Monthly Archives: October 2020

News: Plenty has raised over $500 million to grow fruits and veggies indoors

• October 14, 2020
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Plenty‌ ‌Unlimited‌ has raised $140 million in new funding to build more vertical farms around the U.S. The new funding, which brings the company’s total cash haul to an abundant $500 million, was led by existing investor Softbank Vision Fund also included the berry farming giant Driscoll’s. It’s a move that will give Driscoll’s exposure

Plenty‌ ‌Unlimited‌ has raised $140 million in new funding to build more vertical farms around the U.S.

The new funding, which brings the company’s total cash haul to an abundant $500 million, was led by existing investor Softbank Vision Fund also included the berry farming giant Driscoll’s. It’s a move that will give Driscoll’s exposure to Plenty’s technology for growing and harvesting fruits and vegetables indoors.

The funding comes as Plenty has inked agreements with both its new berry-interested investor and the Albertsons grocery chain. The company also announced plans to build a new farm in Compton, California.

The financing provides plenty of cash for a company that’s seeing a cornucopia of competition in the tech-enabled cultivated crop market raising a plethora of private and public capital.

In the past month, AppHarvest has agreed to be taken public by a special purpose acquisition company in a deal that would value that greenhouse tomato-grower at a little under $1 billion. And another leafy green grower, Revol Greens has raised $68 million for its own greenhouse-based bid to be part of the new green revolution.

Meanwhile, Plenty’s more direct competitor, Bowery Farming, is expanding its retail footprint to 650 stores even as Plenty touts its deal with Albertsons to provide greens to 431 stores in California.

Discoll’s seemed convinced by Plenty’s technology, although the terms of the agreement with the company weren’t disclosed.

“We looked at other vertical farms, and Plenty’s technology was one of the most compelling systems we’d seen for growing berries,” said J. Miles Reiter, Driscoll’s Chairman and CEO, in a statement. “We got to know Plenty while working on a joint development agreement to grow strawberries. We were so impressed with their technology, we decided to invest.”

News: Google Analytics update uses machine learning to surface more critical customer data

• October 14, 2020
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If you ever doubted the hunger brands have for more and better information about consumers, you only need to look at Twilio buying customer data startup Segment this week for $3.2 billion. Google sees this the same thing as everyone else, and today it introduced updates to Google Analytics to help companies understand their customers

If you ever doubted the hunger brands have for more and better information about consumers, you only need to look at Twilio buying customer data startup Segment this week for $3.2 billion. Google sees this the same thing as everyone else, and today it introduced updates to Google Analytics to help companies understand their customers better (especially in conjunction with related Google tools).

Vidhya Srinivasan vice president of measurement, analytics and buying platforms at Google wrote in a company blog post introducing the new features that the company sees this changing customer-brand dynamic due to COVID, and it wants to assist by adding new features that help marketers achieve their goals, whatever those may be.

One way to achieve this is by infusing Analytics with machine learning to help highlight data automatically that’s important to marketers using the platform. “[Google Analytics] has machine learning at its core to automatically surface helpful insights and gives you a complete understanding of your customers across devices and platforms,” Srinivasan wrote in the blog post.

The idea behind the update is to give marketers access to more information they care about most by using that machine learning to surface data like which groups of customers are most likely to buy and which are most likely to churn, the very types of information marketing (and sales) teams need to try make proactive moves to keep customers from leaving or conversely turning those ready to buy into sales.

Image Credits: Google

If it works as described, it can give marketers a way to measure their performance with each customer or group of customers across their entire lifecycle, which is especially important during COVID when customer needs are constantly changing.

Of course, this being a Google product it’s designed to play nicely with Google Ads, YouTube and other tools like GMail and Google Search along with non-Google channels. As Srinivasan wrote:

The new approach also makes it possible to address longtime advertiser requests. Because the new Analytics can measure app and web interactions together, it can include conversions from YouTube engaged views that occur in-app and on the web in reports. Seeing conversions from YouTube video views alongside conversions from Google and non-Google paid channels, and organic channels like Google Search, social, and email, helps you understand the combined impact of all your marketing efforts.

The company is also trying to future proof analytics with an eye toward stricter privacy laws like GDPR in Europe or CCPA in California by using modeling to fill in gaps in information when you can’t use cookies or other tracking software.

