News: India orders Twitter to take down tweets critical of its coronavirus handling

• April 24, 2021
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Twitter has taken down dozens of tweets in India, some of which were critical of New Delhi’s handling of the coronavirus, to comply with an emergency order from the Indian government. New Delhi made an emergency order to Twitter to censor over 50 tweets in the country, Twitter disclosed on Lumen database. The social network

Twitter has taken down dozens of tweets in India, some of which were critical of New Delhi’s handling of the coronavirus, to comply with an emergency order from the Indian government.

New Delhi made an emergency order to Twitter to censor over 50 tweets in the country, Twitter disclosed on Lumen database. The social network has complied with the request, and withheld those tweets from users in India.

TechCrunch has learned that Twitter is not the only platform affected by the new order.

India, which has also previously ordered Twitter to take down some tweets and accounts critical of its policies and threatened jail time to employees in the event of non-compliance, comes as the country reports a record of over 330,000 new covid cases a day, the worst by any country. News reports suggest that even this number is underreported.

Amid a collapse of the nation’s health infrastructure, Twitter has become a rare beam of hope as people crowdsource data and help one another find medicines and oxygen cylinders.

A copy of one of Indian government’s orders disclosed by Twitter. (Lumen Database)

Medianama, which first reported on New Delhi’s new order, said among those whose tweets have been censored in India include Revanth Reddy (a Member of Parliament), Moloy Ghatak (a minister in West Bengal), Vineet Kumar Singh (actor) filmmakers Vinod Kapri and Avinash Das.

In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson said, “When we receive a valid legal request, we review it under both the Twitter Rules and local law. If the content violates Twitter’s Rules, the content will be removed from the service. If it is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter Rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only. In all cases, we notify the account holder directly so they’re aware that we’ve received a legal order pertaining to the account.”

“We notify the user(s) by sending a message to the email address associated with the account(s), if available. Read more about our Legal request FAQs.  The legal requests that we receive are detailed in the bianual Twitter Transparency Report, and requests to withhold content are published on Lumen.”

News: Solving the security challenges of public cloud

• April 24, 2021
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Standard operating processes exist for the simplest of tasks, so why isn’t there a standardized approach for dealing with security of the public cloud — something fundamental to our society?

Experts believe the data-lake market will hit a massive $31.5 billion in the next six years, a prediction that has led to much concern among large enterprises. Why? Well, an increase in data lakes equals an increase in public cloud consumption — which leads to a soaring amount of notifications, alerts and security events.

Around 56% of enterprise organizations handle more than 1,000 security alerts every day and 70% of IT professionals have seen the volume of alerts double in the past five years, according to a 2020 Dark Reading report that cited research by Sumo Logic. In fact, many in the ONUG community are on the order of 1 million events per second. Yes, per second, which is in the range of tens of peta events per year.

Now that we are operating in a digitally transformed world, that number only continues to rise, leaving many enterprise IT leaders scrambling to handle these events and asking themselves if there’s a better way.

Compounding matters is the lack of a unified framework for dealing with public cloud security. End users and cloud consumers are forced to deal with increased spend on security infrastructure such as SIEMs, SOAR, security data lakes, tools, maintenance and staff — if they can find them — to operate with an “adequate” security posture.

Public cloud isn’t going away, and neither is the increase in data and security concerns. But enterprise leaders shouldn’t have to continue scrambling to solve these problems. We live in a highly standardized world. Standard operating processes exist for the simplest of tasks, such as elementary school student drop-offs and checking out a company car. But why isn’t there a standardized approach for dealing with security of the public cloud — something so fundamental now to the operation of our society?

The ONUG Collaborative had the same question. Security leaders from organizations such as FedEx, Raytheon Technologies, Fidelity, Cigna, Goldman Sachs and others came together to establish the Cloud Security Notification Framework. The goal is to create consistency in how cloud providers report security events, alerts and alarms, so end users receive improved visibility and governance of their data.

Here’s a closer look at the security challenges with public cloud and how CSNF aims to address the issues through a unified framework.

The root of the problem

A few key challenges are sparking the increased number of security alerts in the public cloud:

1. Rapid digital transformation sparked by COVID-19.
2. An expanded network edge created by the modern, work-from-home environment.
3. An increase in the type of security attacks.

