Monthly Archives: December 2020

News: TikTok expands Community Guidelines, rolls out new ‘well-being’ features

• December 15, 2020
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TikTok this morning announced a new set of Community Guidelines that aim to strengthen its existing policies in areas like harassment, dangerous acts, self-harm and violence, alongside the introduction of four new features similarly focused on the community’s well-being. These include updated resources for those struggling with self-harm or suicide, opt-in viewing screens that hide

TikTok this morning announced a new set of Community Guidelines that aim to strengthen its existing policies in areas like harassment, dangerous acts, self-harm and violence, alongside the introduction of four new features similarly focused on the community’s well-being. These include updated resources for those struggling with self-harm or suicide, opt-in viewing screens that hide distressing content, a text-to-voice feature to make TikTok more accessible and an expanded set of COVID-19-related resources.

While many of the topics were already covered by TikTok’s Community Guidelines ahead of today’s changes, the company said the updates add more specifics to each of the areas based on what behavior it’s seen on the platform, heard through community feedback and received via input from experts such as academics, civil society organizations and TikTok’s own Content Advisory Council.

One update is to the guidelines related to suicide and self-harm, which have now incorporated feedback and language used by mental health experts to avoid normalizing self-injury behaviors. Specifically, TikTok’s policy on eating disorder content has added considerations aimed at prohibiting the normalization of or the glorification of dangerous weight loss behaviors.

Image Credits: TikTok

Stronger policies on bullying and harassment now further detail the types of content and behaviors that aren’t welcome on TikTok, including doxxing, cyberstalking and a more extensive policy on sexual harassment. This one is particularly interesting, given that there have been some cases of TikTok users figuring out where anti-masker nurses worked — and at least one incident led to the nurse being put on leave. It’s unclear how TikTok will approach this sort of “doxxing” behavior, however, as it didn’t involve publishing a home address — only alerting an employer.

Another update expanded the guidelines around TikTok’s dangerous acts policy to more explicitly limit, label or remove content depicting dangerous acts and challenges. Through a new “harmful activities” section to the minor safety policy, TikTok reiterates that content promoting dangerous dares, games and other acts that may jeopardize the safety of youth is prohibited.

TikTok also updated its policy around dangerous individuals and organizations to focus on the issue of violent extremism. The new guidelines now describe in greater detail what’s considered a threat or incitement to violence, as well as the content that will be prohibited. This one is timely, too, as many Trump supporters have been pushing for a new civil war or other violence as a result of Trump losing the U.S. presidential election.

In terms of new features, TikTok worked with behavioral psychologists and suicide prevention experts — including Providence, Samaritans of Singapore and members of its U.S. Content Advisory Council — to create new resources that include evidence-based actions users can take for searches related to self-harm. These new resources will appear when users search for terms like “selfharm” or “hatemyself.” Access to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Crisis Text Line will continue to be available for emergency support, as before.

TikTok will also introduce new opt-in viewing screens that will appear on top of videos of content some may find graphic or distressing. These videos are already ineligible for the For You feed, but may not be prohibited. For example, the screens might cover violence or fighting that’s not being removed due to documentary reasons; animals in nature doing something some find upsetting — like hunting and killing their prey; or otherwise scary stuff, like horror clips.

When TikTok becomes aware of this disturbing content through user flagging, it will apply the screens to the videos to reduce unwanted viewing. Users who then come across the video can either tap the button at the bottom of the screen to “skip video” or the other to “watch anyway.”

In addition, a new text-to-voice feature, aimed at accessibility, allows people to convert their typed text to a voice that plays over it in a video. This follows TikTok’s recent launch of a feature to support people with photosensitive epilepsy.

Image Credits: TikTok

TikTok is also adding questions and answers about COVID-19 vaccines to its in-app coronavirus resource hub. These will be provided by public health experts, like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), for example, and will be linked to from the Discover page, search results and via banners on COVID-19 and vaccine-related videos. The company says its COVID-19 hub has already been viewed more than 2 billion times in the last six months. TikTok is partnering with Team Halo as well, so scientists all over the world can share the progress being made on the vaccine through video updates.

TikTok has been fairly aggressive about moderating content on its platform. If you scroll through the feed long enough, you’ll find users lamenting about videos of theirs that were taken down for policy violations. You’ll also come across videos where users have reuploaded another person’s deleted video in order to respond to it. It even quickly addressed much of the election misinformation that was being spread in November by blocking top hashtags, like #RiggedElection and #SharpieGate.

Its new policies out today also include changes that address what’s been more recent user behavior, like the calls for violence following the election.

“Keeping our community safe is a commitment with no finish line,” said TikTok, in its announcement today about its updates. “We recognize the responsibility we have to our users to be nimble in our detection and response when new kinds of content and behaviors emerge. To that end, we’ll keep advancing our policies, developing technology to automatically detect violative content, building features that help people manage their TikTok presence and content choices, and empowering our community to help us foster a trustworthy environment. Ultimately, we hope these updates enable people to have a positive and meaningful TikTok experience,” the company said.