All of this is designed to help marketers, caught in trying times with a shifting regulatory landscape to better understand customer needs and deliver them what they want when they want it — when they’re just trying to keep the customers satisfied.

News: Spotify launches an automatically updating iOS 14 widget

• October 14, 2020
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Spotify today has released its highly-anticipated iOS 14 widget with the latest app update. The new widget, which comes in both the small and medium sizes for the time being, allows you to quickly access your recently played artists, albums and podcasts with a tap. The smaller widget will display just your most recently listened

Spotify today has released its highly-anticipated iOS 14 widget with the latest app update. The new widget, which comes in both the small and medium sizes for the time being, allows you to quickly access your recently played artists, albums and podcasts with a tap.

The smaller widget will display just your most recently listened to item, while the medium-sized widget will instead show the five most recent items — four in a horizontal row and the most recent at the top. In that case, you can actually tap on the small thumbnail for which of the five you want to now stream to be taken directly to that page in the Spotify app.

Image Credits: Spotify widget, screenshot via TechCrunch

Another interesting aspect to the widget is that the background color automatically updates to match the thumbnail image. If the artist is wearing red, for example, the widget changes to red. If the album is blue, the widget becomes blue. And so on.

There seem to be a limited range of colors available, however. For example, when we streamed something with a gray-and-white color scheme in the thumbnail image (e.g. Taylor Swift’s “folklore”), the widget defaulted to Spotify’s green shade.

Image Credits: Spotify widget, screenshot via TechCrunch

The widget’s colorful experience can help it to stand out on the homescreen. But it could also be problematic for those who have customized their iOS 14 homescreen with a certain aesthetic — like all app icons and widgets in neutral shades, or another favorite color, such as pink, purple, blue, or black.

Based on Etsy trends, iOS 14 packs in neutral or fall shades are currently best sellers, as are those with lighter pinks and dark themes in black. Spotify’s widget could clash with those designs, at times.

Still, the demand for a Spotify widget has been so strong that before the official release it sent a third-party music widget provider flying up the App Store charts as users customized their iOS 14 homescreens. That widget provider, TuneTrack, even got as high at No. 8 Overall and No. 1 in Music on Sept. 19, 2020, when the customization trend was driving millions of new downloads.

The new Spotify widget is live today within the updated Spotify app on the iOS App Store.

News: Harley-Davidson should keep making e-motorcycles

• October 14, 2020
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Harley-Davidson should continue to make electric motorcycles. That’s my big takeaway after taking home the company’s LiveWire for three weeks. I’d ridden it on a closed course in 2019, but that wasn’t enough absorb the finer qualities of the 105 horsepower machine. After nearly a month and a thousand miles on the LiveWire, I’d venture to

Harley-Davidson should continue to make electric motorcycles. That’s my big takeaway after taking home the company’s LiveWire for three weeks.

I’d ridden it on a closed course in 2019, but that wasn’t enough absorb the finer qualities of the 105 horsepower machine. After nearly a month and a thousand miles on the LiveWire, I’d venture to say it could be the most innovative motorcycle Harley-Davidson has ever produced.

That doesn’t mean perfect (particularly on the pricing). But with declining sales and the aging of the baby boomers — Harley’s primary market for chrome and steel gassers — the company needed to take a fresh turn.

HD’s first EV

Harley-Davidson did that with the LiveWire, which began as a concept and developed into the manufacturer’s first production EV, released in late 2019. The voltage powered two-wheeler is meant to complement, not replace, HD’s premium internal-combustion cruisers.

Founded in Milwaukee in 1903, Harley-Davidson opened a Silicon Valley office in 2018 with plans to add a future line-up of electric vehicles — from motorcycles to bicycles to scooters. The $29,799 LiveWire was first, though waning earnings and the Covid-19 induced recession have put HD’s electric plans in question.

On key specs, the Livewire will do 0-60 mph in 3 seconds, top 110 mph and charge to 80% in 40 minutes on a DC Fast Charger. The motorcycle’s 15.5 kWh battery and magnet motor produce 86 ft-lbs of torque.

Image Credits: Harley Davidson

The 548 pound LiveWire has an advertised city range of 146 miles (and 95 for combined city/highway riding).The electric Harley is also an IoT and app compatible vehicle, with preset riding modes — that offer different combos of power, torque and regen braking — and the ability to create custom modes.