The first two challenges go hand in hand. In March of last year, when companies were forced to shut down their offices and shift operations and employees to a remote environment, the wall between cyber threats and safety came crashing down. This wasn’t a huge issue for organizations already operating remotely, but for major enterprises the pain points quickly boiled to the surface.

Numerous leaders have shared with me how security was outweighed by speed. Keeping everything up and running was prioritized over governance. Each employee effectively held a piece of the company’s network edge in their home office. Without basic governance controls in place or training to teach employees how to spot phishing or other threats, the door was left wide open for attacks.

In 2020, the FBI reported its cyber division was receiving nearly 4,000 complaints per day about security incidents, a 400% increase from pre-pandemic figures.

Another security issue is the growing intelligence of cybercriminals. The Dark Reading report said 67% of IT leaders claim a core challenge is a constant change in the type of security threats that must be managed. Cybercriminals are smarter than ever. Phishing emails, entrance through IoT devices and various other avenues have been exploited to tap into an organization’s network. IT teams are constantly forced to adapt and spend valuable hours focused on deciphering what is a concern and what’s not.

Without a unified framework in place, the volume of incidents will spiral out of control.

Where CSNF comes into play

CSNF will prove beneficial for cloud providers and IT consumers alike. Security platforms often require integration timelines to wrap in all data from siloed sources, including asset inventory, vulnerability assessments, IDS products and past security notifications. These timelines can be expensive and inefficient.

But with a standardized framework like CSNF, the integration process for past notifications is pared down and contextual processes are improved for the entire ecosystem, efficiently reducing spend and saving SecOps and DevSecOps teams time to focus on more strategic tasks like security posture assessment, developing new products and improving existing solutions.

Here’s a closer look at the benefits a standardized approach can create for all parties:

• End users: CSNF can streamline operations for enterprise cloud consumers, like IT teams, and allows improved visibility and greater control over the security posture of their data. This enhanced sense of protection from improved cloud governance benefits all individuals.
• Cloud providers: CSNF can eliminate the barrier to entry currently prohibiting an enterprise consumer from using additional services from a specific cloud provider by freeing up added security resources. Also, improved end-user cloud governance encourages more cloud consumption from businesses, increasing provider revenue and providing confidence that their data will be secure.
• Cloud vendors: Cloud vendors that provide SaaS solutions are spending more on engineering resources to deal with increased security notifications. But with a standardized framework in place, these additional resources would no longer be necessary. Instead of spending money on such specific needs along with labor, vendors could refocus core staff on improving operations and products such as user dashboards and applications.

Working together, all groups can effectively reduce friction from security alerts and create a controlled cloud environment for years to come.

What’s next?

CSNF is in the building phase. Cloud consumers have banded together to compile requirements, and consumers continue to provide guidance as a prototype is established. The cloud providers are now in the process of building the key component of CSNF, its Decorator, which provides an open-source multicloud security reporting translation service.

The pandemic created many changes in our world, including new security challenges in the public cloud. Reducing IT noise must be a priority to continue operating with solid governance and efficiency, as it enhances a sense of security, eliminates the need for increased resources and allows for more cloud consumption. ONUG is working to ensure that the industry stays a step ahead of security events in an era of rapid digital transformation.

News: This Week in Apps: An Apple event, more Clubhouse clones and an app store antitrust hearing

• April 24, 2021
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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 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android

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 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020.

Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices.

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. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year.

This week we’re diving into the juicy bits from the app store antitrust hearing, rounding up the Apple Spring Loaded event and looking at all the new Clubhouse rivals, including Facebook’s, among other things.

This Week in Apps will soon be a newsletter! Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

Top Stories

Apple Spring Loaded

Image Credits: Apple / Apple

Apple this week held a big spring event where it announced a number of new products, including a new lineup of colorful M1-powered iMacs and M1-powered iPad Pros, a next-gen Apple TV 4K with a way less terrible Siri remote (buttons, hooray!), a very pretty purple iPhone 12 and 12 mini, its long-awaited UWB lost item finder AirTag, Apple Card Family and a new Podcasts app with a paid subscription option for creators.