News: Amazon Fashion launches a custom clothing service, Made for You

• December 15, 2020
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Amazon today is launching a way for customers to create custom clothing with a new service called Made for You, which lets shoppers create a custom T-shirt to their exact measurements. But unlike some companies that use mobile technology to scan and measure your body from an app, Amazon Fashion’s Made for You service requires

Amazon today is launching a way for customers to create custom clothing with a new service called Made for You, which lets shoppers create a custom T-shirt to their exact measurements. But unlike some companies that use mobile technology to scan and measure your body from an app, Amazon Fashion’s Made for You service requires users to provide the company with their height, weight, body style, and two photos of themselves to get measured for their custom fit.

After users provide their data, they can then choose from a selection of eight different colorways, as well as preferred sleeve and shirt lengths, necklines and fabrics.

To get started with Made for You, users choose between the two types of fabrics to customize the design. This includes either the Medium-weight 100% Pima Cotton shirt or the Lightweight 56% Pima Cotton, 38% Modal, and 6% Elastane tri-blend options. They can then choose other aspects of their shirt — like either a slim, classic or relaxed fit, a crew or V-neck, and short or long sleeve length, for example.

The shirts can even include your name printed on the label, as a small perk.

When finished, customers can view the product they customized on a virtual body double before placing the order. The experience works both on web and inside the Amazon app.

The custom shirts cost $25 are available to all Amazon customers in the U.S., not just Prime members.

At launch, influencers including Blake Scott (650K followers on Instagram), Caralyn Mirand (253K Instagram followers), and Sai de Silva (330K Instagram followers) are touting the new feature on Amazon’s behalf and are featured in its marketing.

Custom clothing is often seen as a luxury and this process does make it more affordable. That can be helpful for those who struggle with fit due to measurements that fall outside of traditional sizing. But the service also seems to be a pretty transparent attempt to grab customer data for the Amazon Fashion business.

Amazon, however, characterizes Made for You as part of its ongoing efforts to eliminate online shopping challenges — this time, size and fit. Over time, the company says it wants to expand Made for You with more styles and selection, based on customer feedback.

Image Credits: Amazon

The retailer has been focused on its fashion business for years, having experimented in the past with its Echo Look camera that would help users rate their styling choices. Today, Amazon uses data from its social feature, #FoundItOnAmazon to feed images to “Style by Alexa” for fashion inspiration and to drive sales. And with Prime Wardrobe and its optional styling service, Amazon attempts to learn what its customers like to wear and then automate the shopping process by curating items to try on at home in batches.

Though Amazon didn’t explain how it may put the collected data to use to aid its Amazon Fashion business beyond custom clothing, it did say the data was securely stored and customers could delete their data at any time by tapping the profile icon at the top left of the Made for You home page. Amazon also says the uploaded photos aren’t stored and are deleted immediately after being used to create the virtual body double and determine measurements.

With Amazon’s goal with all these efforts is to improve online apparel shopping, it could potentially extend to other areas — for example, by helping Amazon build out its dozens of private labels in apparel. And with the added data on real-world customer sizing, the retailer could learn how to better cut its clothing for the best fit. It could even be working on systems that could later help customers select their right size just from a photo, perhaps.

Made for You is launching today in the U.S. across web and mobile.

News: Social stock trading services Public raises $65M Series C

• December 15, 2020
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Less than a year after it raised a $15 million Series B, Public, a social-focused free stock trading service, has raised a $65 million Series C. The startup is not the only company to raise successive rounds this year. Welcome has managed the feat, along with Skyflow and others. Public’s Series C, therefore, fits into

Less than a year after it raised a $15 million Series B, Public, a social-focused free stock trading service, has raised a $65 million Series C.

The startup is not the only company to raise successive rounds this year. Welcome has managed the feat, along with Skyflow and others. Public’s Series C, therefore, fits into the trend of investors doubling down into startups that they think have potential.

After an initial freeze during the early pandemic months, venture capitalists and other investors accelerated the pace at which they deploy late-stage checks to upstart companies. Public’s Series C typifies the tendency, representing just over 72% of its total fundraising to date.

The Public round also exemplifies another developing venture trend, namely that of existing investors preempting portfolio companies’ proximate rounds. In this case Accel led the new investment. It also led Public’s Series A and B rounds.

But trends alone are not enough to pull any round together. So, TechCrunch got on the phone with Public co-founders Jannick Malling and Leif Abraham to better understand what investors see in the fintech upstart.

Growth

Public grew quickly in 2020, expanding its user base by a multiple of 10 since the start of the year.

According to Abraham, the company’s growth has been consistent instead of lumpy, expanding at around 30% each month. The co-founder also stressed that most of Public’s users find its service organically, implying that the startup’s marketing costs have not been extreme, nor its growth artificially boosted.

That user growth explains why Public was able to raise more. But why did it want to?

The founding duo told TechCrunch that they had plenty of cash in the bank from their preceding round, but saw the raise as a way to double-down on their model.

While competing services to Public also sport zero-cost trading, Public’s model hinges on a social focus (TechCrunch covered an element of Public’s social platform here, for example). And in the eyes of its founders, Public gets better as more people use it.

So, the startup intends to use its new capital to continue investing into product work, keeping its flywheel alive.

That self-reinforcing dynamic works something like this: Public offers a place where investors can discuss and execute trades for free. Those same investors tell their friends about Public, who later show up and take part in the conversation. Those conversations are enriched by the new participants — as Public deals with securities, it only has users who have registered as themselves, limiting trolling — and the process repeats.

