Monthly Archives: November 2020

News: Spain’s All Iron Ventures closes €66.5M first fund

• November 6, 2020
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Spain’s All Iron Ventures (AIV), an investor in b2c marketplaces and ecommerce plays, has closed its first fund with commitments totalling €66.5 million (~$79M) — which it touts as one of the largest first fund raises in the country.  Capital committed to the fund by its parent Group’s founding partners and other investors brings its

Spain’s All Iron Ventures (AIV), an investor in b2c marketplaces and ecommerce plays, has closed its first fund with commitments totalling €66.5 million (~$79M) — which it touts as one of the largest first fund raises in the country. 

Capital committed to the fund by its parent Group’s founding partners and other investors brings its total investment capacity to around €110M. 

Backing for the fund has come from private investors, with no public support sought. AIV aligns itself with what it dubs a “new breed” of entrepreneur-backed VCs emerging in Europe — which includes having its own incubation program.

The Bilbao headquartered fund has been operating since late 2017, run by co-directors Hugo Fernández-Mardomingo and Diego Recondo. It’s part of the All Iron Group — which includes a listed real estate holding company and was founded by the Ticketbis founders who sold their ticket reselling marketplace to eBay in 2016 for more than €165M; a major exit success story for the Spanish ecosystem.

Among some 150 investors in AIV’s fund I are local entrepreneurs such as Iñaki Ecenarro (who is also a partner); Salvador García, co-founder and CEO of fintech startup ebury; and Jose Poza, founder of Ibercom which later merged with MasMóvil (which was itself recently acquired by private equity in a multi-billion euro deal).

The fund leads or co-invests mainly in Series A and pre-A funding rounds — though it notes it has flexibility to also invest at seed level. It typically cuts an initial check of up to €2M, with the capacity to support portfolio companies in follow-on rounds too.

Its investment thesis is focused on b2c companies, with a stated preference for marketplaces, subscription and e-commerce models. “Capital efficiency and clear path to profitability play a significant part in AIV’s investment decisions,” it adds in a press release.

In terms of geography, AIV positions itself as a partner for international VCs wanting to invest in Spain and elsewhere — with an international focus on Europe and the Americas.

Recent investments include Ukraine-based online tutoring marketplace Preply and Spanish on-demand laundry service Mr Jeff.

Other portfolio startups include Lookiero, Lingokids, Spotahome and Seedtag (from Spain) — as well as Barkyn (Portugal), Refurbed (Austria), Paul Camper (Germany). Kodit (Finland), Rebag (US) and Zenklub (Brazil).

News: Netflix tests a programmed linear TV and movie channel in France

• November 6, 2020
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Netflix is testing out a programmed linear content channel, similar to what you get with standard broadcast and cable TV, for the first time (via Variety). The streaming company will still be streaming said channel – it’ll be accessed via Netflix’s browser-based website – and it will be initially available in France only, having rolled

Netflix is testing out a programmed linear content channel, similar to what you get with standard broadcast and cable TV, for the first time (via Variety). The streaming company will still be streaming said channel – it’ll be accessed via Netflix’s browser-based website – and it will be initially available in France only, having rolled out to select areas in November 5, with plans to expand to more of France through December.

The channel is called Netflix Direct, and is exclusively available to subscribers of the regular Netflix streaming service. It will show TV shows and movies from France, the U.S. and other regions, selected from Netflix’s existing content library. The reasoning behind the launch in France in particular, according to the streaming giant, is that a lot of viewers in the country tend to like watching programming without having to select what it is specifically they’re going to watch next.

Netflix previously launched a test of a tool that provided that – a ‘Shuffle’ button that would play stuff it thinks you’d like at random from its recommendation trove. That was individual per users, however – while the new Netflix Direct approach is a fixed slate of programming that’s the same for everyone who tunes in, much more like traditional TV.

For all its strengths, Netflix definitely doesn’t have the same ability to channel surf or essentially veg out and let the TV take away any decision fatigue, so this could be the answer to that. It’s definitely an interesting experiment for Netflix, but we’ll see if it catches on or expands to more geographies with different viewing preferences.

News: Challenger bank Starling is out raising a new £200M funding round

• November 6, 2020
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Starling founder Anne Boden recently told TechCrunch that the U.K. challenger bank is on track to be profitable by Christmas, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t out raising additional capital already. According to well-placed sources, Starling has hired Rothschild with the aim of raising a new £200 million round. The draw is its expected profitability,

Starling founder Anne Boden recently told TechCrunch that the U.K. challenger bank is on track to be profitable by Christmas, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t out raising additional capital already.

