News: Entrepreneurs say regulatory constraints are hampering commercial applications of space tech

• December 20, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

When Payam Banazadeh and his team started Capella Space in 2016, they had visions of providing private industry with a wealth of new data that they could use in all sorts of ways to create business opportunities and improve efficiencies. Four years later, Banazadeh is still waiting for that commercial opportunity. Capella is still successful.

When Payam Banazadeh and his team started Capella Space in 2016, they had visions of providing private industry with a wealth of new data that they could use in all sorts of ways to create business opportunities and improve efficiencies.

Four years later, Banazadeh is still waiting for that commercial opportunity.

Capella is still successful. The company has managed to raise $82 million in venture capital financing and has a robust pipeline of government contracts, but Banazadeh has not seen the kinds of uptake in private industry.

He’s not the only one.

Speaking at TC Sessions: Space 2020, Banazadeh was among a number of executives including Peter Platzer, the chief executive officer of Spire Global; Helsinki-based ICEYE’s co-founder and chief executive Rafal Modrzewski; and Melanie Stricklan, the founder and chief strategy officer of Slingshot Aerospace; who spoke about the central role government plays in the current space business and how they’re hoping that will change.

“I think regulation in the US… has made huge improvements this past year. But the challenge is always how do you balance national security concerns with making sure that the US industrial space can keep up with the competition internationally,” Banazadeh said. “I think we need to… in the US… we need to take a leadership position to not just restrict the US companies on following what international companies are doing, but rather allow US companies to go above and beyond and be able to capture more of the commercial market by being able to provide some of the more advanced features [that they have] on the government side.”

Modrzewski agreed.

“When we were starting ICEYE, we were kind of all under the impression that the idea behind new space and things that we are doing, is really to enable the use of observation for the betterment of the world… For improving efficiencies of businesses, monitoring climate change, doing all these things that that that we haven’t been able to do to do before,” he said. “And when I look at basically democratizing data and handing best capabilities available to commercial industries, as well as to the government, ultimately, right, because they are users of the same, the same supply chain. I see that you know, the largest factor that’s currently stopping the evolution is actually national approach to particular sets of activities. I think the the more globally we approach to the market, the broader the competition, the less limitation we impact… It seems to work significantly better for everyone as a global community, if we allow those companies to freely collaborate, and the data exchange to be free. So if there was one wish that I had for 2021, it is to have less borders, and more open markets in terms of exchange of data.”

Governments are, already, massive customers for most of these businesses. In total government spending represents around half of the total $423 billion spent on the space industry already, according to data from Statista.

But if the industry is to achieve the $1 trillion potential revenue that Morgan Stanley projects for businesses in the next 20 years, then more will have to be done to unlock private industry.

“When we started the company, we saw the immediate opportunity in commercial. And as we dug a little deeper and made some progress, we realized that the commercial market is still not as mature as we had hoped it to be. And in the meantime, we quickly found out that the government market, both US government, as well as international governments are expanding and growing much faster than, than before, specifically for this type of data, because of the new challenges and challenges and threats that are that are around the corner,” Banazadeh said. “And so we’ve pivoted and focused on going after governments in catering to their needs… We do want to get back into commercial, we have that aspiration. And that’s our long term goal. We just think that we’re probably a few years out to get there.”

While the commercial market may not have materialized to the degree that these entrepreneurs would have hoped, there are still opportunities for plenty of business from government contracts thanks, in part, to the increasing complexity of operating in space.

That means big business for company’s like Slingshot, which provides what Stricklan calls “situational awareness.”

“Whether that’s in orbit or terrestrially, we provide answers to our customers around their risk and and how to mitigate that risk, or at least how to understand the risk as it pertains to spatial-temporal information,” Stricklan said. “And so right now … their most important asset is their data [and] in order to get that data, they have to have their satellites in orbit, and they have to have safety of flight and all those different things.”

The exploding number of satellites in orbit and the presence of nearly 500,000 pieces of space debris means that operationally these very expensive assets are at greater risk than they were. Slingshot tries to solve that problem by giving its customers orbital awareness of potential risks, and providing ways to process data to understand the terrestrial risks that companies face.

Everyone from insurance companies to logistics providers to financial investors use satellite data and imagery in their decision making process and an increasing driver for all of these businesses is a chance to model out impacts from climate change, according to Platzer.

“I think I think the demand for a global understanding off the planet, to use its resources in an effective and responsible way, is unabated. You know, perspire in particular, you know, the impact of climate change through weather on every single business in every single country, for every single person is certainly not going away. And so that demand is is absolutely increasing,” Platzer said. “So I honestly actually see mostly, almost exclusively opportunities, and not necessarily obstacles, funding in the industry is growing at 46%. year over year. Company creation is growing at 32% year over year. So I think I think it’s really a very, very dynamic period, which is more dominated by opportunities than obstacles I would say.”

Increasingly, startups will be able to meet these opportunities, especially if they can receive a boost from government entities that can highlight the areas that are emerging business opportunities and leave it to private industry to pursue them, Modrzewski said.

Still, the panelists agreed that there’s no better time to start a company focused on the space industry than now.

“If I could encourage those that have any sort of inspiration to start a company around space to do it, just do it. Execute on that, that vision, but understand all of the, the things that we talked about today are different than the risk of say, starting a marketing company or those different things. So be up to the challenge to understand the government as part of this and understand rules and regulations, and outside the government that impact how we fly satellites, how we take care of satellites, how we provide data and understand that there’s a lot of legacy that comes with this industry,” Stricklan said. “I think the global space ecosystem is one that remains heavily siloed. It’s not like the digital transformations that have happened in Silicon Valley. Over the last 10 or 15 years. This industry still needs that digital transformation and so the the world is your oyster, but be prepared and be up for the challenge.”

News: Dozens of journalists’ iPhones hacked with NSO ‘zero-click’ spyware, says Citizen Lab

• December 20, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Citizen Lab researchers say they have found evidence that dozens of journalists had their iPhones silently compromised with spyware known to be used by nation states. For more than the past year, London-based reporter Rania Dridi and at least 36 journalists, producers and executives working for the Al Jazeera news agency were targeted with a

Citizen Lab researchers say they have found evidence that dozens of journalists had their iPhones silently compromised with spyware known to be used by nation states.

For more than the past year, London-based reporter Rania Dridi and at least 36 journalists, producers and executives working for the Al Jazeera news agency were targeted with a so-called “zero-click” attack that exploited a now-fixed vulnerability in Apple’s iMessage. The attack invisibly compromised the devices without having to trick the victims into opening a malicious link.

Citizen Lab, the internet watchdog at the University of Toronto, was asked to investigate earlier this year after one of the victims, Al Jazeera investigative journalist Tamer Almisshal, suspected that his phone may have been hacked.

In a technical report out Sunday and shared with TechCrunch, the researchers say they believe the journalists’ iPhones were infected with the Pegasus spyware, developed by Israel-based NSO Group.

The researchers analyzed Almisshal’s iPhone and found it had between July and August connected to servers known to be used by NSO for delivering the Pegasus spyware. The device revealed a burst of network activity that suggests that the spyware may have been delivered silently over iMessage.

Logs from the phone show that the spyware was likely able to secretly record the microphone and phone calls, take photos using the phone’s camera, access the victim’s passwords, and track the phone’s location.