So far it has worked. How much longer Public and Robinhood and M1 and Wealthfront and others can continue to accrete net-new investors to their platforms is an open question, however.

Revenue?

Astute readers will note that we discussed Public’s growth in the above paragraphs only from a user perspective. What about revenue?

Like other companies that offer free stock trades, Public makes money from what’s called payment for order flow. It’s the routing of trades to different market makers. Robinhood generates oceans of income from the practice, for example.

Before chatting with Public, I dug into its trading partner Apex’s filings to learn about its payment for order flow results from its recent filings. The resulting sums are somewhat modest for Apex’s collected clients. This means that Public’s revenue metrics, a portion of the aggregate sums, are even more unassuming.

Naturally, we were curious if the company had changed up its business model and thus had revenues heading into its new investment that we could not spot from external documentation. The founding team told TechCrunch that it had not changed its model, and that their company is more focused on user growth than near-term revenue targets.

This makes some sense. Public emphasized to TechCrunch that most of its users are long-term holders. The longer a user holds securities, the less they likely trade. That limits trading incomes like payment for order flow. So, trading likely won’t make a lot of money for the company.

The company’s monetization plans remain opaque. This means that the company’s new check will not only fund its product work in terms of its social experience, but also, we presume, its future revenue generation.

You can look around the fintech market and find examples of ways that Public could further monetize its user base.

This is not to say that revenue at Public has not grown. It has. I asked the company if trading volume generally scales with user growth. It’s correlated, the founders said. So, we can infer that the company’s growing user base has executed more trades over time, as a whole.

Let’s see what Public builds next, and how soon we get a taste for its future plans for generating ample top line from its users.

News: The 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E disappoints in our first drive

• December 15, 2020
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This is not a review of the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E Sport SUV. A few weeks back, I spent two short hours in Ford’s upcoming EV. I don’t feel comfortable declaring a conclusion with just a couple of hours behind the wheel. I need more time with the Mach-E, and after Ford reads this article,

This is not a review of the 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E Sport SUV.

A few weeks back, I spent two short hours in Ford’s upcoming EV. I don’t feel comfortable declaring a conclusion with just a couple of hours behind the wheel. I need more time with the Mach-E, and after Ford reads this article, I’ll probably be last in line for long-term tests.

During my short time with the Mach-E, one thing became clear: The Mach-E should not be called a Mustang, and it should not be called an SUV.

By calling the Mach-E a Mustang SUV, Ford is selling buyers an experience not found in the Mach-E. This isn’t a fight over semantics. The Mach-E isn’t a sporty SUV in a traditional manner. For that, look at the Audi E-Tron Sportback or Tesla Model X. Those offer several key characteristics missing from the Mach-E SUV. They’re sturdy, stout and powerful, whereas the Mach-E feels small, loose and sloppy.

There are several areas of concern. I found the vehicle dynamics questionable. The throttle is nauseating, and the rear end has a hard time keeping traction. The range is poor compared to competitors; the AWD version gets 50 miles less than a comparable Tesla. And what’s more important in an electric vehicle than driving characteristics and electric range?

Early impressions

A few weeks back I took a 2021 Mustang Mach-E AWD around a familiar route in lower Michigan. Every auto journalist knows this area by Hell, Michigan. Despite the name, it’s a lovely area with old-growth hardwoods lining gentle winding roads where cars can breathe. And for fun, turn off the main road for a bit of dipping and diving on gravel roads. This area was not kind to the Mach-E.

The test was short, but I was still left with several impressions.

The Mach-E bumbles around like an economy crossover. There’s nothing confident or reassuring about the ride or handling. Even with the Mustang name, the Mach-E doesn’t drive like a Mustang (hold your jokes; the latest Mustangs are fantastic). The Mach-E isn’t a car that can be thrown into a corner and expect to emerge safely. The body rolls, rear tires break loose and you lose respect for the Mustang name.

The throttle is touchy and over-expressive. Tap the peddle and Mach-E leaps forward. Combined with aggressive regenerative braking, the Mach-E takes some getting used to. I found the powertrain nauseating. Electric vehicles are an exercise in finesse. The electric motors need to provide power in a smooth, predictable fashion that’s exciting and confident without being overbearing. It’s a hard formula and something that few automakers have gotten right the first time.

I was immediately taken aback by the AWD Mach-E’s poor handling. Most modern EVs drive so well they’re boring. Not the Mach-E. The rear end is too lively for a pedestrian-vehicle, and not in a sporty manner. This is just sloppy and nauseating. The tires easily break free on everyday turns. Press down on the accelerator, turn the wheel and the vehicle often has to engage traction control to keep the rear wheels from spinning.

By insisting on marketing the Mach-E as sporty, Ford set the expectations on the capability outside of its technical ability. Things get loose when the driver leans into the performance aspects of the Mach-E. During my time with the Mach-E, there were several times I was rounding a normal corner and the back tires became unpredictable or took the car too wide. This is exaggerated with additional speed. I’m curious how the AWD system handles snow and ice. Several times during my test drive it struggled on gravel.

I later asked a Ford engineer about the tremendous amount of oversteer, and he replied, “Yeah, only if you drive it that way.” That stuck with me because I don’t think it was my fault. I don’t think I was driving the Mach-E around Ann Arbor, Michigan in an aggressive fashion, but even still, the roads were dry, and the traction control kicked on several times during my short drive. That shouldn’t happen.