The new iPad Pro, which brings a 50% performance increase over the previous Pro model, has a ton of upgrade specs, including Thunderbolt and USB 4 support, up to 2TB of storage and 16GB of RAM, and a “Liquid Retina XDR” display on the 12.9-inch model that will make it ideal for creative pursuits involving photography, video and even AR. But now it’s time for iPadOS to catch up — and that may be in store with iPadOS 15, which will reportedly at least have an upgraded Home Screen but hopefully more.

Apple didn’t bother to offer a real launch date for iOS 14.5, although we know it’s next week thanks to Apple’s reminders about getting ready for ATT.

The launch of AirTag, meanwhile, played right into the other big Apple event this week: a Senate antitrust hearing over App Stores.

Apple and Google defend the app store business model in antitrust hearing

This week’s hearing brought three chief Apple critics to testify: Tile, Match and Spotify. The companies argued that the app stores’ hold on the ecosystem was too tight.

They’re not allowed to tell their customers inside their own app how to purchase a subscription to their services outside the App Store, where they could keep 100% of the revenues, they said. And, they argued, these IAP “taxes” have to be passed along to the consumer, leading to higher prices. In Spotify’s case, this puts them at a disadvantage when having to compete against a direct rival, like Apple Music, which doesn’t have the same impediment.

The companies also argued how little power they had to fight against any changes enacted by the platform makers. Tile’s General Counsel Kirsten Daru noted that her company’s relationship with Apple used to be symbiotic, saying Apple “sold our devices in their retail stores, and they even featured us on stage at their Worldwide Developer conference in 2018. But that all changed when Apple decided that it wanted to take over this category,” she said. “If Apple turned on us, it can turn on anyone.”

Spotify spoke of the times Apple threatened to pull it from the App Store over rule violations. And how Apple told Spotify it couldn’t email customers to tell them how they could upgrade via its website instead of through IAP. Apple, meanwhile, defended its position equating it to coming in a Verizon store to advertise that the new iPhone was available for sale down the street at an Apple Store. “No retailer is going to allow us to do that,” Apple’s Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer argued.

Match talked about app rejections and Apple dictating how it can run its business. It said it wanted to verify IDs for a dating app in Taiwan and Apple wouldn’t allow this. Match also mentioned an app rejection that kept it from releasing its LGBTGQ+ safety update for two months. (But we’ve learned that Apple’s rejection was not related to the LGBTQ+ feature itself.)

Match Chief Legal Officer & Secretary Jared Sine also threw out a pretty big bomb when it alerted lawmakers to the fact that they received a call the night before their testimony. Google wanted to know why Match’s testimony appeared to differ from what it said during earnings, he said. (On the earnings call, Match said they believed they could work through the issues of Google’s 30% tax.) Google’s Senior Director Public Policy & Government Relations Wilson White said “it sounds as if some business development folks who are working on commercial conversations” called Match and that Google doesn’t “view that as a threat…we would never threaten our partners.”

Tile argues for a level playing field

Immediately after launching its lost item finder AirTag, Apple had to defend its product against antitrust claims made by Tile. From what we’ve seen, there are mixed feelings out there as to whether Tile has a case. Tile carved out a market for lost item finders and has many years’ worth of a head start on Apple. Some say it wouldn’t have to worry about Apple if it had continued to innovate. After all, just look at the AirTag hardware design and the clever way it guides you to a lost item with directional arrows.

But Tile points out there were areas where it believes Apple didn’t level the playing field.

Tile has asked since 2019 for access to the U1 chip for UWB (ultra wideband) access, like AirTag has, so it can roll out its own UWB device. But Apple only this month, April 2021, announced a draft specification for chipset manufacturers that will arrive later this spring (AFTER AirTag debuts) which will allow third-party device makers to take advantage of ultra wideband technology in U1-equipped Apple devices.

And while Apple opened up Find My to third-parties — a move it’s using to fend of antitrust claims — that means Tile wouldn’t be able to continue its direct relationship with its customers through its own iOS app, if it made the switch. As to what other details that Find My agreement forces upon developers, Tile couldn’t say. When pressed by lawmakers in the antitrust hearing this week, Tile’s Daru said she couldn’t talk about it, because Apple makes companies sign an NDA. Apple CCO Andeer declined to allow Daru to answer questions about the nature of the agreement for the purpose of the hearing either.

Tile had several other grievances as well, like how its app had to ask permission to do things like track location or run in the background or use Bluetooth, when Apple’s Find My did not.