Citizen Lab said the bulk of the hacks were likely carried out by at least four NSO customers, including the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, citing evidence it found in similar attacks involving Pegasus.

The researchers found evidence that two other NSO customers hacked into one and three Al Jazeera phones respectively, but that they could not attribute the attacks to a specific government.

A spokesperson for Al Jazeera, which just broadcast its reporting of the hacks, did not immediately comment.

NSO sells governments and nation states access to its Pegasus spyware as a prepackaged service by providing the infrastructure and the exploits needed to launch the spyware against the customer’s targets. But the spyware maker has repeatedly distanced itself from what its customers do and has said it does not who its customers target. Some of NSO’s known customers include authoritarian regimes like China and Russia. Saudi Arabia allegedly used the surveillance technology to spy on the communications of columnist Jamal Khashoggi shortly before his murder, which U.S. intelligence concluded was likely ordered by the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Citizen Lab said it also found evidence that Dridi, a journalist at Arabic television station Al Araby in London, had fallen victim to a zero-click attack. The researchers said Dridi was likely targeted by the UAE government.

In a phone call, Dridi told TechCrunch that her phone may have been targeted because of her close association to a person of interest to the UAE.

Dridi’s phone, an iPhone XS Max, was targeted for a longer period, likely between October 2019 and July 2020. The researchers found evidence that she was targeted on two separate occasions with a zero-day attack — the name of an exploit that has not been previously disclosed and that a patch is not yet available — because her phone was running the latest version of iOS both times.

“My life is not normal anymore. I don’t feel like I have a private life again,” said Dridi. “To be a journalist is not a crime,” she said.

Citizen Lab said its latest findings reveal an “accelerating trend of espionage” against journalists and news organizations, and that the growing use of zero-click exploits makes it increasingly difficult — though evidently not impossible — to detect because of the more sophisticated techniques used to infect victims’ devices while covering their tracks.

When reached on Saturday, NSO said it was unable to comment on the allegations as it had not seen the report, but declined to say when asked if Saudi Arabia or the UAE were customers or describe what processes — if any — it puts in place to prevent customers from targeting journalists.

“This is the first we are hearing of these assertions. As we have repeatedly stated, we do not have access to any information related to the identities of individuals upon whom our system is alleged to have been used to conduct surveillance. However, when we receive credible evidence of misuse, combined with the basic identifiers of the alleged targets and timeframes, we take all necessary steps in accordance with our product misuse investigation procedure to review the allegations,” said a spokesperson.

“We are unable to comment on a report we have not yet seen. We do know that CitizenLab regularly publishes reports based on inaccurate assumptions and without a full command of the facts, and this report will likely follow that theme NSO provides products that enable governmental law enforcement agencies to tackle serious organized crime and counterterrorism only, but as stated in the past, we do not operate them. Nevertheless, we are committed to ensuring our policies are adhered to, and any evidence of a breach will be taken seriously and investigated.”

Citizen Lab said it stood by its findings.

Spokespeople for the Saudi and UAE governments in New York did not respond to an email requesting comment.

The attacks not only puts a renewed focus on the shadowy world of surveillance spyware, but also the companies having to defend against it. Apple rests much of its public image on advocating privacy for its users and building secure devices, like iPhones, designed to be hardened against the bulk of attacks. But no technology is impervious to security bugs. In 2016, Reuters reported that UAE-based cybersecurity firm DarkMatter bought a zero-click exploit to target iMessage, which they referred to as “Karma.” The exploit worked even if the user did not actively use the messaging app.

Apple told TechCrunch that it had not independently verified Citizen Lab’s findings but that the vulnerabilities used to target the reporters were fixed in iOS 14, released in September.

“At Apple, our teams work tirelessly to strengthen the security of our users’ data and devices. iOS 14 is a major leap forward in security and delivered new protections against these kinds of attacks. The attack described in the research was highly targeted by nation-states against specific individuals. We always urge customers to download the latest version of the software to protect themselves and their data,” said an Apple spokesperson.

NSO is currently embroiled in a legal battle with Facebook, which last year blamed the Israeli spyware maker for using a similar, previously undisclosed zero-click exploit in WhatsApp to infect some 1,400 devices with the Pegasus spyware.

Facebook discovered and patched the vulnerability, stopping the attack in its tracks, but said that more than 100 human rights defenders, journalists and “other members of civil society” had fallen victim.

News: Original Content podcast: The pandemic thriller ‘Songbird’ could have been a lot worse

• December 20, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Let’s be clear: “Songbird” is not a good movie. It’s hard to see how it could have been any good, since “Songbird” was written shortly after the pandemic began and filmed a few months later — so the filmmakers had to write a screenplay, shoot it in the midst of a pandemic and edit it,

Let’s be clear: “Songbird” is not a good movie.

It’s hard to see how it could have been any good, since “Songbird” was written shortly after the pandemic began and filmed a few months later — so the filmmakers had to write a screenplay, shoot it in the midst of a pandemic and edit it, all in under a year.

So it feels remarkable that they managed to succeed in at least making an entertaining — if very silly — B-movie. The story is set in the near future, when the lockdown has extended for years and the virus has mutated into COVID-23. Managing the pandemic has fallen to the Department of Sanitation, which can quickly identifies anyone infected and drags them away to unseen Q-Zones.

You might be wondering whether you want to watch a movie that hits so close to the real-life nightmare that we’re currently living through. The good news is that there’s nothing particularly believable in “Songbird,” and a more than a few things that are outright laughable.

But as we explain in the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, Anthony and Darrell both enjoyed the film (currently available to rent on-demand), perhaps because they went in expecting a complete disaster, so they were pleasantly surprised to discover an goofy, unpretentious thriller with one or two genuinely chilling scenes. Jordan, on the other hand, had high hopes, which may explain why she hated it.

You can listen to our review 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 follow us on Twitter or send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

And if you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:20 “Songbird” review
19:51 “Songbird” spoiler discussion

News: Mixtape podcast: Artificial intelligence and disability

• December 20, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

 Welcome back to Mixtape, the TechCrunch podcast that looks at the human element that powers technology. For this episode we spoke with Meredith Whittaker, co-founder of the AI Now Institute and Minderoo Research Professor at NYU; Mara Mills, associate professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU and co-director of the NYU Center for



Welcome back to Mixtape, the TechCrunch podcast that looks at the human element that powers technology.

For this episode we spoke with Meredith Whittaker, co-founder of the AI Now Institute and Minderoo Research Professor at NYU; Mara Mills, associate professor of Media, Culture and Communication at NYU and co-director of the NYU Center for Disability Studies; and Sara Hendren, professor at Olin College of Engineering and author of the recently published What Can a Body Do: How We Meet the Built World.
It was a wide-ranging discussion about artificial intelligence and disability. Hendren kicked us off by exploring the distinction between the medical and social models of disability:

So in a medical model of disability, as articulated in disability studies, the idea is just that disability is a kind of condition or an impairment or something that’s going on with your body that takes it out of the normative average state of the body says something in your sensory makeup or mobility or whatever is impaired, and therefore, the disability kind of lives on the body itself. But in a social model of disability, it’s just an invitation to widen the aperture a little bit and include, not just the body itself and what it what it does or doesn’t do biologically. But also the interaction between that body and the normative shapes of the world.