The Mach-E performs better in a straight line. The acceleration is quick. With the go-pedal mashed to the floor, the Mach-E rears on its back legs and jumps forward with enthusiasm. Is it quicker than a Tesla? No, but it’s still quicker than most vehicles in its price range and plenty fast enough to speed away from a stop light.

The Mach-E has three driving modes. In the standard and economy mode, the throttle delivers power in a more refined method than the performance mode, which seems messy and crude. All three modes offer one-peddle driving through aggressive regenerative braking.

The electric range is another factor to consider with the Mach-E. The AWD version tops out at an EPA-estimated 270 miles compared to the 326 miles found in Tesla’s AWD Model Y. The RWD-only version of the Mach-E tops out at 300 miles per charge.

With such a short test, I’m unable to dive deep into the real-world battery range of the Mach-E. I need to live with the car and use it for a variety of tasks, both around town and long distance. All I can report is the results from my 2 hour drive: I average 2.7 miles to kilowatt-hour, I returned it with 112 miles remaining on the battery, which the vehicle says is 56%. I was driving the AWD model with the extended range battery. The EPA and Ford says this version is good for 270 miles per charge.

The Mach-E’s pricing is competitive with a starting price of $42,895. The AWD, extended-range version starts at $54,700 and heads north depending on options. Most U.S. buyers are eligible for a $7,500 tax credit. The Tesla Model 3 starts at $37,990. The long-range, AWD Model 3 that starts at $46,990; the Model Y crossover costs $49,990.

The Mach-E’s interior is fantastic, and that was not a surprise. Ford builds some of the nicest interiors in its class, and the inside of the Mach-E is lovely.

Like most EVs, Ford took great steps to replace traditional automotive components with modern equivalents. Instead of a gauge cluster, a small, narrow LCD screen sits in front of the driver. It’s classy and efficient. A large LCD screen sits in the center stack for media playback and climate controls. A rotating knob is glued onto the screen at the bottom and provides physical volume control. I really like the volume knob.

The seats seem fine. I was only in them for two hours.

The inside is a bit cramped, but it’s acceptable for a small crossover. The driver sits in a commanding position, which could be the reason for the SUV designation. Two adults can sit in the back for a cross-town jaunt, but I wouldn’t want to sit back there for an extended amount of time, as legroom is lacking.

I’m frustrated about the vehicle’s dynamics, which overshadow fun features found within the Mach-E. Owners can use their smartphone as a key and preprogram navigation routes through a robust road-trip app. The doors are operated by a button, allowing for a cleaner exterior. Ford is even adding hands-free driving through an over-the-air-update, too. But these items hardly matters. Who cares if the cake’s pretty if it tastes like sadness?

TL;DR

My first impressions of the Mach-E are poor, and I went into this short test with excited optimism. For me, this Ford Mach-E was supposed to bring the joy of electric vehicles to the masses through a familiar nameplate and legacy manufacturer. I’m a Ford guy who lives in Michigan and looks at the Mach-E development with local pride. I’m disappointed.

Right now, based on first impressions, I can only recommend shoppers try competitors before buying the Ford Mustang Mach-E. I don’t think this vehicle is good enough to buy over a Tesla.

News: Iceland’s Controlant, with $50M backing, emerges as key player in Cold Chain for COVID-19 vaccine

• December 15, 2020
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A startup hailing form far-flung Iceland is emerging as one of the key players in the race to distribute one of the key Coronavirus vaccines around the world. Controlant — which has a unique real-time supply chain monitoring technology based on GSM networks and is specifically geared to areas like pharmaceuticals and life sciences —

A startup hailing form far-flung Iceland is emerging as one of the key players in the race to distribute one of the key Coronavirus vaccines around the world. Controlant — which has a unique real-time supply chain monitoring technology based on GSM networks and is specifically geared to areas like pharmaceuticals and life sciences — has confirmed it is providing its monitoring services to Pfizer as it delivers the mRNA-based Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine globally. The Controlant platform involves screen-based IoT tags which-link to GSM networks and then feed into web and mobile apps.

Last week the Governor of New York last week held up a box containing the vaccine, with an unidentified tag that looked like a Controlant GSM tracking device. TechCrunch contacted Controllant and the company confirmed that it was indeed their technology.

Controlant Cold Chain as a Service Solution

In September Controlant secured $15 million in Series B funding to drive the market expansion of its real-time ‘Cold Chain as a Service’ platform. It has largely Iceland-based investors including Sjova and VIS. Frumtak, a VC firm in Iceland, first invested in Controlant in 2011. The recent financing brought Controlant’s total funding to date to $50 million. Frumtak recently sold 11% of its stake in Controlant (a transaction handled by Arion Bank) for close to $14 million, but will continue to hold a 13% stake through its Frumtak II fund.

In addition to the visibility and monitoring solutions that Controlant is providing to Pfizer, it’s also working directly with the U.S. Government, the CDC, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and stakeholders in ‘Operation Warp Speed’. The platform is being used throughout the entirety of the U.S. supply chain journey of the vaccines.