Harley-Davidson added some premium features to the LiveWire, such as key fob operation, an anti-theft control system and a heartbeat-like vibration on the motorcycle.

That’s useful to remind the rider that the LiveWire — which goes silent at a stop — is still in run mode. In motion, the bike is basically quiet, though Harley-Davidson — famous for its internal combustion rumble — created a signature electric sound generated from the vehicle’s mechanical movements. It’s a barely audible buzz that gives the motorcycle a distinct voice as an electric Harley.

The ride

As an e-motorcycle, the LiveWire is remarkably balanced for a two-wheeler that has so much mass concentrated in one place: the battery.

At over 500 pounds, it isn’t exactly heavy by Harley cruiser standards, but the LiveWire is hefty for a naked sport bike. You definitely feel that weight pushing the EV around the garage, but fortunately — with some clever frame engineering — it fades away once the LiveWire gets rolling.

When I tested the LiveWire on a track in 2019, I noted that it brought everything that was becoming the e-motorcycle experience: huge torque and lightning-like acceleration with little noise beyond the wind moving around you.

More time and riding conditions with the LiveWire led to a stronger appreciation. I took it down the Hudson River Valley into Manhattan, up to three digits on I-95, and on the twisty backroads outside of Greenwich. The LiveWire looks and performs the part of a high-performance e-motorcycle, and in many ways, offers a more exciting ride than anything piston powered.

Image Credits: Jake Bright

The biggest rush on a LiveWire, compared to ICE peers, is the torque and acceleration. With fewer mechanical moving parts than gas bikes — and no clutch or shifting — the power delivery is stronger and more constant than internal combustion machines. You simply twist and go.

Like other high performance e-motorcycles, the LiveWire’s regenerative braking — or the extent to which the motor recharges the battery and slows the rear wheel coming off throttle — also enhances performance. Regen braking can be adjusted manually or by riding mode on the electric HD.

It takes some skill, but the end result is the ability to fly through corners in a smoother manner than a gas motorcycle — with little to no mechanical braking — by simply rolling off and on the throttle. This is complemented by the motorcycle’s lateral handling. In turns, the LiveWire holds a line as precisely as a Tron light-cycle (at least that’s how it felt conceptually).

This all translates into a riding experience of uninterrupted forward movement, without any racket and rattling. That the motorcycle also looks great— with lines and styling that hit the marks for an EV and a Harley — adds even more.

The market

With the LiveWire debut, Harley-Davidson became the first of the big gas manufacturers to offer a street-legal e-motorcycle for sale in the U.S.

The move is something of a necessity for the company, which, like most of the motorcycle industry in the U.S., has been bleeding revenue and younger buyers for years.

While HD got the jump on traditional motorcycle manufacturers, such as Honda and Kawasaki, it’s definitely not alone in the two-wheeled electric space.

Harley-Davidson entered the EV arena with competition from several e-moto startups that are attempting to convert gas riders to electric and attract a younger generation to motorcycling.

One of the leaders is California startup Zero Motorcycles, with 200 dealers worldwide. Italy’s Energica is expanding distribution of its high-performance e-motos in the U.S.

And Canadian startup Damon Motors debuted its 200 mph, $24,000 Hypersport this year, which offers proprietary safety and ergonomics tech for adjustable riding positions and blind-spot detection.

Of course, it’s not evident there’s enough demand out there to buy up all these new models, particularly given the COVID-19-induced global recession.

On the LiveWire’s market success (or failure), its tough to assess since HD’s reporting doesn’t include LiveWire-specific sales data.  One thing I (and others) have been critical of is the motorcycle’s $29,000 price. At just several thousand dollars less than a Tesla Model 3, it’s just too high — even for a premium motorcycle. But price aside, and that’s a big aside, I’d still argue the company succeeded with the LiveWire in a couple major ways. Harley-Davidson created an exciting halo motorcycle that established it as a legitimate e-motorcycle maker — in a distinctly Harley-Davidson fashion — while capturing public interest for its EV program.

What’s next?