When it comes to technology, Mills says, some companies work squarely in the realm of the medical model with the goal being a total cure rather than just accommodation, while other companies or technologies – and even inventors – will work more in the social model with the goal of transforming the world and create an accommodation. But despite this, she says, they still tend to have “fundamentally normative or mainstream ideas of function and participation rather than disability forward ideas.”

“The question with AI, and also just with old mechanical things like Brailers I would say, would be are we aiming to perceive the world in different ways, in blind ways, in minoritarian ways? Or is the goal of the technology, even if it’s about making a social, infrastructural change still about something standard or normative or seemingly typical? And that’s — there are very few technologies, probably for financial reasons, that are really going for the disability forward design.”

As Whittaker notes, AI by its nature is fundamentally normative.

“It draws conclusions from large sets of data, and that’s the world it sees, right? And it looks at what’s most average in this data and what’s an outlier. So it’s something that is consistently replicating these norms, right? If it’s trained on the data, and then it gets an impression from the world that doesn’t match the data it’s already seen, that impression is going to be an outlier. It won’t recognize that it won’t know how to treat that. Right. And there are a lot of complexities here. But I think, I think that’s something we have to keep in mind as sort of a nucleus of this technology, when we talk about its potential applications in and out of these sorts of capitalist incentives, like what is it capable of doing? What does it do? What does it act like? And can we think about it, you know, ever possibly in company encompassing the multifarious, you know, huge amounts of ways that disability manifests or doesn’t manifest.”

We talked about this and much much more on the latest episode of Mixtape, so you click play above and dig right in. And then subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

 

 

 

News: Gillmor Gang: Full Stream Ahead

• December 19, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Twitter is shutting down Periscope, the video app it acquired several years ago when Facebook Live threatened to lap the field. When we stream the Gillmor Gang sessions, we send them to Facebook, Twitter, and an unlisted embed on YouTube. At one point, we planned to stream the sessions live on TechCrunch, but for now

Twitter is shutting down Periscope, the video app it acquired several years ago when Facebook Live threatened to lap the field. When we stream the Gillmor Gang sessions, we send them to Facebook, Twitter, and an unlisted embed on YouTube. At one point, we planned to stream the sessions live on TechCrunch, but for now we’re posting the edited version there.

In the weeks leading up to January 20th, the live Telegram feed at https://t.me/Gillmorgang has been dominated by the Trump focus on overturning the election results. Each failed attempt to alter the outcome dilutes Trump’s leverage as his Republican allies struggle with his threats and Twitter rage. In just a few weeks of this, the mechanics of vaccine distribution has overwhelmed the political story as people start calculating the number of days to getting access to the medicine. What Trump does in 2024? Who cares.

Pardons are also losing traction as White House staff jockey for access to the vaccine. With a couple of weeks to the New Year and then a sprint to Biden’s installation, the cable networks are retooling for ratings fodder in the new normal. Tech companies are rejiggering their real estate and tax implications of where the home office is located in a Work from Anywhere environment.

Handicapping the Georgia special elections will fill most of the cable news schedule until January 6th, but no matter what happens in the Senate, the real action shifts to corporate and economic imperatives to control the pandemic through behavior around masks, distancing, real testing, and contact tracing to isolate the pockets of virus resistance to herd immunity. While government mandates are difficult to install at a national level, corporate requirements are more likely to succeed.

Week two of the streaming realignment features some talent lashback from big movie directors. It’s reminiscent of last year’s brief Spielberg attack on Netflix and Oscar politics. This year it’s the Oscars that are losing credibility. It’s still a ways to go before the Best Picture category is all streaming but the audience out there is in no hurry to see Dune on the big screen. As with the election, facts are a trailing indicator. The move to streaming is not if but when.

Less certain is when I upgrade to the next iPhone. Part of the problem is the competition for mindshare with the M1 MacBooks. Instead of one device I don’t need there are two. It’s clearly a one percent mental crisis on the surface, but beneath lurks a serious debate on what we do as the twin viruses recede. The phone is the new MTV, the Star Trek communicator, and the Get SmartShoe rolled into one. The laptop is a different story, a bold harmonizing of the suite of services across the desktop and mobile platforms.

The new phone offers iterative advances — a better camera, 5G support, a bigger battery. M1 jumpstarts a software surge across all Apple devices, pushing professional video editing and post-production tools to a prosumer customer base that seriously threatens Windows and Intel as the dominant platform for a post pandemic economy. Those still amortizing the last generation of the MacBook Pro 16 will hold out, but resistance will fade. The move to Apple Silicon is not if but when.

Still I don’t have a rationale for buying one. I’ll just have to do it anyway.

By the way, I’ll pretend to fund the M1 by cutting back on my newsletter subscriptions. Smart writers like the Ben’s Stratechery and Evans are caught behind the paywall of their shiny new newsletters, which trade reach for revenue. Then the very special long form pieces they used to justify the subscription cost start showing up a few weeks later in the clear. It’s the newsletter version of the Hollywood windowing system that Jason Kilar and WarnerMedia are blowing up with HBO Max.

This piece by Ben Thompson is a hybrid of the form. It’s got plenty of quotes from his Daily pay newsletter mixed with a less methodical but more supple set of semi-ideas that actually make me want to subscribe. Like this:

On the flipside, to the extent that v2 social networking allows people to be themselves in all the different ways they wish to be, the more likely it is they become close to people who see other parts of the world in ways that differ from their own. Critically, though, unlike Facebook or Twitter, that exposure happens in an environment of trust that encourages understanding, not posturing.

This is M1 fodder, I’ll call it. Lost in the social network lockdown miasma but somehow potentially transcendent of the big fish in a small pond quandary where the newsletter eco system derails. 10 bucks a month times 3 or 4 adds up to real money I won’t be funneling to Cupertino, or Disney + or Whatever + for that matter. But a bundle of cooperating newsletters that promote a certain type of work that aggregates useful data about a strategic influential audience — you betcha.

from the Gillmor Gang Newsletter

__________________

The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, December 11, 2020.

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

@fradice, @mickeleh, @denispombriant, @kteare, @brentleary, @stevegillmor, @gillmorgang

Subscribe to the Gillmor Gang Newsletter and join the backchannel here on Telegram.

The Gillmor Gang on Facebook … and here’s our sister show G3 on Facebook.

News: Can you IPO sneakers? Also, this is the last Exchange roundup of the year

• December 19, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Subscribe here.  Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors. Sweet dreams are made of IPOs, so merry f****** Christmas We’re

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Subscribe here. 

Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors.

Sweet dreams are made of IPOs, so merry f****** Christmas

We’re all very tired but there’s still so much news to go over I am sorry

Can you IPO sneakers? Also, this is the last Exchange roundup of the year

Hello everyone, hope you are well. This is the final Exchange newsletter of 2020. There will be a handful of columns next week before I take some time off. Equity will publish episodes throughout the termination of this accursed annum, as well.

And now that we’re done with housekeeping, our two focuses of the week: Who is going public and how fast a particular cohort of startups are growing.

Sure, the two topics aren’t incredibly related issues, but I am not going to let unending IPO news ruin what I wanted to talk about. So, SEC broccoli first, and then we get to have some fun.

