides results from multiple search engines and directories, including Google.) DuckDuckGo Info.com Wikipedia French pro-privacy search engine Qwant will be shown as an option to Android users in eight European markets. While Russia’s Yandex will appear as an option in five markets in the east of the region. Qwant Yandex Other search engines that will appear as choices in a minority of European markets are GMX, Seznam, Givero and PrivacyWall. GMX Seznam Givero PrivacyWall At a glance the big loser looks to be Microsoft’s Bing search engine — which will only appear as an option on the choice screen shown in the U.K. Microsoft’s Bing Tree-planting search engine Ecosia does not appear anywhere on the list at all, despite appearing on some initial Android choice screens — having taken the decision to boycott the auction because it objects to Google’s “pay-to-play” approach. Ecosia “We believe this auction is at odds with the spirit of the July 2018 EU Commission ruling,” Ecosia CEO Christian Kroll told the BBC. “Internet users deserve a free choice over which search engine they use and the response of Google with this auction is an affront to our right to a free, open and federated internet. Why is Google able to pick and choose who gets default status on Android?” Ecosia BBC It’s not the only search engine critical of Google’s move, with Qwant and DuckDuckGo both raising concerns immediately after Google announced it would shift to a paid auction last year. DuckDuckGo last year Despite participating in the process — and winning a universal slot — DuckDuckGo told us it still does not agree with the pay-to-play approach. “We believe a search preference menu is an excellent way to meaningfully increase consumer choice if designed properly. Our own research has reinforced this point and we look forward to the day when Android users in Europe will have the opportunity to easily make DuckDuckGo their default search engine while setting up their phones. However, we still believe a pay-to-play auction with only 4 slots isn’t right because it means consumers won’t get all the choices they deserve and Google will profit at the expense of the competition,” a spokesperson said in a statement. own research A spokesperson for Qwant also told us: “Qwant has repeatedly called for all competitors to be granted access to the mobile market in an open manner, with the same chances for all to be chosen by users as their default search engine. We don’t believe it is fair from Google to require competing search engines to pay them for the chance to be offered as an alternative to Google, when Google was found to abuse its dominant position through its Android mobile system. Nevertheless, given the importance of the mobile market for any ambitious search engine, we had to participate in this first bidding process and are relieved that users finally have the possibility to choose Qwant as their default search engine on Android devices in some countries. We wished it was the case in all countries and that our competitors had all the same opportunity, since search engines should compete on their merits and not on their capability to pay Google for a slot in a choice screen.” This report was updated with additional comment from Qwant LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:04:03 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=AwrE19yIODdefcQAotWnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706056/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f10%2fduckduckgo-still-critical-of-googles-eu-android-choice-screen-auction-after-wining-a-universal-slot%2f/RK=2/RS=k6XQZ8E4dM4mTLSZeyEtkoZNeRE- -CES awards cannabis company then bans it from mentioning cannabis when exhibiting January 5, 2020 Keep Labs won an Innovation Award Honoree award for CES 2020 but is banned from saying the word “cannabis” on the CES show floor. The CTA, the trade group behind CES, told Keep Labs it could only exhibit if the company’s signage, marketing materials and the product is free from cannabis product and paraphernalia. Innovation Award Honoree award for CES 2020 Keep Labs To be named as an honoree is a significant honor for any company, but with Keep Labs, it’s historic. Keep is a product designed explicitly for cannabis, and this is the first time a company centered around marijuana has won an award from CES. Because of the strict guidelines, Keep Labs decided it wasn’t in its best interest to exhibit at CES despite winning one of its top awards. The company is currently featured on the CES website, among other Innovation Award Honorees, where the word “cannabis” is used throughout the description. Keep smart storage Keep is a discreet desktop storage device designed to keep cannabis fresh and locked away. It looks like a smart speaker with a clock, but if you engage the biometric lock, the top opens, revealing several storage containers for cannabis products. With mobile alerts, a built-in scale and a hermetic seal, the device is purpose-built to be an ideal spot to store and secure weed. The company was founded by two Canadian dads looking for a more secure way to store edibles. Their story is familiar: A friend unknowingly consumed cannabis gummies from an unmarked container. This led the founders to try to find a safe place to store