For a company to reap the benefits of a successful halo launch, it needs to create a more accessible sequel. In July, Harley-Davidson’s newly appointed CEO, Jochen Zeitz, announced a five year plan — dubbed The Rewire — to adjust to declining sales and lead the company into the future. The strategy includes a massive restructuring and holding on (or even cancelling) some previously announced programs, such Harley’s gas powered Bronx model.

On whether the LiveWire — and producing new EVs — remain in Harley-Davidson’s future, Zeitz hasn’t been specific in confirming that in recent statements or investor calls.

Image Credits: Jake Bright

After some intimate time getting to know HD’s debut electric motorcycle, and assessing the market, my vote is for the iconic American company to continue its EV program and give us more. Offer a follow on that makes the rush, excitement and on demand capabilities of the halo Livewire available to the mases.

I could envision the company’s next EV product release including a scooter offering — registering Harley in the urban mobility space — and a more affordable e-motorcycle with broad market appeal.

What could that look like? Something priced around $10,000, lighter and more accessible to beginner riders than the 549-pound LiveWire, cloud and app connected with at least 100 miles of range and a charge time of 30 to 40 minutes. A tracker-styled EV channeling Harley’s flat-track racers — with some off-road capability — could be a winner.

Image Credits: Jake Bright

Getting it all right on specs, style and price-point will be even more critical for HD in a COVID-19 economic environment, where spending appetites for motorcycles will be more conservative for the foreseeable future.

But continuing the commitment to production EV’s is still Harley-Davidson’s bet to reach a younger market and remain relevant in the 21st century mobility world. HD’s Rewire should definitely include more LiveWire.

News: Dear Sophie: I came on a B-1 visa, then COVID-19 happened. How can I stay?

• October 14, 2020
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I had only planned to stay a couple months, but got stuck. Now my company has some real opportunities to expand. How can I stay and start working?

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie:

I’m currently in the U.S. on a business visitor visa. I arrived here in early March just before the COVID-19 pandemic began here to scope out the U.S. market for expanding the startup I co-founded in Bolivia a few years ago.

I had only planned to stay a couple months, but got stuck. Now my company has some real opportunities to expand. How can I stay and start working?

— Satisfied in San Jose

Hey, Satisfied!

Appreciative for the jobs you’ll be creating in the U.S. since you desire to remain in the U.S. and expand your startup. The U.S. economy greatly benefits from entrepreneurs like you who come here to innovate. Since you’re already in the U.S., you may have options to change your status without departing.

If you were granted a stay of six months when you were admitted most recently with your B-1 visitor visa, you can seek an extension of status for another six months. There are additional alternatives we can explore that would allow you work authorization. For more details on some of the options I’ll discuss here and for additional visa and green card options for startup founders, check out my podcast on “What is U.S. Startup Founder Immigration? A Step-By-Step Guide for Beginners.”

Because most green cards (immigrant visas) take longer than nonimmigrant (temporary) visas, a conservative strategy to pursue would be to find another temporary nonimmigrant status (what is often nicknamed a “visa”) — rather than a green card, which takes longer — that will allow you to create and grow your startup in the U.S. without having to return to Bolivia.

News: True Ventures has $840 million more to invest in nascent and breakout startups

• October 14, 2020
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True Ventures, the now 15-year-old firm with offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and San Francisco, is taking the wraps off two new funds this morning: it has closed its seventh early-stage fund with $465 million, and capped its fourth opportunity-type fund — used to back its own breakout portfolio companies — with $375 million. It’s

True Ventures, the now 15-year-old firm with offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and San Francisco, is taking the wraps off two new funds this morning: it has closed its seventh early-stage fund with $465 million, and capped its fourth opportunity-type fund — used to back its own breakout portfolio companies — with $375 million.

It’s a lot of committed capital for True, which was founded and continues to be led by Jon Callaghan and Phil Black. It’s also a bigger firm than it once was, with 35 people across the firm, including 10 others on the investing side, as well as other colleagues across the firm’s finance, operations, and platform teams.

It’s especially easy to understand why True would raise another, slightly larger opportunity fund (its last closed with $285 million in 2018, and its last early-stage fund closed with $350 million at the same time). It was through one such vehicle that True was able to invest so much in the consumer fitness company Peloton, including its Series F round.

When the company went public last fall, pricing at $7.2 billion, True was the company’s second-largest outside shareholder. As you might have noticed, roughly one year later, Peloton is now valued at more than $38 billion by public market investors — and True is still involved with it.