IPOh-no-they-didn’t

IPO news was busy this week, with Coinbase and UIPath filing privately, Poshmark filing publicly, and Bumble reportedly filing privately. In short, we’ve added four names to our IPO roll-call, that already included Affirm and Roblox, which have delayed their own offerings.

And with names like Chime, Robinhood, Expensify, and others already of sufficient scale to go public at-will, the brand-name IPO crop of 2021 could rival what we saw this year.

Thanks to unicorns looking to graze public pastures, and public markets near all-time-highs, it appears that we’re going to see it rain liquidity over the coming months. This means that aggregate venture capital DPI and TVPI metrics will scoot higher, making the entire asset class even more attractive than it was in today’s yield-hungry world.

The music continues.

Just how big is the software business?

Earlier this week, TechCrunch covered Ramp’s new round. Ramp launched in February, and was dismissed by some as a Brex clone at the time. Ramp and Brex compete with Divvy and other startups (more on two others in a moment) to help other companies manage their spend through a combination of real and virtual cards, and software.

Along with some new software features, Ramp announced growth metrics as part of its news bundle. When reached to Divvy for similar numbers, the company supplied them. Brex declined to share results, which was fine. And I failed to mention a few competing companies, namely Airbase and Plate IQ.

Airbase I should have included as I covered it in March, 2020 when it raised $23.5 million in a Series A-extension (the new capital came in at a trebled-valuation, so you could call it a Series B, frankly). Regardless, Airbase matters not only because it is a competitor to Ramp and Divvy and Brex, but because while it offers similar products to its rivals, it also charges for its software.

This is in contrast, as far as I can tell, with Divvy and Brex and Ramp, companies more focused on signing up great masses of companies and driving revenues from interchange incomes. (Not charging for software that is wrapped around commodity cards is a way to keep sales-friction low, and thus, in theory, customer-growth high.)

But while Airbase wants corporate customers to pay for its software, it’s still growing like all heck. According to an email from Airbase CEO Thejo Kote, the startup’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) has grown by 2.5x this year, and payment volume has “grown 7X on an annualized basis.”

Those are super-good numbers. Adding another company to the success mix, well-known investor Garry Tan said on Twitter that Plate IQ, a company I have yet to meet, is “doing more than $500M in annual transactions and is profitable (real earnings).” For contrast, the relatively young Ramp just announced that it had cleared $100 million in aggregate managed spend.

My takeaway from this spate of reporting is not that any single company is going to win, or that one company is the clear leader. Instead this week’s poking around a single software niche reminded me of just how big the software market is.

How is there room for all of these competing startups to grow so quickly at the same time? The answer is that the global economy is huge, and software is still merrily grinding its way into more and more of its heft. I bet we wind up with three of our five companies in this piece surviving to public-scale, and just two being snapped up by private rivals or public giants.

I suppose this makes me long cloud. Whatever. Just don’t tell VC Twitter.

Market Notes

This week to make things easy, I’ve broken up the rest of the things you need to know into two groups. The first is everything that was not a round. The second is all the rounds. Let’s go:

• Slack’s venture capital fund is back for more, the parent company is self-funding the project, and the capital pool has doubled in size to $50 million.
• StockX has reached IPO scale. TechCrunch covered its fundraising news this week, writing at the time that the marketplace for used clothing goods was an IPO candidate. So we took a look. Yep. It’s an IPO candidate.
• The Information reported this week that SoFi did around $200 million in revenue during Q3, and was EBITDA-positive.
• Axios reported on the growth of the creator economy. Stop rolling your eyes. It’s more than big enough to take seriously, so get on board. We also chatted about the situation on Equity, if you are into podcasts with jokes.
• Crypto is back in the headlines, and recent price gains amongst the asset category are not based on pure hype.
• Robinhood had a tough week. The company’s shot at an IPO if it wants one probably won’t come under siege — it wouldn’t be the only company to go public in recent quarters with some legal matters underway — but it was still not the week that the stock trading company wanted. And its rival Public.com raised precisely as much money as Robinhood had to pay in fines. Ouch.
• Startup valuations are, in Silicon Valley at least, on the other-side of the COVID-depression.

Now, a stampede of megarounds.

Huge and Important

Our Various & Sundry section this week is anything but. So I renamed it for this final newsletter of the year. Here they are, the rounds both huge and important:

• Brazil’s Creditas raised $255 million. TechCrunch placed the round amongst a larger wave of Latin America-focused fintech rounds.
• Zenoti, based in Bellevue near Microsoft, raised $160 million, a round that made it a unicorn. What does it do? Per The Seattle Times, it “makes cloud-computing software for managing spas and salons.” Don’t laugh. Vertical SaaS is huge. Barbershop focused vertical SaaS player Squire was valued at $250 million the other week.
• Adding another payments-focused round to the newsletter, GoCardless is nearly a unicorn after raising more money this week.
• And sticking to fintech, France’s Lydia, which “aims to be an all-in-one, in-hand platform for any financial needs” of younger consumers, according to Tech.EU, extended its Series B by $86 million this week. (Accel led that round, and Public’s latest as well. Big week for that firm.)
• TechCrunch reported that ClickUp has put together a new $100 million round that values the company at $1 billion. It raised $35 million in June. Why do we care about ClickUp? It’s part of a wave of companies that closed two rounds in 2020. Ramp. Welcome. SkyFlow. The list goes on.
• In the Insurtech world, Bestow raised $70 million for its digital life insurance product. Insurtech has been hot lately, with AgentSync, a player in the space, raising two rounds this year alone.
• Finally, Paxos, which does crypto work for PayPal among other things, raised $142 million in a mammoth Series C. Chalk this one up to the crypto boom.

And now I shall disappear in a cloud of JUUL mist to lose some more games of Civ 6 to my nemesis, Hugs and and all the best.

Alex

 

 

News: Human Capital: Ex-Pinterest employees who alleged discrimination say ‘no progress has been made’

• December 19, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

This was quite the week for Pinterest and not in a good way. While the company settled the gender discrimination lawsuit brought forth by its former COO, the hefty $22.5 million settlement highlighted some of the tech industry’s inequities.  Meanwhile, Airbnb outlined some new goals around diversity and inclusion, despite having not produced a diversity

This was quite the week for Pinterest and not in a good way. While the company settled the gender discrimination lawsuit brought forth by its former COO, the hefty $22.5 million settlement highlighted some of the tech industry’s inequities. 

Meanwhile, Airbnb outlined some new goals around diversity and inclusion, despite having not produced a diversity report since last year, when it disclosed its 2018 data. 

All that and more in this week’s edition of Human Capital. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Friday at 1 p.m. PT.

Pinterest settles gender discrimination lawsuit for $22.5 million

Pinterest announced it had settled the gender discrimination lawsuit brought forth by former COO Francoise Brougher. In August, Brougher sued Pinterest, alleging gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination.

As part of the settlement, Pinterest will pay $20 million to Brougher and her attorneys, and both Pinterest and Brougher will commit $2.5 million toward “Advancing women and underrepresented communities” in the tech industry, the company wrote in a filing.

On Black women laying “the groundwork for someone else to swoop in and collect ‘progress’”

Before Brougher filed suit against Pinterest, former Pinterest employees Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks publicly alleged racial and gender discrimination while working at the company. I spoke with Ozoma and Banks about the settlement and how it compared to their outcomes. 