Gisli Herjolfsson, Controlant CEO and Co-founder

Gisli Herjolfsson (pictured), co-founder and CEO of Controlant, said in a statement: “Controlant has amassed a depth of expertise in vaccine supply chain operations and we are happy to have the opportunity to apply our solutions to the entirety of the mRNA-based Pfizer- BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine supply chain, through our direct work with Pfizer and government stakeholders.”

Controlant IoT devices, packed with the vaccines, capture environmental information, including time, temperature, and light events, and send the information, in real-time, to Controlant’s proprietary platform.

Below is a video of Governor Andrew Cuomo showing the typical packaging which Controlant devices are attached to:

News: Twitter fined ~$550k over a data breach in Ireland’s first major GDPR decision

• December 15, 2020
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Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has issued Twitter with a fine of €450,000 (~$547k) for failing to promptly declare and properly document a data breach under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The decision is noteworthy as it’s the first such cross-border GDPR decision by the Irish watchdog, which is the lead EU privacy supervisor

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has issued Twitter with a fine of €450,000 (~$547k) for failing to promptly declare and properly document a data breach under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The decision is noteworthy as it’s the first such cross-border GDPR decision by the Irish watchdog, which is the lead EU privacy supervisor for a number of tech giants — having a backlog of some 20+ ongoing cases at this point, including active probes of Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Apple and LinkedIn, to name a few.

“The DPC’s investigation commenced in January, 2019 following receipt of a breach notification from Twitter and the DPC has found that Twitter infringed Article 33(1) and 33(5) of the GDPR in terms of a failure to notify the breach on time to the DPC and a failure to adequately document the breach. The DPC has imposed an administrative fine of €450,000 on Twitter as an effective, proportionate and dissuasive measure,” the regulator writes in a press release.

The GDPR requires most breaches of personal data to be notified to the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours of the controller becoming aware of the breach.

The regulation also requires they document what data was involved and how they’ve responded to the security incident — in order that the relevant data supervisor can check against compliance.

In this case Twitter was found to have failed on both counts.

We’ve reached out to the social media company for comment, including asking whether it plans to accept the decision and pay up — or if it’s considering its legal options.

Update: Twitter has now sent this statement, attributed to Damien Kieran, its chief privacy officer and global data protection officer:

Twitter worked closely with the Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC) to support their investigation. We have a shared commitment to online security and privacy, and we respect the IDPC’s decision, which relates to a failure in our incident response process. An unanticipated consequence of staffing between Christmas Day 2018 and New Years’ Day resulted in Twitter notifying the IDPC outside of the 72 hour statutory notice period. We have made changes so that all incidents following this have been reported to the DPC in a timely fashion.

We take responsibility for this mistake and remain fully committed to protecting the privacy and data of our customers, including through our work to quickly and transparently inform the public of issues that occur. We appreciate the clarity this decision brings for companies and consumers around the GDPR’s breach notification requirements. Our approach to these incidents will remain one of transparency and openness.

The company also told us that since this specific incident, where inadequate staffing over the 2018 holiday period led to a delay in reporting the breach, it has made all relevant incident reports to the DPC within the required 72 hour period.

The DPC’s decision relates to a breach that Twitter publicly disclosed in January 2019 — when it said a bug in its ‘Protect your tweets’ feature could have meant some Android users who’d applied the setting to make their tweets non-public may have had their data exposed to the public Internet since as far back as 2014. (Though GPDR would only apply to data the bug exposed since May 2018.)

Since fessing up to the ‘Protect your tweets’ bug, Twitter has had plenty more egg on its face where security is concerned — including suffering a high profile account hijacking episode earlier this year, after crypto-scam-spreading hackers gained network access credentials using a social engineering technique.

Ireland’s DPC, meanwhile, continues to face criticism for the length of time it’s taking to reach decisions on major cross-border GDPR cases where impacts on individual rights can scale to hundreds of millions of European Internet users.

Last year commissioner Helen Dixon said its first major GDPR decisions would come “early” in 2020.

In the event the first cross-border decision has crossed the line days before the end of the year — underlining the challenges for the bloc in effectively enforcing its digital rulebook against tech giants. (GDPR technically begun being applied in May 2018, although platform giants have faced precious little enforcement to date.)

In this specific case, some half a year extra was added to the decision timeline after a draft outcome Ireland submitted to other EU DPAs for review, back in May, was not accepted by all of them — triggering a majority vote mechanism in the GDPR for settling disagreement between the bloc’s data supervisors.

The European Data Protection Board has published this Article 65 decision and the full final decision on its website here.

The (now) final outcome on the Twitter case comes at a key time — with EU lawmakers due to set out their next major pieces of digital policy later today, as part of an ambitious push to accelerate regional digitization by rolling out a reassuring promise of European guardrails wrapping around all this tech.

Yet with GDPR enforcement proving such a tedious, friction-filled process that threatens to take the shine off the nascent Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act many months (or even years) before they can become EU law — raising questions about how the whole strategy can be expected to function in the absence of effective (i.e. fair but fast) enforcement.

The wider risk here is European citizens losing faith in the rights-based framework they’re told they enjoy, under EU law and the bloc’s patchwork of regulatory frameworks, if the animal turns out to be such a plodding house-cat when people do try to obtain relief.

So the Commission’s strategy of claiming expanded digital rules will act as a public trust booster risks falling into a trough of disillusionment at the legislative proposal stage.