We talked with Callaghan and Black earlier this week about how and when True unwinds a position like that in a publicly traded portfolio company. We also talked about the firm’s continued emphasis on creating a support network for its founders and their teams, whether they worry the center of startup investing is shifting out of the Bay Area, and more. Much of chat, below, has been edited for length.

TC: New year, bigger funds?

PB: The numbers are bigger but a function of a lot of people who would like to be a part of what we are doing, for which we’re grateful. We also have a much larger team.

JC: More than 90 percent of our LPs re-upped; we had way more demand than we had supply for, including because we think it’s important to bring in new capital from new relationships every time we raise a fund, usually from people who we’ve know for a long time. We’re actively engaged with our LP base, and it provides us with new thinking.

TC: Are many, or any, of these VC firms? It seems increasingly that everyone is an investor in everyone else’s fund.

PB: We have funds of funds, like Greenspring Associates and Foundry Group Next [as investors]. I do think you see [venture funds investing in venture funds] when it comes to smaller, sub $50 million funds, but it’s not applicable for us.

TC: Over time, you’ve written fairly small early checks for 20 percent of a company. Is that still possible to do in this market?

JC: Our core business remains exactly the same. We’re writing $1 million to $3 million from day one to a founder or small team. We’ve kind of honed it in terms of how we look at things . . .we’ve invested $15 million into our platform dating 10 years or so [to bring to bear the breadth of our team and broader network]. If I’m on your board, and I’m your only point of contact, then I’m the weak link.

TC: You have Founder Camp, True University, and numerous culture initiatives. How would you rate the firm in terms of diversity?

JC: We’re working hard to do better, but we’re not good enough as an industry, and we’re part of that industry. We’ve funded incredibly powerful women entrepreneurs and some people of color, but not enough and we’re looking at long-term solutions right now. We’re also very focused on fellowships [through which True has recruited 165 college students over the years to work at True-backed startups, half of whom have landed full-time employment with the companies afterward, says the firm].

We’ve always focused on gender equality and skewed more heavily toward women in last two classes, but we’re also focused on diverse candidates and on diverse backgrounds. We need to provide more pathways into tech and startups, and through fellowships, we can access students before they’re thinking about career tracts.

TC: One of your portfolio companies, Peloton, is having an especially good year. Have you sold out of that position? How do you think about returning money to LPs after a company goes public?

JC: We are still holders of the company’s stock and I’m still on board.

PB: It’s really case-by-case whether we sell the shares or distribute them. It takes time because we’re such large shareholders typically, that our ability to get capital back is gated by public markets and [the] volume [of what we own]. As for whether we distribute cash or shares, usually LPs like the shares. A lot of family offices and fund of funds would prefer the shares because they refer them over to their public share groups. Certain others, especially European investors, prefer cash for tax or other reasons.

TC: We’re starting to see more SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, launched by venture funds. What do you make of these?

PB: Jon and I have been around long enough to remember when SPACs were a four-letter word. I think they’re a better instrument today than 20 years ago. Some of our companies are thinking about them; there’s a lot of curiosity around what it means to raise a SPAC or go public via a SPAC. People are in information-finding mode. We as a firm have not thought we should raise a SPAC ourselves.

JC: I think the innovation around access to capital is really interesting. I think it’s too soon to tell how it will work out for the founders and the companies. It is pretty complicated. We’re watching it closely.

TC: I do think of True as often being ahead of the curve. You were investing in hardware companies like Fitbit and Peloton ahead of a lot of other generalist firms. The same was true of digital health and biology. What’s interesting to you right now?

JC: Our job is to listen to what our founders are sending to us, and one space we’re thinking about is the future of work — what happens not in one year but five years. The second is a theme that we’re calling the roaring ’20s, and by that I mean we’re studying post-World War I and World War II and how consumer behavior changed and what might happen after this pandemic when there is a vaccine.

TC: Can you drill down a bit more on these?

JC: We’re thinking about art, music, dining, travel, entertainment . . . What happens when Broadway opens up? You can imagine hybrid experiences. Regarding the future of work, I’m not sure we’ll spend a lot of time on Zoom initially [once the world has re-opened], but [we think about] virtual access to everything so employees who are remote have more [at their fingertips], along with what happens to suburbs versus cities, which we already have some insight into through [past and current portfolio companies] Blue Bottle [Coffee] and Sweetgreen and Madison Reed.