On a call with TechCrunch earlier this week, Ozoma and Banks described a double standard in their experiences compared to Brougher’s. While Brougher received a $20 million payout, Ozoma and Banks received less than one year’s worth of severance. Here are some pertinent words they shared on the settlement:

Banks:

This follows the time-honored tradition in America where Black women come forward, blazing a trail, revealing injustice and white women coming in and reaping all the benefits of that.

Ozoma:

So we, like in many, many, many other cases, Black women put ourselves on the line, shared absolutely everything that happened to us, then laid the groundwork for someone else to swoop in and collect ‘progress. No progress has been made here because no rights have been made with people who harm has been done to.

Pinterest agrees to adopt DEI recommendations

Pinterest committed to adopting the recommendations from its special committee of the board of directors. The committee formed earlier this year in June, shortly after two former employees, Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks, went public with their allegations of racial and gender discrimination while working at Pinterest. 

Here are a few of those recommendations:

• mandatory unconscious bias training for every employee, including managers and executives
• offer additional trainings on inclusivity and unconscious bias
• include “diverse employees” in interview panels with job candidates
• reward employees for their efforts to support and promote DEI
• publish a diversity report twice a year for at least two years; after two years, publish the report annually
• establish criteria for promotion eligibility
• enhance Pinterest’s harassment and discrimination policy
• create a centralized workplace investigations team to ensure consistent and fair outcomes

Gig workers are ready for battle as we enter the new year

Over on Extra Crunch, I did a deep dive into what’s next for gig workers and companies in light of the passage of Prop 22. 

The gist is that Prop 22 does not mark the end of the battle of the status of gig workers. Companies are looking to pursue similar legislation in other places while gig workers are gearing up for another battle.

Moving forward, it’s hard to predict where companies like Uber and Lyft will go next, Brian Chen of the National Employment Law Project said, but it’s likely they’ll want to go to big markets.

“Places where they know there’s been on-the-ground workers organizing and activists they’d finally like to stomp out, and where enforcement has been strong against the company,” he told TechCrunch.

Chen pointed to New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon and Michigan. Wherever these companies bring the battle next, Chen says NELP will be heavily involved in fighting back. As will workers.

“We already know companies are doing this proactively, so we need to be doing this proactively as well,” Bain told me. “I think there is a lot we are going to be up against. It depends on some of the people who are appointed in labor positions and what their actual principles and values are, but I’m a little more optimistic. Things that were not possible to do under Trump will just be really difficult to do under Biden, but not impossible.”

You can read the full, 2,318-word story here.

Gig Workers Rising to launch app to help workers understand their rights under Prop 22

Gig Workers Rising is gearing up to release an app to help gig workers understand their new rights and benefits under Prop 22. 

“[…] workers know that gig companies have a history of making and breaking promises to workers,” the site states. “These corporations depend on you not knowing your rights and being unable to advocate for the benefits you are owed.”

Earlier in the week, Lyft outlined the benefits that are now available to drivers. 

Airbnb sets new DEI goals

Airbnb, which recently went public and became a $100 billion company, recently set two goals to try to improve diversity at the home-sharing and experiences company because it “is nowhere near satisfied with the status quo,” the company wrote in a blog post.

By the end of 2025, Airbnb is aiming for 20% of its U.S. workforce to be underrepresented minorities, which includes folks who self-identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. Currently, underrepresented minorities make up just 12% of the company’s employee base.

The second goal is to increase the representation of women to 50% by the end of 2025. 

Intel’s diversity report breaks out underrepresented women data for first time

Some highlights from the report:

 

• Representation of Hispanic employees increased from 10% to 10.5% year over year
• Representation of underrepresented minorities in the exec level decreased to 8.4% from 8.8%
• Underrepresented women in exec roles increased from 1.8% to 2.4%

TechCrunch Sessions: Justice 2021 tickets on sale

Lastly, tickets are now available for TC Sessions: Justice 2021. Don’t worry, it’ll be an entirely virtual event and tickets are just $5 a pop. 

The event is taking place from your living room on March 3, 2021. Already, we’ve lined up speakers like Backstage Capital founder and Managing Partner Arlan Hamilton, Kickstarter Union co-organizer Clarissa Redwine and Ethel’s Club/Somewhere Good founder and CEO Naj Austin. 

More to come!

News: How Zoox turned a failed Series C into the future

• December 19, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

I often begin calls with founders by asking why they’re willing to bet their livelihoods on an idea that will most likely fail. It’s a small hack that lets me see how vulnerable a founder is, and how much conviction they have behind their ideas. Sometimes, if they answer, it’s the lede of my story.

I often begin calls with founders by asking why they’re willing to bet their livelihoods on an idea that will most likely fail. It’s a small hack that lets me see how vulnerable a founder is, and how much conviction they have behind their ideas. Sometimes, if they answer, it’s the lede of my story. And sometimes, if they don’t answer, it’s the reason I don’t write the story.

As blunt as the question sounds, it can spark the best answers — especially when the founder is working on an idea that is a moonshot in and of itself.

Speaking of wild bets, our own Kirsten Korosec caught up with Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson about his electric robotaxi, a six-year effort that was unveiled this week, outpacing competitors. Levinson was heads down on an idea that wasn’t just likely to fail, it almost did: Zoox’s Series C fell apart in March due to the pandemic.

Korosec: What was your trick or how did you remain focused for six years on something that is futuristic, expensive and possibly could fail? What did you personally do to keep that focus?

Levinson: Well, doing something like this is definitely challenging and it requires patience. I think the advice I would give is first to convince yourself that what you’re doing makes sense and is important and worth doing. If you’re starting a company because your goal is to make as much money as possible, if it turns out to be hard it’s going to be really difficult to convince yourself and your team and investors to stick with the idea.

One of the great things about Zoox is that the idea itself just makes a lot of sense. From first principles, there’s really a compelling reason to solve the problem the way we’ve been solving it and the market opportunity is unquestionably enormous. So armed with those facts and a team of wonderful employees and investors who strongly believed in that, we were able to weather some of the ups and downs of the industry, even though it’s not always been an easy ride.

It didn’t hurt that Amazon saved Zoox after its failed Series C, considering deep pockets and futuristic technology go well together. Still, Zoox’s ability to turn failure into focus is impressive, and part of what makes startups successful.

Before we jump into the rest of the newsletter, I wanted to formally introduce myself as your new Startups Weekly author. Thanks in advance for reading along and trusting me to bring you startup-relevant news each week. This should be fun, and the absolute expected dose of existential. Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here.

And from now on, you are invited to send me tips and thoughts to natasha.mascarenhas@techcrunch.com or tweet me @Nmasc_. TechCrunch also launched a secure and anonymous way to submit tips to our staff that you can start throwing information at.

The Palantir ‘Diaspora’

Everyone wants to invest in the next big tech mafia. This year, given the number of successful IPOs on the market, newly minted and cash-rich thinkers are entering the startup landscape from legendary companies, including Snowflake, Airbnb and Palantir. Stripe engineers, even pre-IPO, seem to be the hottest commodity out there.

So, investors are hoping to bet on exiting talent – and one has had the upper edge for a while now. Ross Fubin of XYZ Ventures introduced Palantir’s first business hire to its first engineer, which he describes as “the highest-value thing” he’s ever done. Now, after helping Palantir scale up its senior talent (and pocketing some advisor shares for himself) he invests in the Palantir diaspora out of his fund.