cannabis items. Unable to find such a device, Ben Gliksman, a venture capital attorney with 10 years of experience, and Philip Wilkins, who previously built and sold two companies, set out to build their own. Available in chalk white and slate black, the device is beautiful and achieves its goal of securing cannabis without hiding. This storage container would look at home on a bedside stand or hallway table. Facial recognition keeps the device locked. If Keep is tampered with, the owner gets a smartphone notification. An airtight seal keeps things fresh and contains odors. Inside, separate containers keep things organized. There’s even a removable rolling tray and space for accessories. A battery allows owners to use the device anywhere. This is Keep Labs’ first product, and the company is conducting its own fundraising campaign. At the time of writing, the Keep is available for pre-order for CAD 199. The CTA awarded Keep Labs the Innovations Award Nominee honor on October 15. On December 4, the CTA gave the company the restrictions on exhibiting. I spoke with Keeps Lab co-founder Philip Wilkins after the company first heard of the restrictions. At that time, in early December, the company still planned on attending and exhibiting the award. Later, the company had a change of heart. Now, Wilkins tells TechCrunch that without being able to mention or talk about cannabis, they wouldn’t be doing the brand justice. The CTA had lumped them in with “storage solutions and appliance for the home.” Shying away from cannabis goes against everything they believe in. They aren’t a home storage solution, the company says, and that’s not why they won the award. There’s a stigma around cannabis tech, Wilkins said, adding Keep Labs’ product is lumped in with “bongs and blunts.” The company’s ban from CES is the latest hurdle facing Keep Labs. The company previously attempted to list its product on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, but neither platform would allow it, because of the word “cannabis.” Instead, the company launched a self-run crowdfunding campaign. Right now, 805 backers have pre-ordered the device for CAD 199. The campaign is at 77% with just under two months to go before the self-imposed deadline of March 1, 2020. Wilkins told TechCrunch the company is in the middle of mass-producing the product and looking for additional distribution channels, as well as venture capital investors who understand the need and cannabis space. CES, Las Vegas and cannabis Cannabis and e-cigarette products are historically banned from CES. Vape makers like Pax and Puffco and Juul have been unable to exhibit, but with the Keep Labs award, it felt like the CTA was softening its stance. After all, Keep Laps doesn’t make a consumption product, but rather a storage product. The distinction seems significant. The trade association issued TechCrunch the following statement: “There are no cannabis or e-cigarette products on the exhibit floor at CES, as the show does not have a category pertaining to that market. Given cannabis is not a category at CES, the company was able to exhibit under the terms they’d showcase their product as a storage device,” adding later “Keeps Lab (sic) fit in the Home Appliances category for the Innovation Awards.” Exhibiting at CES can lead to significant growth for companies. Buyers, distributors and bankers alike attend the show in the hopes of adding companies and products to their portfolios. For a startup like Keep Labs, it can lead to retail distribution, financial capital and valuable industry partners. And being nominated as an Innovation Award Nominee shines a spotlight, making deals even more accessible. More than 180,000 people attended last year’s show, including over 6,500 members of the media. There are other ways of being at CES than through conventional means. Many companies take up private spaces throughout Las Vegas, in hotel rooms, and in other conference centers. This lets companies access the CES attendees in more private settings. However, by nature, these spaces are invite-only, which eliminates a lot of opportunities for the companies. For cannabis companies, renting a hotel room bypasses the CTA’s rules, but not Nevada state laws. In the state of Nevada marijuana is legal to consume in private residences, but banned from consumption in parks, dispensaries and hotels. This means there isn’t — really — a place Las Vegas visitors can legally consume cannabis. And for cannabis companies looking to make deals, there are few legal locations where they can demonstrate their products. Banned tech This incident smells familiar. In the run-up to the 2019 show, the CTA awarded sex-tech startup Lora DiCarlo with the same award, only later to rescind it. The CTA told TechCrunch at the time that the Lora DiCarlo Osé does not fit into existing product categories, and the company should not have been accepted for the Innovation Awards Program. only later to rescind it The CTA drew widespread criticism for revoking Lora DiCarlo’s award. TechCrunch confirmed at the time the CTA also prohibited Lora DiCarlo from exhibiting at CES, citing the company doesn’t fit a product category. However, other sex tech companies were on the show floor that year. Past CES shows featured sex tech companies, including