TC: A lot of companies are making remote work permanent. Do you think this is as sweeping a trend as it seem right now, and how does that change the Bay Area if so?

JC: We had a virtual offsite recently and in the last 30 seconds, everyone was talking about whether we could get access to COVID tests so we could get everyone together.

People thrive on human contact; I think they need to be together. And my point of view is that the Bay Area is sill Florence in the Renaissance and that it will be just fine. It’s going to take a while, but this is still where a lot of talent wants to be for all kinds of reasons.

PB: We do think remote will be easier and that we’ll see a greater democratization of opportunity. This [period] has shown all of us that you can work remotely, therefore companies will probably be more willing to incorporate remote workforces into their scaling plans. But I’m also not worried about the Bay Area.

News: Zoom to start first phase of E2E encryption rollout next week

• October 14, 2020
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Zoom will begin rolling out end-to-end encryption to users of its videoconferencing platform from next week, it said today. The platform, whose fortunes have been supercharged by the pandemic-driven boom in remote working and socializing this year, has been working on rebooting its battered reputation in the areas of security and privacy since April —

Zoom will begin rolling out end-to-end encryption to users of its videoconferencing platform from next week, it said today.

The platform, whose fortunes have been supercharged by the pandemic-driven boom in remote working and socializing this year, has been working on rebooting its battered reputation in the areas of security and privacy since April — after it was called out on misleading marketing claims of having E2E encryption (when it did not). E2E is now finally on its way though.

“We’re excited to announce that starting next week, Zoom’s end-to-end encryption (E2EE) offering will be available as a technical preview, which means we’re proactively soliciting feedback from users for the first 30 days,” it writes in a blog post. “Zoom users — free and paid — around the world can host up to 200 participants in an E2EE meeting on Zoom, providing increased privacy and security for your Zoom sessions.”

Zoom acquired Keybase in May, saying then that it was aiming to develop “the most broadly used enterprise end-to-end encryption offering”.

However, initially, CEO Eric Yuan said this level of encryption would be reserved for fee-paying users only. But after facing a storm of criticism the company enacted a swift U-turn — saying in June that all users would be provided with the highest level of security, regardless of whether they are paying to use its service or not.

Zoom confirmed today that Free/Basics users who want to get access to E2EE will need to participate in a one-time verification process — in which it will ask them to provide additional pieces of information, such as verifying a phone number via text message — saying it’s implementing this to try to reduce “mass creation of abusive accounts”.

“We are confident that by implementing risk-based authentication, in combination with our current mix of tools — including our work with human rights and children’s safety organizations and our users’ ability to lock down a meeting, report abuse, and a myriad of other features made available as part of our security icon — we can continue to enhance the safety of our users,” it writes.

Next week’s roll out of a technical preview is phase 1 of a four-stage process to bring E2E encryption to the platform.

This means there are some limitations — including on the features that are available in E2EE Zoom meetings (you won’t have access to join before host, cloud recording, streaming, live transcription, Breakout Rooms, polling, 1:1 private chat, and meeting reactions); and on the clients that can be used to join meetings (for phase 1 all E2EE meeting participants must join from the Zoom desktop client, mobile app, or Zoom Rooms). 

The next phase of the E2EE rollout — which will include “better identity management and E2EE SSO integration”, per Zoom’s blog — is “tentatively” slated for 2021.

From next week, customers wanting to check out the technical preview must enable E2EE meetings at the account level and opt-in to E2EE on a per-meeting basis.

All meeting participants must have the E2EE setting enabled in order to join an E2EE meeting. Hosts can enable the setting for E2EE at the account, group, and user level and can be locked at the account or group level, Zoom notes in an FAQ.

The AES 256-bit GCM encryption that’s being used is the same as Zoom currently uses but here combined with public key cryptography — which means the keys are generated locally, by the meeting host, before being distributed to participants, rather than Zoom’s cloud performing the key generating role.

“Zoom’s servers become oblivious relays and never see the encryption keys required to decrypt the meeting contents,” it explains of the E2EE implementation.