Connie Loizos, TechCrunch’s Silicon Valley editor, has the story, including where XYZ is looking for startups outside of the once-secretive public company’s staff.

Loizos also profiled Lux Capital’s Deena Shakir, who sees space and frontier tech going mainstream right now. Anyone else feel a moonshot theme arising in 2021?

Further reading:

• How to pick an investor in good or bad times (EC)

Why Singapore might become Asia’s Silicon Valley

In this Extra Crunch story, Catherine Shu argues that Singapore might become Asia’s next Silicon Valley. The long-time global financial hub will expect hundreds of new jobs in the next few years as ByteDance and Alibaba reportedly plan regional offices in the city-state. The interest comes as Google, Facebook, and Twilio already have operations in Singapore.

The spotlight comes with pressure on companies to find the best tech talent in Singapore, which has a population of 5.6 million.

Kuo-Yi Lim, co-founder and managing partner at early-stage investment firm Monk’s Hill Ventures, detailed the talent dynamics:

“My view is that there will always be the need to bring in folks who are not from Singapore because we’re just not big enough,” he said.

“The competition is more on a global basis, because even local startups will always be looking at global talent, from the region, Australia, India, China or beyond,” he added. “I think it actually cultivates the instinct for startups to really compete for talent in a thoughtful way. I think startups will have to become more creative and sharper in terms of how they position themselves as an attractive employer to spend time with, as opposed to the big companies.”

Quick IPO update

After Roblox and Affirm pushed their IPOs because market conditions were too hot, the delay proved to be an opportunity for others. Bumble, UiPath and Coinbase filed to go public confidentially, meaning that the intent is now known but there are no numbers for us to go through. Finally, Poshmark filed its S-1 and StockX raised a round that Alex Wilhelm thinks could be pre-IPO money.

Around TechCrunch

Gift the gift of Extra Crunch this season with an exclusive 25% off deal

Extra Crunch memberships are now available in Switzerland, Croatia, and Czech Republic.

Across the week

Seen on TechCrunch

PrivacyGrader is a free tool to help companies get smarter about data and disclosures

With Bambee, Allan Jones wants to give small businesses HR services their employees can trust

The venture firm SOSV has hired former TechCrunch COO Ned Desmond to help grow its startups

From India’s richest man to Amazon and 100s of startups: The great rush to win neighborhood stores

Seen on Extra Crunch

Startup valuations have recovered from summer lows

Dear Sophie: How did immigration change for startup founders in 2020?

An even bigger battle for gig worker rights is on the horizon

From startups to Starbucks: The embedded API opportunity

@EquityPod

There have to be some users that want to use Bitcoin for their OnlyFans, right?

In this week’s rare Danny-less Equity episode, Alex and I teamed up to chat about Public’s latest raise, Substack’s newest tool, and Bitcoin’s busiest week. The conversation devolved, as it usually does, into books, snow, and startups that prepare you for life before and after death.

Take a listen here, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts if you’d like to support the show!

Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

 

 

 

News: DJI says products will remain on sale after being added to US ‘entity list’

• December 19, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Commerce included DJI among the 77 new entries on its ‘entity list.’ Precisely what this means for the company’s future in the States remains uncertain, but it has since responded to TechCrunch’s request for comment. “DJI is disappointed in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision,” a spokesperson for the drone

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Commerce included DJI among the 77 new entries on its ‘entity list.’ Precisely what this means for the company’s future in the States remains uncertain, but it has since responded to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

“DJI is disappointed in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision,” a spokesperson for the drone giant tells TechCrunch. “Customers in America can continue to buy and use DJI products normally. DJI remains committed to developing the industry’s most innovative products that define our company and benefit the world.”

As the prior example of Huawei demonstrated, repercussions for inclusion on the list can evolve over time, depending on – among other things – the strength of relations between the U.S. and China. The smartphone giant was dealt a major blow after being cutoff from access to key U.S. originated technology, including Google’s Android.

The reason for DJI’s inclusion is part of a broad focus on “wide-scale human rights abuse” – likely more specifically focused on the subset of “high-technology surveillance.” Here’s the entry:

The ERC determined to add the entities AGCU Scientech; China National Scientific Instruments and Materials (CNSIM); DJI; and Kuang-Chi Group for activities contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests. Specifically, these four entities have enabled wide-scale human rights abuses within China through abusive genetic collection and analysis or high-technology surveillance, and/or facilitated the export of items by China that aid repressive regimes around the world, contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests.

Among the many larger factors at play in DJI’s position in the U.S. is the shape of relations with China under the incoming Biden administration. The decision could have an even more immediate impact on the many state and federal agencies that currently utilize the drone-maker’s products.

 

News: This Week in Apps: App Store privacy labels, Facebook criticizes Apple over ad targeting, Twitter kills Periscope

• December 19, 2020
• by:   
• in:  Blog 
• note:  no comments 

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in global consumer spend in 2019. Not including third-party Chinese app stores, iOS and Android

Welcome back to This Week in Apps,  href=”https://techcrunch.com/tag/this-week-in-apps/”>the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in global consumer spend in 2019. Not including third-party Chinese app stores, iOS and Android users downloaded 130 billion apps in 2020. Consumer spend also hit a record $112 billion across iOS and Android alone. In 2019, people spent three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Due to COVID-19, time spent in apps jumped 25% year-over-year on Android.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.

Top Stories

Apple launches App Store privacy labels

Apple this week launched its promised App Store privacy labels across all its App Stores, including iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS. The labels aim to give Apple customers an easier way to understand what sort of information an app collects across three categories: data used to track you, data linked to you and data not linked to you. Tracking, Apple explains, refers to the act of linking either user or device data collected from an app with user or device data collected from other apps, websites or even offline properties (like data aggregated from retail receipts) that’s used for targeted advertising or advertisement measurement. It can also include sharing user or device data with data brokers.

This aspect alone will expose the industry of third-party adtech and analytics SDKs (software development kits) — basically code from external vendors that developers add to their apps to boost their revenues.

Meanwhile, “data linked to you” is the personal information tied to your identity through your user account on the app, your device or other details. (You can read more about the program here.)

Axios compared how various social media and messaging apps compare as determined by the labels. Not surprisingly, it found that Facebook-owned apps collected more data than apps like Telegram, Signal and Apple’s Messages. It also found that Snap collected less data than the other major social networks.

Others noticed that Google had yet to provide any privacy label information for its biggest apps like Gmail, Googel Maps or Google Search.

Apple and Facebook fight over privacy changes

Also this week, Facebook took out full-page newspaper ads to attack Apple’s upcoming privacy-centered changes, alleging that the decision will have negative impacts on small businesses. With a forthcoming update to iOS 14, developers will have to ask users permission to use their IDFA identifiers for ad targeting purposes, and they’ll have very few characters to explain why it’s necessary. Most users, who are sick of having their data taken and resold without any personal control over that process, will likely just say “No.”

On the one hand, Facebook has much to lose as it already warned that without targeting and personalization, mobile app install campaigns brought in 50% less revenue for publishers. And the impacts to Facebook Audience Network on iOS will be even worse. But Facebook says it’s well-diversified enough so this one change won’t hurt its business as much as it will smaller ones run by “aspiring entrepreneurs.”