a virtual reality porn company in 2017 and a sex toy robot for men in 2018. This year’s show will be sexual wellness company OhMiBod’s tenth year exhibiting at CES. In years past, the company launched wellness products, including a Kegel exerciser and, in 2019, when Lora DiCarlo was banned, an Apple Watch-controlled vibrator. “There is an obvious double-standard when it comes to sexuality and sexual health,” Lora DiCarlo founder Lora Haddock wrote last year. “While there are sex and sexual health products at CES, it seems that CES/CTA administration applies the rules differently for companies and products based on the gender of their customers. Men’s sexuality is allowed to be explicit with a literal sex robot in the shape of an unrealistically proportioned woman and VR porn in point of pride along the aisle. Female sexuality, on the other hand, is heavily muted if not outright banned.” In the CTA’s letter to Lora DiCarlo, obtained by TechCrunch, the CTA cited a clause that explained how entries deemed “in their sole discretion to be immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with the CTA’s image will be disqualified. CTA reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any entry at any time which, in CTA’s opinion, endangers the safety or well being of any person, or fails to comply with these Official Rules. CTA decisions are final and binding.” Eaze and Wayv founder explains how to raise money for cannabis startups Eaze and Wayv founder explains how to raise money for cannabis startups CES or bust The cannabis market is exploding. In the United States, the substance is legal in 11 states, with Illinois becoming the latest to allow the sale and consumption for recreational use. Public support for legal pot hit an all-time high in 2019, according to this CBS News Poll. More than 30 states have legalized it to some degree, and more will follow. this CBS News Poll Recreational cannabis is legal in Canada, where Keep Labs is based. The sheer demand raises the question of the CTA’s slow acceptance of cannabis-related products. As a trade group, it’s tasked with promoting policy that leads to growth within the consumer electronics world, and cannabis tech is quickly becoming a lucrative industry with broad acceptance across demographics. Someone within the CTA sees the appeal of the Keep device. By awarding it with one of its top honors, the CTA is celebrating the responsible use of cannabis. And yet, by requesting the company hide its intended purpose while exhibiting, it is seemingly forcing cannabis back into the shadows. LOOK UP LOOKS Tech Crunch 02/02/2020 18:04:20 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYmKODdeVpIAGwGnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706059/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f05%2fces-awards-cannabis-company-then-bans-it-from-mentioning-cannabis-when-exhibiting%2f/RK=2/RS=N.8UF2Q2gtHpyOO9afN8t6d07kc- -Say hello to Equity Mondays, the newest podcast from TechCrunch January 6, 2020 https://search.techcrunch.com/click/_ylt=A0geKYmKODdeVpIAHQGnBWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1580706059/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2ftechcrunch.com%2f2020%2f01%2f06%2fsay-hello-to-equity-mondays-the-newest-podcast-from-techcrunch%2f/RK=2/RS=Ce8c2vXLE6L0_JBb8oFaCGd5yBE- diff --git a/Process.xaml b/Process.xaml index ed3506d..1fe2432 100644 --- a/Process.xaml +++ b/Process.xaml @@ -8,10 +8,10 @@ - 324,944 + 496,1534 ProcessTransaction_1 - + System.Activities System.Activities.Statements System.Activities.Expressions @@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ UiPath.Core.Activities System.Windows.Markup Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices + System.Xml.Serialization @@ -61,13 +62,15 @@ UiPath.Mail System.ValueTuple UiPath.Studio.Plugin.Workflow + System.Runtime.WindowsRuntime - + + @@ -75,14 +78,85 @@ True - + + + + + + + + + + True + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + True + False - - + + + + + + + + + + + True + + + + + + + + + + + + + + True + False + + + + @@ -100,12 +174,12 @@ - False + True False - + @@ -188,7 +262,7 @@ - + [in_TransactionItem("Texto da notícia")] @@ -196,7 +270,7 @@ [NewsText] - + [in_TransactionItem("Nome da startup")] @@ -204,7 +278,7 @@ [in_Startup] - + [in_TransactionItem("Nome do veículo")] @@ -212,7 +286,7 @@ ["Tech Crunch"] - + [in_TransactionItem("Data e hora da Captura")] diff --git a/_Test.xaml b/_Test.xaml index 1b2f7c5..b95d1ac 100644 --- a/_Test.xaml +++ b/_Test.xaml @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ - + System.Activities @@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ - + System.Activities Microsoft.VisualBasic mscorlib @@ -52,9 +52,10 @@ UiPath.Mail System.ValueTuple Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.Common + System.Runtime.WindowsRuntime - + @@ -66,104 +67,39 @@ True - - - - - - True - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - True - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [Children] - - - [Children.Where(Function(s) s.Get("tag").ToString = "A" Or s.Get("tag").ToString = "P" Or s.Get("tag").ToString = "H2")] - - - - - - - - - - - - True - - - - - - - - - - - + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + \ No newline at end of file