According to well-placed sources, Starling has hired Rothschild with the aim of raising a new £200 million round. The draw is its expected profitability, which one source says is already creating private equity investor interest. Starling declined to comment.

Having raised £363 million to date, including a £100 million state-aid grant, Starling now boasts 1.9 million customers. Since launching business banking in March 2018 and subsequently taking part in the U.K. government’s bounce back scheme for struggling businesses hit by the pandemic, this also now includes more than 280,000 business accounts for sole traders and small to medium sized businesses.

In our recent interview with Boden to primarily talk about her tell it all book on Starling’s founding, she told TechCrunch that her ultimate aim is to get to an initial public offering. “I didn’t do all this to sell out to a big bank,” she told me. “I’ve got my sights on an IPO. I’d very much like to do that”.

However, to just that will almost certainly require additional capital injections for the next few years to continue telling an appealing story for future public investors, which will include further U.K. expansion and making meaningful in-roads into Europe.

In the shorter term, we might also see some M&A activity. Speaking at the LendIt Fintech Europe 2020 virtual conference in October, Boden said that Starling is continuing to expand the SME side of its business and SME loans now make up the largest segment of its overall book (approaching £1.5 billion of lending). As part of this, she didn’t rule out acquiring companies in the SME lending space.

News: Amazon to invest $2.8 billion to build its second data center region in India

• November 6, 2020
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Manish Singh Contributor Manish Singh covers India for TechCrunch. Prior to this, he wrote for VentureBeat, CNBC, The Outline, CNET, and Mashable. You can reach out to him at manishsingh at pm dot me More posts by this contributor PUBG Mobile plots return to India following ban WhatsApp rolls out payments in India Amazon will

Amazon will invest about $2.8 billion in Telangana to set up a new AWS Cloud region in the southern state of India, a top Indian politician announced on Friday.

The investment will allow Amazon to launch an AWS Cloud region in Hyderabad city by mid-2022, said K. T. Rama Rao, Minister for Information Technology, Electronics & Communications, Municipal Administration and Urban Development and Industries & Commerce Departments, Government of Telangana.

The new AWS Asia Region will be Amazon’s second infrastructure region in India, Amazon said in a press release. It did not disclose the size of the investment.

“The new AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region will enable even more developers, startups, and enterprises as well as government, education, and non-profit organizations to run their applications and serve end users from data centers located in India,” the e-commerce giant said.

But there is a lot in it for Amazon as well. Jayanth Kolla, chief analyst at consultancy firm Convergence Catalyst, told TechCrunch that by having more cloud regions in India, it will be easier for Amazon to comply with the nation’s data localization policy. This compliance will also help Amazon, which currently leads the cloud market in India, attract more customers.

AWS has courted several high-profile businesses as customers in recent years. Some of these include automobile giant Ashok Leyland, life insurance firm Aditya Birla Capital, edtech giant Byju’s, Axis Bank, Bajaj Capital, ClearTax, Dream11, Druva, Edelweiss, Edunext, Extramarks, Freshworks, HDFC Life, Mahindra Electric, Ola, Oyo, Policybazaar, Quantela, RBL Bank, redBus, Sharda University, Swiggy, Tata Sky, and Zerodha.

Kolla said there is a possibility that in the future several more states in India introduce their own version of data localization laws. “This is also a big win for the state government of Telangana, home of the high tech city Hyderabad, for attracting this level of investment,” he added.

“Businesses in India are embracing cloud computing to reduce costs, increase agility, and enable rapid innovation to meet the needs of billions of customers in India and abroad,” said Peter DeSantis, Senior Vice President of Global Infrastructure and Customer Support, Amazon Web Services, in a statement. “Together with our AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region, we’re providing customers with more flexibility and choice, while allowing them to architect their infrastructure for even greater fault tolerance, resiliency, and availability across geographic locations.”

The investment illustrates the opportunities Amazon, which has poured over $6.5 billion in its India operations to date and leads the cloud market in the nation, sees in the world’s second largest internet market.

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have explored various ways to expand the reach of their cloud services in India. Microsoft inked a long-term deal with telecom giant Jio Platforms last year to offer millions of businesses access to Office 365 and other Microsoft services at a more affordable cost. Earlier this year, Amazon formed a strategic alliance with Airtel, one of the largest telecom operators in India. As part of the deal, Airtel will sell AWS to many of its customers.

At stake is India’s public cloud market, which according to market research group IDC, is expected to be worth $7 billion by 2024.