If you’re wondering how you can be sure you’ve joined an E2EE Zoom meeting a dark padlock will be displayed atop the green shield icon in the upper left corner of the meeting screen. (Zoom’s standard GCM encryption shows a checkmark here.)

Meeting participants will also see the meeting leader’s security code — which they can use to verify the connection is secure. “The host can read this code out loud, and all participants can check that their clients display the same code,” Zoom notes.

News: OpenView Venture Partners raises $450M for sixth fund, its largest to date

• October 14, 2020
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This morning OpenView Venture Partners announced that it has closed $450 million for its new, sixth fund. The capital pool is its largest to date, coming in at roughly 50% larger than its preceding fund five. OpenView is based in Boston, but invests globally. The $450 million fund’s future existence has been known since at

This morning OpenView Venture Partners announced that it has closed $450 million for its new, sixth fund. The capital pool is its largest to date, coming in at roughly 50% larger than its preceding fund five.

OpenView is based in Boston, but invests globally. The $450 million fund’s future existence has been known since at least November of last year, thanks to an SEC filing.

The firm’s investment focus, two of its partners told TechCrunch during separate interviews, is not changing with its new capital. Instead, OpenView will continue to focus on what it calls “expansion stage business software,” according to partner John McCullough.

That’s a way of saying business-focused software startups that have between $1 million and $10 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR. To be more specific, OpenView’s Mackey Craven told TechCrunch that around 80% of its lead deals are into companies with $1 million to $5 million in ARR, with 60% going into companies with between $1 million and $3 million in ARR.

Given that expansion-stage startups are modest in terms of revenue scale, why did OpenView raise so much more capital in its new fund than its prior installments, if it is pursuing the same strategy?

According to McCullough, the firm ran the math on the number of investments it wanted to make — hoping to make 15 to 17, more than the 13 it did out of its preceding fund — the amount of money it needed for follow-on investing, and some constraints it ran into in prior funds when it had to decide between a net-new investment and adding more capital to an existing winner. All that added up to a larger number.

The investor told TechCrunch that OpenView had a lower bound target of $350 million, and a hard max of $450 million for the fund.

New capital is fun and all, but I wanted to know a bit more concerning how the fund views some trends in the tech space that I’ve tried to keep an eye on, namely API-delivered startups, no-code/low-code and insurtech. On the API front, Craven seemed generally bullish, saying that there has been “greater opportunity for software businesses to be built around an API as a product” in recent years, adding that as many API-delivered startups tend toward usage-based pricing, they can also sport attractive net retention metrics.

We riffed on the no-code and low-code worlds as well, noodling on the distinctions between services that allow for greater customizations by non-developers and products that allow for the creation of net new applications sans coding. Both wind up landing inside the no-code and low-code buckets despite being rather different. Regardless, are startups that sell software building in more customization and flexibility? Yes, says Craven. Expect the line of what counts as no-code capability and what is merely neat customizations to blur as time passes.

And, finally, on the insurtech point, Craven indicated that because most of the insurtech world is more financial services than business software, it largely falls outside of their purview. Perhaps Noyo would count as both insurtech and expansion-stage business software?

OpenView has lots of new capital to keep running its playbook. It’s not the only business-focused software VC out there. Shasta’s another. There are more. But with more capital than ever, OpenView has invited more scrutiny onto itself, its results and its new investments. Let’s see where it puts the money to work.

News: Toronto will trial automated shuttles from Local Motors in new pilot program

• October 14, 2020
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The city of Toronto is going to start operating autonomous shuttles on a trial basis, through an agreement with Local Motors that will see that company’s Olli 2.0 all-electric self-driving shuttle ferry passengers beginning in Spring 2021. The trial is being conducted with Pacific Western Transportation, a transportation operations company, and each ride over the

The city of Toronto is going to start operating autonomous shuttles on a trial basis, through an agreement with Local Motors that will see that company’s Olli 2.0 all-electric self-driving shuttle ferry passengers beginning in Spring 2021. The trial is being conducted with Pacific Western Transportation, a transportation operations company, and each ride over the course of the trial will include two full-time staffers, an operator on board from that partner, as well as a customer service rep from either TTC or Metrolinx, the company Toronto contracts for much of its commuter transportation services.