Simple put: You can’t allow your regulators to move so slowly and expect your rulebook to touch tech giants whose playbook is to move fast in order to disrupt the rule of law in their own business’ interests.

The DPC’s decision in the Twitter case is thus a measure of how sizeable a gap sits between the rhetoric EU policymakers ply around the bloc’s ‘powerful’ digital rules — and the messier and more faltering reality: Nearly two years since Twitter disclosed the breach and waiting for a hammer to drop in what should be a relatively straightforward case.

A data breach is not an investigation into the lawfulness of Facebook’s business model vs GDPR, after all, nor does it delve into the intricacies of Google’s adtech — both of which are still open case files on the DPC’s desk.

The penalty itself is also a fraction (~0.1%) of Twitter’s full-year 2019 revenue; a far cry from the up to 4% of global annual turnover maximum allowed for under the GDPR (or the up to 2% max for the specific infringements involved in the breach case). So this first cross-border GDPR decision looks more millstone than milestone for the Commission, at the fag end of 2020.

There’s not a lot for commissioners to celebrate here, even though they suggested in the summer that the best answer to GDPR enforcement concerns would be for Ireland to get a decision out. The problem now is the black marks against the bloc’s record on digital enforcement look stubbornly set in — just as the Commission is laying out a plan to go all in on platform regulation.

The questions over enforcement are going to keep coming.

News: Extra Crunch membership now available to readers in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark

• December 15, 2020
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We’re excited to announce that Extra Crunch memberships are now available in several Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. For a full list of supported countries, head here. Sign up for Extra Crunch membership here to join our growing community of founders, startup teams, and investors. Use the code NORDICCRUNCH during checkout for an

We’re excited to announce that Extra Crunch memberships are now available in several Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. For a full list of supported countries, head here.

Sign up for Extra Crunch membership here to join our growing community of founders, startup teams, and investors.

Use the code NORDICCRUNCH during checkout for an additional 25% off an annual or 2-year plan. The discount code expires on January 15, 2021, and it will only work for readers in Europe. 

Thanks to everyone who voted on where to expand. If you’d like to see Extra Crunch memberships available in your country, let us know.

Join Extra Crunch by heading here.

What is Extra Crunch?

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News: Data privacy startup eXate raises £2.3M Seed led by Outward VC

• December 15, 2020
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Accessing and sharing data is a complicated issue for large businesses, and doing this in a secure, compliant way is a problem for many. eXate, a London-based data software firm is attacking this problem and has now raised a £2.3 million seed round led by Outward VC, with additional backing from ING Ventures and Triple

Accessing and sharing data is a complicated issue for large businesses, and doing this in a secure, compliant way is a problem for many. eXate, a London-based data software firm is attacking this problem and has now raised a £2.3 million seed round led by Outward VC, with additional backing from ING Ventures and Triple Point Ventures.

eXate is competing with those that tend to do more specific types of data privacy such as Hazy, Privitar, and Very Good Security. By contrast, eXate says it aggregates multiple types of privacy into one solution, and provides central governance and control.

eXate was founded by Peter Lancos and Sonal Rattan, former digital business leaders at HSBC. Its clients include ING, its new investor.

Peter Lancos, CEO, eXate, said in a statement: “Organisations that store and process large volumes of data experience many challenges when it comes to data sharing. We see the biggest obstacles arise from the lack of joined-up thinking. The use of expensive multiple single-point solutions, coupled with monitoring complicated country-by-country policies adds time and budget to data initiatives.”

The funding will enable eXate to capitalize on DataSecOps demand by growing its team, accelerating platform development and expanding into new geographies and verticals.

Andi Kazeroonian, Investor at Outward VC, commented on the investment: “Ensuring the protection of sensitive data is a mission-critical challenge for companies that wish to utilise data to deliver value to its stakeholders. eXate’s unique platform provides companies with the tools it requires to ensure data privacy and protection by design.”

News: Taxdoo, the tax compliance platform for cross-border e-commerce, raises $21M Series A

• December 15, 2020
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Taxdoo, a startup that has built what it calls an “automated platform for financial compliance” aimed at cross-border e-commerce companies, has raised $21 million in new funding. Leading the Series A round is venture capital firm Accel, with participation from Visionaries Club, 20VC and existing investor HTGF. The funding will be invested in Taxdoo’s growth

Taxdoo, a startup that has built what it calls an “automated platform for financial compliance” aimed at cross-border e-commerce companies, has raised $21 million in new funding.

Leading the Series A round is venture capital firm Accel, with participation from Visionaries Club, 20VC and existing investor HTGF. The funding will be invested in Taxdoo’s growth — including international expansion– increased hiring, R&D, sales, and customer support. Accel’s Harry Nelis has joined the Taxdoo board.

The inclusion of Harry Stebbings’ 20VC is noteworthy, as the podcaster-turned-VC originally said his micro fund was targeting U.S. startups across various stages, and therefore there wasn’t any perceived conflict with his role as a partner at European VC Stride. Taxdoo is based out of Hamburg, Germany. “20VC essentially invests largely in the U.S. but can also invest where Stride does not, anywhere in Europe outside of the U.K. and Paris,” clarified Stebbings in a WhatsApp message.