News: PUBG Mobile plots return to India following ban

• November 6, 2020
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PUBG Mobile, the sleeper hit title that was banned in India two months ago over cybersecurity concerns, is plotting to make a return in the world’s second largest internet market, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The South Korean firm has engaged with global cloud service providers in recent weeks to store Indian

PUBG Mobile, the sleeper hit title that was banned in India two months ago over cybersecurity concerns, is plotting to make a return in the world’s second largest internet market, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

The South Korean firm has engaged with global cloud service providers in recent weeks to store Indian users’ data within the country to allay New Delhi’s concerns about user data residency and security, one of the sources said.

The gaming giant has privately informed some high-profile streamers in the country that it expects to resume the service in India before the end of this year, the other source said. Both the sources requested anonymity as they are not authorized to speak to the press. PUBG Corporation did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The company could make an announcement about its future plans for India as soon as this week. It also plans to run a marketing campaign in the country during the festival of Diwali next week, one of the sources said.

In recent weeks, PUBG has also engaged with a number of local firms including SoftBank-backed Paytm and telecom giant Airtel to explore whether they would be interested in publishing the popular mobile game in the country, an industry executive said. A Paytm spokesperson declined to comment.

Chinese giant Tencent initially published PUBG Mobile apps in India. After New Delhi banned PUBG Mobile, the gaming firm cut publishing ties with Tencent in the country.

Late last month, two months after the ban order, PUBG Mobile terminated its service for Indian users. “Protecting user data has always been a top priority and we have always complied with applicable data protection laws and regulations in India. All users’ gameplay information is processed in a transparent manner as disclosed in our privacy policy,” it said at the time.

With more than 50 million monthly active users in India, PUBG Mobile was by far the most popular mobile game in the country before it was banned. It helped establish an entire ecosystem of  esports organisations to teams and even a cottage industry of streamers that made the most of its spectator sport-friendly gameplay, said Rishi Alwani, a long-time analyst of Indian gaming market and publisher of news outlet The Mako Reactor.

PUBG Mobile’s return, however, could complicate matters for several industry players, including some that are currently building similar games to cash in on its absence and their conversations with venture capital firms over ongoing financing rounds.

It would also suggest that more than 200 other Chinese apps that India has banned in recent months could hope to allay New Delhi’s concerns by making some changes to where they store their users data. (That was also the understanding between TikTok and Reliance when they engaged in investment opportunities earlier this year.)

News: China’s cash-burning video sector: how Kuaishou lost $1B in 6 months

• November 6, 2020
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Rumors have been floating for months that ByteDance is going public with TikTok and Douyin separately. Just last night, Bloomberg reported that ByteDance is seeking a pre-IPO round of $2 billion at a staggering valuation of $180 billion. Before any of that materializes, ByteDance Chinese rival Kuaishou has moved ahead to file for an initial

Rumors have been floating for months that ByteDance is going public with TikTok and Douyin separately. Just last night, Bloomberg reported that ByteDance is seeking a pre-IPO round of $2 billion at a staggering valuation of $180 billion.

Before any of that materializes, ByteDance Chinese rival Kuaishou has moved ahead to file for an initial public offering in Hong Kong Thursday night, and its prospectus is shedding light on a race where both growth and costs are astronomical.

Launched by a former Google engineer in 2011 to share GIFs, Kuaishou has evolved into a nemesis of Douyin, TikTok’s sister in China. 21.5% owned by Tencent, the company reported a net loss of 6.8 billion yuan ($1 billion) in the first six months of 2020 while operating loss stood at 7.57 billion yuan. In contrast, it logged an operating profit of 1.1 billion yuan in the same period just last year.

The increase was in part a result of the company’s aggressive promotion of its lite version Kuaishou Express, which tailors to China’s less tech-savvy demographics. Unlike ByteDance, Kuaishou has had limited success overseas and relies on continuous domestic growth.

Its selling and marketing expenses skyrocketed 354.1% from 3 billion yuan in H1 2019 to 13.7 billion yuan in H1 this year. But the splurge seemed to have paid off: the lite app gained 100 million DAUs within a year. It’s a game of pay-to-play.

The main app Kuaishou itself, as of June, reached 302 million daily users, who spent over 85 minutes on the app per day engrossed in watching clips and live sessions. For comparison, Douyin crossed 400 million DAUs in January.

Though known as a “short-video app”, Kuaishou earns most of its revenue — 68.5% in H1 — from live streaming, during which audiences can send hosts virtual items priced anywhere between 1 and 2,000 yuan. Other monetization avenues include advertising, which accounted for 28% of its revenues, as well as less significant sources like e-commerce and games.