The Olli 2.0 vehicle has a passenger capacity of up to eight people at a time, and includes accessibility features like a wheelchair ramp and securing points. It also includes an AV system for providing information and updates to passengers. The safety operator onboard the vehicle has the ability to take over manual control at any time, should the need arise due to safety concerns or for any other reason.

This pilot route will provide service between West Rouge and Rouge Hill GO station, which is a neighborhood west of the city of Toronto proper in the Greater Toronto Area community of Scarborough. It’s designed to connect commuters to one of the area’s primary light rail networks for longer-distance transportation. The city says that the goal is to also ensure that the autonomous shuffle is maintained up to whatever cleanliness and sanitization standards are in place at the time in light of COVID.

Last mile use cases like this have been a target for autonomous transportation in cities, in part because they involve traveling a predictable, repeated route and doing so at relatively low speeds. This could eventually lead to the deployment of more service routes using Olli shuttles, adding infrastructure connecting the city’s light rail and subway systems to parts of the city not covered by those primary arteries right now.

News: M1 Finance closes $45M Series C mere months after it raised its $33M Series B

• October 14, 2020
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Just months after it announced a $33 million Series B, Chicago-based M1 Finance today disclosed a $45 Series C. The new financing event was led by Left Lane Capital, the same investor that led M1’s Series B. Bear in mind that so-called inside rounds are now a bullish sign in 2020, as opposed to in prior

Just months after it announced a $33 million Series B, Chicago-based M1 Finance today disclosed a $45 Series C.

The new financing event was led by Left Lane Capital, the same investor that led M1’s Series B. Bear in mind that so-called inside rounds are now a bullish sign in 2020, as opposed to in prior VC eras when they were viewed more cooly. Other M1 investors include Jump Capital, Clocktower Technology Ventures and Chicago Ventures, though only the first two appear to have taken part in this round.

Per M1, the Series C comes just 120 days after it raised a Series B. A good question is why M1 has raised more capital, and why Left Lane Capital wanted to lead two rounds for the consumer-focused fintech provider. Going back to our prior coverage, we can figure it out.

In February, we reported that M1 Finance had reached the $1 billion assets under management mark, or AUM.

The startup combines three different traditional fintech services into one (roboadvising, neobanking and lending), allowing it to price the package aggressively. The model appears to be working. When M1 raised its Series B a few months later in June, it had reached the $1.45 billion AUM, or about 45% growth in just over a quarter. That’s very good.

Today, the company announced that it has surpassed the $2 billion AUM mark, up more than 38% in the last four months.

M1 posted slower AUM growth in percentage terms and greater growth in raw AUM over a similar time frame heading into its Series C. But regardless of that nuance, the company’s AUM grew quickly.

That fact helps explain its new round. If you were Left Lane Capital, had just led a round into the company, and then watched it keep growing rapidly, you’d want to double-down quickly. Not only to buy more of the company, but also to get the round done before another investor could show up and buy its own piece of M1, diluting you and nabbing your ascendant position as the startup’s most recent lead investor.

So Left Lane led the Series C, hoping that M1 keeps growing like the proverbial garden irritant.

Revenue, growth

Something fun about M1 is that it shared a revenue target as a percent of AUM earlier in the year, namely that it aims to generate around 1% of its AUM in revenue each year. The company’s CEO Brian Barnes re-confirmed the number for TechCrunch this week.

So, with more than $2 billion in AUM, we can see that M1’s revenues are probably on a run rate of more than $20 million today, and could crest a $25 million run rate by the end of the year, provided that growth continues as it has for the startup.

How is M1 adding so much capital to its platform? Barnes told TechCrunch that M1 has tripled its userbase since the start of the year, and that its current users are bringing more funds in from other financial platforms. The combination is making M1 larger, and quickly.

To wrap, our notes above about Left Lane probably wanting to lead the Series C to keep some other firm from doing it — pre-emption is a regular thing in today’s hot VC market — weren’t mere idle speculation. Barnes told TechCrunch in response to a question about its Series C that his company was “fortunate to have significant investor demand for our Series C, partly due to hitting milestones as quickly” as it has. That sounds like the possibility of competing lead investors to us, at least from our present remove.

The M1 round continues the savings and investing boom we’ve tracked this year. And the round is a win for the Midwest at the same time. More when M1 reaches $3 billion in AUM. Start your countdown.