It also pointed out that Apple’s interests aren’t only about consumer choice. When developers make less money from the traditional targeted ads, they’ll turn to other means of generating revenues — like in-app purchases and subscriptions, benefiting Apple.

We should also point out that Apple does a lot of data gathering and targeting of its own. In your iOS Privacy Settings, when you scroll way down to the bottom of the page, then click on Apple Advertising followed by View Ad Targeting Information, you’ll find Apple’s own admissions of how it tracks you across its platform, including data from your account info (age, gender, location), and by what content you’ve downloaded on Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Books and the App Store. It uses this data to target you with personalized ads on the App Store, in Apple News and in Stocks.

Apple, meanwhile, has presented Facebook’s tracking business as one that aims to “collect as much data as possible,” in order to “develop and monetize detailed profiles of their users,” in a “disregard to user privacy.” And while it’s true that Facebook’s network spans apps and websites, Apple is doing the same thing within its own ecosystem…of a billion iPhones and other devices. Devices where Apple’s own apps are often pre-installed and compete with third-party services in areas like books, music, TV, fitness, news and more.

Plus, Apple told developers when it launched the new App Store privacy labels this week, that developers don’t have to disclose the data collected by Apple itself. Uh, wonder why that is?

Instead, developers have to come clean about all the other ways they collect and use customer data, including if data brokers are involved.

The move of course is a big gain for consumer privacy, as it establishes a new baseline for the industry, lays bare the amount to which users are tracked and forces companies to re-establishment trust with their customers instead of sneaking behind their back to gather and sell their data. But it’s simultaneously an easy smokescreen for Apple’s own interests, and Apple should not get a pass on that aspect just because it’s also “a very good thing.” Apple wanted a bigger portion of the adtech market and to grow its subscription business and it wants to fight for consumer privacy. But it largely only highlights the latter when speaking to reporters or making public statements.

The risk of criticizing Apple for such a pro-consumer move is that it looks like a defense of Facebook. But this issue is too complex to require that you simply choose sides. There are ways that Apple can both tackle consumer privacy issues and be more upfront about its own ongoing data collection practices — and burying its data collection/ad targeting info at the very bottom of the iOS Privacy settings page is not it.

Twitter kills Periscope

Twitter this week announced it’s shutting down its standalone livestreaming app Periscope, which it acquired in 2015. The company said the app had been “an unsustainable maintenance-mode state” for some time, and Twitter has seen its usage decline as costs went up. The app will no longer function by March 2021, but Twitter says it’s not giving up on live video. It notes that it brought most of Periscope’s core capabilities to Twitter over the years.

Users will be able to download an archive of their Periscope broadcasts and data before the app is removed and those that have been published to Twitter will continue to live on as replays.

Twitter has a history of making bad calls on its standalone apps that seemed like smart decisions at the time. The company was early to the idea that music and social could work well when tied together when it launched a standalone Twitter Music app in 2013. Years later, other companies have proven that to be true — TikTok said this week its app is driving hits, and got 70-some artists major label record deals. In 2020, over 176 songs passed 1 billion views as TikTok sounds.

Another idea Twitter killed, of course, was Vine, the app that could have been TikTok, had it lasted.

Now Twitter is killing its live video app, a project it abandoned, as everyone else is figuring out how to turn live video streams into e-commerce transactions. Today, Facebook and Instagram offer live video shopping, including in Instagram Reels, its TikTok rival. And TikTok itself launched its first big test of livestreamed video shopping in partnership with Walmart. Other big names who are investing in live video shopping include Amazon through its QVC-like Amazon Live, Alibaba through AliExpress, JD.com, Pinduoduo, WeChat and TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Douyin.

One could argue that Twitter just wants to stake out its own place and not follow the crowd, but its latest big feature was Stories, er, Fleets, a format that’s just about everywhere. And its current test product is Spaces, a rival to Clubhouse and a handful of other audio-networking startups.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• Apple launches App Store privacy labels.
• Apple releases macOS Big Sur version 11.1, which allows iPhone and iPad apps without resizable windows to enter into full-screen mode on Macs with the M1 chip. HBO Max will benefit from this, as well as some mobile games.
• The Mac App Store publishes a list of apps that take advantage of the new M1 chip.
• Apple talks about how to design an App Clip URL more efficiently in new blog post. It also announced that App Clip Codes — the visual image that encodes a URL and can incorporate an NFC tag — are also now available for creation in App Store Connect or with the new command line App Clip Code Generator.
• Apple launched iOS 12.5 for older phones that don’t support iOS 14. The update brings the COVID-19 exposure notification support to these older devices and other security fixes.
• Apple releases iPadOS 14.4 public beta.
• Apple publishes a guide to locking down your Apple devices, which could be particularly useful for domestic abuse survivors.

Platforms: Google

• Google announced the Play Store is now open to more car apps, including navigation, parking and charging apps for Android Auto.
• Google Play Store opens up to 22 new countries in Africa, Oceania and elsewhere.
• Google announces Android Things platform shutdown is January 5, 2021.

Services

• Amazon’s AWS announced the preview of Amazon Location, a service that will allow developers to add location-based features to their web-based and mobile applications. Amazon Location is based on mapping data from Esri and HERE Technologies, and includes built-in tracking and geofencing, but not routing.

Gaming

• Game engine maker Unity teamed up with Snap to bring its Unity Ads supply to Snap Audience Network and bring Snap Kit to game developers. From the Unity Asset Store, game developers can use Snap Kit’s Login Kit and Creative Kit, the latter which allows users to decorate their videos with stickers or ad AR lenses. Bitmoji avatars will be integrated with Unity in early 2021.
• PUBG Mobile tops the list of billion-dollar mobile games in 2020, reports Sensor Tower. Five games topped $1 billion this year, including also Honor of Kings, Pokémon GO, Coin Master and Roblox.
• Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service arrives on Android. Like the iOS version, the service works through the web browser in the U.S. It supports some Pixel, Samsung and OnePlus devices for now, with expanded device support arriving in time.
• Roblox delays IPO to 2021. The company said the IPO performance of Airbnb and DoorDash, which soared on their debut leaving money on the table, made it too difficult to price shares.
• A judge orders Apple to produce documentation from Tim Cook and Craig Federighi in the Epic Games/Fortnite lawsuit. The execs may also be called to testify, along with Eddy Cue, if Epic gets its way. Facebook also said this week it would aid Epic in its legal battle by providing supporting materials and documents, as a part of the discovery process.
• Google’s cloud gaming service, Google Stadia, arrives on iOS. The service bypasses the App Store to instead use a web app. It works on both iPhone and iPad (iOS 14.3 is required). Most games will need a gamepad to work.

Augmented Reality

• The Unity/Snap deal, mentioned above, includes an AR component. Snap’s Creative Kits allows users to share their gameplay, decorating still shots or 15-second videos with branded stickers, or attaching an AR lens that has been created with game branding to share with their Snapchat friends. These shares work to acquire new users as well, as they include referral links back to the game.
• Facebook’s Messenger Kids app updates with seasonal AR effects, as well as a way for parents to play Santa to kids.
• Google adds an AR Baby Yoda in its Google Search app.