Douyin, on the other hand, pulled in about 67% of its revenues from advertising last year, a source told TechCrunch earlier, while live-streaming made up 17%.

The revenue makeup reflects the core use case of the apps. Kuaishou often prides itself on user engagement; indeed, over a quarter of its 776 million monthly users are creators themselves. That makes Kuaishou more of a social app where the viewers and creators interact frequently through means like live streaming and gifting.

Douyin, with algorithms that favor premium content, acts more like a form of media as some Chinese venture capitalists observed, making it a destination for showing ads.

In terms of revenue size, Kuaishou generated 39.1 billion yuan last year, about one-third of what ByteDance made last year. But one should keep in mind that ByteDance has another cash cow: its news and information aggregator, Jinri Toutiao.

News: Steve Bannon’s show pulled off Twitter and YouTube over calls for violence

• November 6, 2020
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Former Presidential advisor and right-wing pundit Steve Bannon had his show suspended from Twitter and an episode removed by YouTube after calling for violence against FBI director Christopher Wray and the government’s leading pandemic expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Bannon, speaking with co-host Jack Maxey, was discussing what Trump should do in a hypothetical second term.

Former Presidential advisor and right-wing pundit Steve Bannon had his show suspended from Twitter and an episode removed by YouTube after calling for violence against FBI director Christopher Wray and the government’s leading pandemic expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Bannon, speaking with co-host Jack Maxey, was discussing what Trump should do in a hypothetical second term. He suggested firing Wray and Fauci, but then went further, saying “I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats.”

This may strike one at first as mere hyperbole – one may say “we want his head on a platter” and not really be suggesting they actually behead anyone. But the conversation continued and seemed to be more in earnest than it first appeared:

Maxey: Just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you wil,l with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors.

Bannon: That’s how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn’t some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war.

Whether one considers this only nostalgia for the good old days of mob justice or an actual call to bring those days back, the exchange seems to have been enough for moderators at YouTube and Twitter to come down hard on the pair’s makeshift broadcast.

Twitter confirmed that it has “permanently suspended” (i.e. it can be appealed but won’t be restored automatically) the account for violating the rule against glorifying violence.

YouTube removed the episode from “Steve Bannon’s War Room” channel Wednesday afternoon after it was brought to their attention. A representative for the platform said “We’ve removed this video for violating our policy against inciting violence. We will continue to be vigilant as we enforce our policies in the post-election period.”

Online platforms have struggled with finding the line between under- and over-moderation. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram and others have all taken different measures, from preemptively turning off features to silently banning hashtags. Facebook today took down a group with more than 300,000 members that was acting as an amplifier for misinformation about the election.

While the platforms have been vigorous in at least some ways in the labeling and isolation of misinformation, it’s more difficult for video platforms. Just minutes ago Trump took to YouTube to detail a variety of unfounded conspiracy theories about mail-in voting, but the platform can’t exactly do a live fact-check of the President and shut down his channel. More than with text-based networks, video tends to spread before it is caught and flagged due to the time it takes to review it.

News: Elon Musk’s Tesla tequila will run you $250 a bottle

• November 5, 2020
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Teslaquila, the Tesla -branded liquor, that co-starred in CEO Elon Musk’s controversial April Fool’s Day joke about the automaker filing for bankruptcy, has arrived. The automaker now lists Tesla Tequila (a bit different from the original Teslaquila branding) on its website. The tequila — described as a “small-batch premium 100% de agave tequila añejo made

Teslaquila, the Tesla -branded liquor, that co-starred in CEO Elon Musk’s controversial April Fool’s Day joke about the automaker filing for bankruptcy, has arrived.

The automaker now lists Tesla Tequila (a bit different from the original Teslaquila branding) on its website. The tequila — described as a “small-batch premium 100% de agave tequila añejo made from sustainably sourced highland and lowland agaves,” is housed in a handblown glass bottle shaped in the electric charge symbol. Oh, and it costs $250.

Celeb-produced tequilas are nothing new and often lucrative. Casamigos, tequila brand co-founded by George Clooney, was acquired by Diageo in a deal that valued the company up to $1 billion. Tesla Tequila might be first liquor sold by an automaker. The liquor is produced by Nosotros Tequila, according to the company.

The tequila first popped up in April 2018 when Musk tweeted a photo of himself passed out against a Tesla Model 3 “surrounded by “Teslaquilla” bottles, the tracks of dried tears still visible on his cheeks.” In the photo, Musk is holding a cardboard sign that reads “bankwupt.”