Founded in May 2016, after its three founders — Christian Koenigsheim, Matthias Allmendinger, and Roger Gothmann — finished their PhDs in finance at the University of Hamburg, Taxdoo wants to use automation to meet the tax and compliance burden faced by cross-border e-commerce companies that sell on various marketplaces and platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and Shopify. This sees those businesses facing increasing complexity around VAT, accounting and other compliance requirements, with data siloed across multiple online systems.

Taxdoo brings that data into a single place and then uses its own tech to automate transaction-level data ingestion, tax calculation and filings across Europe. Customers can also collaborate with their tax advisors through the platform and reduce other compliance burdens, including Intrastat filings.

“While it has become easier and easier to sell products across borders in Europe from a marketing and logistics standpoint, the resulting compliance obligations – like accounting or VAT – are a nightmare for sellers,” Taxdoo’s Christian Koenigsheim tells me.

“Handling these issues manually using spreadsheets is a recipe for disaster. To solve this problem, we’ve used our in-house expertise to automate the entire process – from the collection of data to the filing of VAT returns in different countries and the integration of transactions into the seller’s accounting system”.

Koenigsheim says a typical Taxdoo customer sells products on different marketplaces and their own shop, with annual revenues of around €5-10 million. “Our largest customers are global consumer brands with annual revenues of €150 million and above,” he says.

Examples include D2C brands like air up and YFood or e-commerce companies OmniDeal and sellvin. “Among others, we partner with tax professionals, ERP systems, and e-commerce agencies to help them handle these complex issues for their clients,” adds Koenigsheim.

“Our secret sauce is that we automate the entire workflow from end-to-end. This starts with the aggregation of data from different channels like marketplaces, shops, and ERP systems using our automated connectors. Our system [then] analyses data under all applicable regulations and prepares the required returns across the EU, which are filed by an international network of tax partners using a convenient software solution created by us”.

Taxdoo data can also be exported to a seller’s accounting system, enabling them to more easily collaborate with local tax advisors.

Meanwhile, the addressable market is growing fast, in part helped by accelerated digitisation during the pandemic and the growth of e-commerce. Taxdoo cites data showing that cross-border transactions now represents approximately 25% of total e-commerce transactions in Western Europe and Scandinavia, and is rising.

Cue statement from Accel’s Harry Nelis: “With a booming e-commerce landscape and companies of all sizes looking to sell their products and services internationally, we see an acute need for integrated financial and tax compliance. Taxdoo’s founders bring together unique experience at the intersection of tax, finance and software and we are excited to work with them to build Taxdoo into a category defining company”.

News: Lux Capital’s Deena Shakir sees space and frontier tech going mainstream right now

• December 15, 2020
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Deena Shakir joined Lux Capital as a partner last year after spending seven years with Google, the last of them with GV, Google’s venture unit. While Shakir seems to fit right in with the firm — known for its wealth of PhDs and moonshot investments — venture wasn’t something she was focused on as a

Deena Shakir joined Lux Capital as a partner last year after spending seven years with Google, the last of them with GV, Google’s venture unit.

While Shakir seems to fit right in with the firm — known for its wealth of PhDs and moonshot investments — venture wasn’t something she was focused on as a career, as she told us during a lengthy interview last week. An Iraqi-American who grew up in Silicon Valley after her parents immigrated to the region, Shakir put herself through both Harvard, then Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service through a mix of merit scholarships and work and thought she might become a doctor or nab a PhD in anthropology.

Instead, an internship with the BBC saw her cover an historic White House speech, which led her to spend more than two years at the State Department, working for then Secretary Clinton. When she later headed home to be with her family, she was aware that she wanted to make an impact; she didn’t foresee making it through her investments, yet that’s what’s now happening.

If you don’t know Shakir, it’s worth listening to our conversation here at some point; in the meantime, here are some lightly edited excerpts that shine a light on where she is placing her bets and why.

TC: Lux is known for investing in rocket companies and satellites, though its website actually lists 21 different industries in its portfolio. Did the firm’s deals arise from these industries that interest the firm or because of teams that interest the firm and that happen to operate in these industries? 

DS: I actually find some of this industry categorization as problematic because if you look through the portfolio, you’ll see we love healthcare, meats, robotics, AI, food production, industrial IoT, and data meets FinTech. It really is intersectional in terms of how we approach industries; that’s the nature of how we think about investing. But in terms of how we think about where we want to make investments, we certainly have areas where historically we’ve spent a lot of time that have given us insights into where there are white spaces [such as having worked on] autonomous vehicles and having insights through that experience into the types of software platforms that could power the next generation of autonomy. So there’s definitely a lot of generational and evolutionary investing.

TC: Last week, Lux participated in the seed round a startup called Varda that is centered around manufacturing in space. What is it trying to make in space and why?

DS: There are few companies that I think would be perceived as more of a Lux fit than Varda. We pride ourselves on companies that turns science fiction into fact [including in the] space space. We were in Relativity Space; we’re in a number of satellite companies — Orbital Insight and Planet and several others.

But this is not only a space that we’re interested in, but also the founding team is one that we’ve had the chance to get to know over time and felt very strongly about. It is not an intuitive company, which is probably part of the reason why you might be asking about it, like: what exactly do they do, right? At the end of the day, it’s quite early, but they’re working on two things that we really love — manufacturing and space — abd there are some really interesting innovations that we’re just at the very beginning of understanding their application in space [including around] physical processes and the supply chain. And this team is at the forefront of taking those on.