• Google also adds an AR-powered virtual makeup try-on feature to its Google Search app in partnership with top beauty brands.

Social & Photos

• Facebook launches a TikTok-like app, Collab, that focuses on collaborative music making. TechCrunch had the exclusive interview.
• Twitter launches its voice-based Spaces social networking feature, a Clubhouse rival, into beta testing. The feature lets select Twitter testers for the time being gather in audio-only chat rooms on Twitter’s platform.
• Discord rolls out mobile screen sharing, allowing users to “hang out” and watch videos or anything else on their phone.
• Facebook relaunches Instagram Lite app, starting with a test in India before a global rollout. The app is under 2MB in size and is faster and more responsive. But it also lacks features like Reels, Shopping and IGTV.
• Dating and friend-making app Bumble confidentially files for a February 2021 IPO.
• Google Photos adds 3D “Cinematic” photos feature that uses machine learning to turn 2D photos into 3D — even if the original didn’t include depth information from the camera. A virtual camera then animates a smooth panning effect for a more vivid experience.
• TikTok’s new guidelines strengthen policies on harassment, self-harm, violence and dangerous acts. The social app also rolled out new well-being features, like opt-in viewing screens that hide distressing content, a text-to-voice feature to make TikTok more accessible and COVID-19 vaccine info.
• Halide’s developer offers a deep dive on Apple’s new ProRAW image format, which it describes as not just making RAW more powerful, but also more approachable. “ProRAW could very well change how everyone shoots and edits photos, beginners and experts alike,” a Halide blog post says. They’re not the only one singing ProRAW’s praises — Halide pointed to photographer Austin Mann’s blog post as well.

Streaming and entertainment

• Netflix added a new audio-only mode on Android that allows users to save bandwidth and instead only listen to their program. The feature aims appeal to emerging markets users but could also serve as a way to turn Netflix into an alternative to listening to podcasts, at times.
• Spotify launched on the Epic Games Store — a marketplace that’s shaping up to become a third-party app store. The two companies are both engaged with fighting Apple over its commission structure and rules on purchases.
• TikTok released its first-ever U.S. music report which revealed the social app’s outsized influence on the music industry. According to the report, more than 176 different songs surpassed 1 billion video views as TikTok sounds, over 70 artists that have broken on TikTok’s platform have received major label deals, including Claire Rosinkranz, Dixie D’Amelio, Powfu, Priscilla Block and Tai Verdes, and others.
• TikTok launches on TVs. The app is first available on Samsung smart TV models in Europe, but the Samsung partnership will allow it to be pre-installed going forward. The TV experience will be curated for family-friendly videos only.
• Apple redesigns Shazam for iOS so it better fits with Apple Music’s design language. The app is also now available on the web. Apple recently said Shazam had over 200M MAUs across iOS and Android.

E-commerce

• Walmart partners with TikTok on a test of a new shoppable product that will allow TikTok users to transact within the app. The retailer will run a holiday shopping event inside TikTok, where users can shop from influencer videos. After the event, users can continue to shop from Walmart’s TikTok profile.
• Shoploop, an app founded within Area 120, Google’s in-house incubator, has graduated to Google Search. The app competes with efforts in video-based shopping from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and others. Google has now brought Shoploop’s short-form influencer videos to Google Shopping.
• Discount e-commerce marketplace app Wish dropped below IPO price in its market debut. Wish opened at $22.75, below its $24 per share IPO pricing. Investors may be responding to the fact that Wish is growing slower and has a much smaller user base than top retailers, like Amazon and Walmart.
• App Annie predicts U.S. users on Android will spend more than 1 billion hours in shopping apps in Q4 2020, a 50% YoY increase. Mobile sales are expected to reach $314 billion by year-end.

Security and Privacy

• New mobile malware Goontact is targeting iOS and Android users in Chinese language-speaking countries, Korea and Japan. The spyware can steal contacts, SMS messages, photos and location information after a user is lured to a website hosting the spyware, which convinces them to sideload it on Android devices. On iOS, it primarily steals a phone number and contact list.
• Secure messaging app Signal launches encrypted group calls on iOS and Android. The feature allows for up to five participants to chat.

Government and Policy

• The FTC is launching an inquiry into the privacy and data collection practices of major tech firms, including Amazon, ByteDance (TikTok’s owner), YouTube, Reddit, Snap, Discord Twitter and Facebook (including WhatsApp). The companies have 45 days to comply with requests.
• An organization representing news publishers join the Coalition for App Fairness, the advocacy group pushing for regulation of the App Store and elimination of the “Apple tax.”

Fintech

• Stock app Robinhood pays $65 million to settle SEC charges over its past inferior pricing execution which misled customers.

Health & Fitness

• The NYT takes a look at how COVID-19 health pass apps could help reopen businesses and restore the economy by allowing people to confirm their vaccinated status.
• Apple Fitness+ arrives, and it’s pretty good.

Funding and M&A

• Reddit acquires TikTok rival Dubsmash to aid with Reddit’s video push. The company says it will integrate Dubsmash’s video creation tools into Reddit directly. Reddit had raised $20 million+ in venture funding.
• MessageBird acquires real-time notifications and in-app messaging platform Pusher, based in London, for $35 million.
• IntellectoKids raises $3 million from Allrise Capital and others for its edtech apps for kids aged 3 to 7 years old.
• Mobile edtech startup Aceable raises $50 million to accelerate the expansion of its service for state-accredited classes.
• Brainly raises $80 million for its crowdsourced homework help app now used by 350 million users.
• Tap Network, a customizable rewards program used by app makers like Uber, raises $4 million.
• Canadian challenger banking app Neo Financial raises $50 million CAD and expands into savings accounts.

Downloads

Canvas

Canvas is a new iPhone app from Occipital, the company behind RedLaster and 360 Panorama — apps that were ahead of the curve on the next frontier for iPhones. Canvas leverages the lidar scanner in the iPhone 12 Pro to create 3D scans of your home. 9to5Mac reviewed the app this week, describing the process of using Canvas as “pretty simple.” You just stand in the center of the room, then moved the photo up and down as you turn as the app overlays an AR grid on your room. The app did have some glitches with smaller rooms and alcoves. When the scan is done, you can pay a fee to have it turned into a professional CAD model for using in remodeling plans.

Gawq

Gawq’s newly launched news aggregator app aims to tackle the problem of fake news and the “echo chamber” problem created by social media, where our view of the world is shaped by manipulative algorithms and personalized feeds. The app aims to present news from a range of sources, while allowing users to filter between news, opinion, paid content and more, as well as compare sources, check facts and even review the publication’s content for accuracy.

PhotoRoom

TechCrunch’s Romain Dillet looked this week at PhotoRoom, a new Android photography app that can automatically remove the background from your photo and swap it with another. The app, a YC alum, had previously been available on iOS where it competes with a variety of photo editing apps offering similar functionality.

Soosee

Soosee already operates a clever app that uses your iPhone camera to scan food labels for things you want to avoid — like dietary constraints, allergens, microplastics or antibiotics, for example. But we have to get this company a shoutout for having one of the cleanest App Store privacy labels around.

The company tweeted this in November (see below), but at the time of publication the label had been updated with exactly one item. It now collects Purchase data, under the “Data Not Linked to You” section. Good job, Soosee! Support apps like this.