Later that year, Tesla filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark “Teslaquila.”

News: SpaceX successfully launches GPS III space vehicle for the U.S. Space Force

• November 5, 2020
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Tesla has launched a GPS III satellite on behalf of customer the U.S. Space Force, the second GPS III generation satellite it has launched for the U.S. military this year. The first took off in June, and was the third overall GPS III put in orbit by SpaceX . This is the fourth, and will

Tesla has launched a GPS III satellite on behalf of customer the U.S. Space Force, the second GPS III generation satellite it has launched for the U.S. military this year. The first took off in June, and was the third overall GPS III put in orbit by SpaceX . This is the fourth, and will provide improved GPS navigation capabilities to the U.S., including improved jamming technology to protect against interference.

SpaceX used a brand new Falcon 9 first-stage on this launch, and successfully recovered that rocket booster using a controlled landing on its drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The company also confirmed that its payload achieved good orbit, and it’s now in the process of making its way to the deployment point where it can release the GPS spacecraft for its final orbital insertion.

This mission flew from Cape Canaveral in Florida, and was the second attempt at delivering this payload, after an attempt at the beginning of September was scrubbed due to an early startup of two engines that caused an auto-shutdown of the launch sequence two seconds prior to liftoff. SpaceX investigated the issue and found that it was due to some trace amounts of a masking material used to protect engine components making their way into fuel lines. That triggered a chance in its engine manufacturing and inspection process.

SpaceX also delayed its forthcoming Crew-1 launch for NASA to resolve the issue, so today’s launch should be another reassurance that that key, history-making flight of an operational ISS crew made up of three NASA and one JAXA astronaut will go ahead as planned on November 14, barring any other delays.

News: After Prop 22’s passage, Uber is taking its lobbying effort global

• November 5, 2020
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Fresh off of its success on Election Day, Uber is signaling that it will continue to push laws similar to the Proposition 22 measure approved by California voters that will keep gig workers classified as independent contractors. The ride-hailing company’s ambitions for laws that preserve its business model are global. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said

Fresh off of its success on Election Day, Uber is signaling that it will continue to push laws similar to the Proposition 22 measure approved by California voters that will keep gig workers classified as independent contractors. The ride-hailing company’s ambitions for laws that preserve its business model are global.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said Thursday during an earnings call with analysts that the company will “more loudly advocate for laws like Prop 22.” He later added that it will be a priority of the company “to work with governments across the U.S. and the world to make this a reality.”

What “loudly advocating” for might look like is unclear. Prop 22 was backed by Uber and Lyft as well as on-demand delivery companies Doordash and Postmates. (Uber is in the process of acquiring Postmates). The push to pass the ballot measure and override a bill passed by the California State Legislature that would have forced companies that use gig workers to classify them as employees was an expensive undertaking. Total contributions to Yes on 22 were around $205 million, making it the most expensive ballot measure in California since 1999.

Here’s his complete thought.

Lastly, on Proposition 22, which we are happy to say passed with a healthy margin in California.

This important question has now been settled in the most populous state in the country. California voters listen to what the vast majority of drivers want: new benefits and protections with the same flexibility. Going forward, drivers and delivery people in California will be guaranteed a minimum earnings standard, health care contributions, accident insurance, increased safety protections and more. We feel strongly that this is the right approach, we should be adding benefits to gig work to make it better, not getting rid of it altogether in favor of an employment only system.

That’s why going forward you’ll see as more loudly advocating for new laws like Prop 22, which we believe strike the balance between preserving the flexibility that drivers value so much, while adding protections that all gig workers deserve. Our proposal for a new pragmatic approach is supported by 82% of drivers and 76% of voters. And it’s a priority for us to work with governments across the U.S. and the world to make this a reality.

For now, Khosrowshahi said the company will be focused on complying with Prop 22, which does require an earnings guarantee of at least 120% of minimum wage while on the job, 30 cents per engaged miles for expenses, a healthcare stipend, occupational accident insurance for on-the-job injuries, protection against discrimination and sexual harassment, and automobile accident and liability insurance. The earnings guarantees and reimbursement for expenses reflects a driver’s engaged time, not for the time spent between rides or deliveries.

“We are very much focused on the execution of Prop 22 as it relates to our drivers” he said. Khosrowshahi said this could raise rates, but noted that an increases “wouldn’t have a significant effect on trip volumes one way or the other, based on the kinds of sensitivities that we have seen in the past.”