TC: Is it going to be manufacturing carbon nanotubes in space to take to the ISS? What’s the need it’s addressing?

DK: At the end of the day, the need is around cost and supply chain. It’s still extremely expensive to launch anything into orbit — we’re talking tens of millions of dollars if not more. That’s the key problem that they want to solve. Manufacturing in space is the hypothesis here. And they have some fascinating and confidential, at this point, hypotheses as to how they will be able to do that.

TC: Is there enough later-stage funding for companies that will need a lot of capital? Lux is now managing $2.5 billion in assets, after raising $1 billion last year. But some space investors say there is not [enough to go around] partly because there haven’t yet been enough liquidity events.

DK: That’s interesting, because we got excited about what we now call frontier tech before that was really a category — certainly before it had any venture-return profile. Now, it’s becoming increasingly clear that frontier tech is no longer at the frontier. It’s becoming a key part of many large enterprises. And we’re seeing huge companies producing rockets en masse. We’re seeing private companies launch rockets into space and collaborate with NASA. We’re also seeing venture-funded companies that previously sounded like science fiction that are approaching just phenomenal valuations. So it does seem like we’re at a turning point here. If you take a look at the cap tables [of] these types of companies, you’ll see players that may not necessarily have taken those types of bets earlier on.

TC: One of your bets is Shiru, which is leveraging computational design to create enhanced proteins to help feed the world. What does it say about your interests and process?

DS: I spent a lot of time, especially at GV, with some of the alternative protein companies in our portfolio. And a big part of what I’ve done since my days in government, and certainly throughout my time at Google, has been talking to commercial partners, Fortune 500 companies, and understanding what their needs are. A big part of my role at GV was helping to plug in these large, behemoth companies with up-and-coming tech companies and help them to meet the innovation demands that they have, and that’s a large part of where my thesis came from.

I genuinely believe that there is a huge opportunity in food that enables these Fortune 500 food companies to meet the increasing demands from consumers, environmental demands, and cost demands [related to] animal-based ingredients. Shiru’s approach is an interesting one because they are taking a business model that has worked quite well in pharma . . .in enabling the production of novel IP. In this case, [it’s] novel plant-based proteins, using machine learning and computational biology and actually licensing it to these food companies so they can go on to produce their own versions of the Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat or simply replace a costly animal-based ingredient in one of their products.

TC: Another of your deals is AllStripes, which aggregates and analyzes medical records, then sells the de identified data to pharma companies to help them develop medicines. So the common thread is machine learning?

DS: Yes, so for me, it’s about machine learning AI that’s streamlining a really analog industry, whether it’s education, whether it’s finance, whether it’s food, and certainly healthcare, where I spend the majority of my time.

TC: What are some of the areas you’re digging into?

DK: Within healthcare, specifically, I am spending a lot of time looking at women’s health and within women’s health. I am looking a lot at fertility tech, and I’ve seen everything from robotic cryo storage to embryo selection to consumerized clinics for IVF. And it’s definitely an interesting market and one that’s growing, especially if you look more broadly at demographic trends in terms of women having children later in life, as well as what we’re seeing in terms of IVF rates and other countries as well.

I’m a mother of two young kids and had some pretty scary medical experiences myself with with both of their births, and that definitely inspired a look into that space as a patient, but also one where I think there’s really been underinvestment. I get really frustrated when I hear anyone talk about women’s health as niche, there is nothing niche about it. From the pure numbers perspective, [women] represents obviously half the population. But women also account for over 80% of dollars spent in healthcare and so companies that are focused on women in the healthcare space are also excellent wedges into other areas.

So outside of those areas in women’s health, I’m looking at menopause and at aging in place for anyone across the gender spectrum. Mental health is a huge one, too. I come from a family of physicians. My father is a psychiatrist. In fact, that’s the reason I grew up in the Bay Area. He came to Stanford in the ’70s for his residency in psychiatry and I’ve had a lifelong fascination with mental health. In fact, like many children of immigrants, for a hot minute I thought I was going to be a doctor myself and and even interned with VA’s psychiatry department right before going to college.

Part of why I get excited about it is because it is one of the fields in medicine that’s still so untouched by tech — certainly on the data side in terms of being slow to adopt EHRs. On the diagnostic and therapeutic side, there have been some really interesting non-pharmacological interventions for mental health, like TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), but it has been elusive to attack and, of course, it’s top of mind for many folks right now with the mental health burden on everyone at the pandemic. So we’re seeing a lot of really interesting novel approaches emerge, as well as tailwinds propelling some companies that have been around for a while in a space.

TC: Lux actually formed a $345 million health-care focused SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, in October. Is that one of many to come and also, is the idea to perhaps back a company that Lux has funded earlier in time or an outfit it has no association with whatsoever?

DS: We believe that SPACs are really powerful for companies that have an exciting big story to tell and whose value isn’t necessarily best evaluated by looking in the rearview mirror. And given the changing nature of health care, particularly given everything the pandemic has done, it’s a particularly salient and interesting opportunity for health care.

We’ve have gotten some really interesting inbound from some of the top companies in the healthcare space. As you can imagine, it’s just a very, very interesting time for healthcare. We’re not looking at our own portfolio companies. But a number of our companies are going down that path, and we’re encouraging them to [pursue it].