They took away one of our critical permissions, which requires our customers to go deep, deep, deep into their settings to turn Tile on. Find my, by contrast, is on by default…when you set up your operating system. And in order to turn it off you have to go deep into your Settings and actually enter a password. Apple also started serving prompts with that same update to our users — once they figured out how to turn Tile on, they started serving these prompts encouraging them to turn Tile off. But they didn’t serve up those prompts for Find My. Our Bluetooth network — of course, people need to opt in to the Bluetooth network; I think that’s great. We are complete supporters of consumer transparency. But the Find my Bluetooth network in the new Find My app is on by default. And then with these AirTags, as I discussed, we have the UWB issue, which I won’t repeat. But there’s something else. It’s called..they call the ‘magic onboarding flow.’ To connect your AirPods or your AirTags with your phone, you don’t even have to open the Find My app. You just put them near. But that magic flow isn’t available to third-parties like Tile.

Apple questioned about the problem with App Store subscription scams

During the hearing, Apple was also specifically pressed on its failure to police app store scams. The tech giant has argued that one of the reasons it requires developers to pay App Store commissions is to help Apple fight marketplace fraud and protect consumers. But developers claim Apple is doing very little to stop obvious scams that are now raking in millions and impacting consumer trust in the overall subscription economy, as well as in their own legitimate, subscription-based businesses.

One developer in particular, Kosta Eleftheriou, has made it his mission to highlight some of the most egregious scams on the App Store. Functioning as a one-man bunco squad, Eleftheriou regularly tweets out examples of apps that are leveraging fake reviews to promote their harmful businesses. Georgia’s Senator Ossoff asked why we had to rely on independent reports (presumably referring to these efforts by Kosta) to route out scams? Apple defended itself by saying security was a cat-and-mouse game and consumers were refunded when scammed.

Apple and Google questioned on use of app store data

Finally, an interesting line of questioning put to Apple and Google asked the companies if they had an internal firewall between sharing data gleaned from their app stores with their own product development teams working on other initiatives. Apple’s answer left room for doubt. Andeer initially responded that Apple has separate teams, which was clearly not what Senator Blumenthal wanted to know. After the Senator clarified what a “data firewall” was, Apple’s response was “we have controls in place.”

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

The App Store will be adding a second advertising slot in its Suggested Apps section on the Search page, the FT reports. The slot was previously spotted during testing and may arrive by the end of the month. The advantage of this slot is that it will allow developers to advertise to all users who end up on that tab, not just those who have already performed a search.

Tell me you’re launching iOS 14.5 on April 26 without telling me you’re launching iOS 14.5 on April 26. Apple says all apps must use the AppTrackingTransparency framework to request the user’s permission to track them or to access their device’s advertising identifier as of…you guessed it…April 26, 2021. Apple hasn’t officially announced the iOS 14.5 launch date, but this indicates the launch will likely be on April 26 or perhaps the following day.

Apple alerts developers that, starting April 26, iPhone and iPad apps must be built with Xcode 12 and the iOS 14 SDK or later. Watch apps will need to be built with Xcode 12 and the watchOS 7 SDK or later.

A Bloomberg report claims iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 will bring a number of changes, including an updated Lock Screen, a redesigned iPad Home Screen, additional privacy protections, and tools for setting notifications or automatic replies based on their status (driving, working, sleeping, etc.). The update is expected to be announced at this year’s WWDC on June 7.

Apple extended the waiver on IAPs for apps offering paid online group events instead of in-person events due to the pandemic. The waiver now continues through the end of 2021.

Platforms: Google

Google released Android 12’s third developer preview this week — the last one before Android 12 goes live. The highlights in this release included the ability for developers to provide new haptic feedback experiences in their apps and new app launch animations where they can customize the splash screen with their own branding.

Google this week touted its technologies that keep its Play Store safe. It says Google Play Protect scanned over 100 billion installed apps for malware each day in 2020. Its machine-learning detection capabilities and app review process stopped over 962,000 policy-violating apps from being published and it banned 119,000 spammy or malicious apps. It also increased focus on SDK enforcement, which impacts security and privacy violations.

Fintech

PayPal will launch a local wallet in China focused on cross-border payments. The U.S. company in January became the first foreign firm to have 100% ownership of a payments platform in China. The app will not compete with local players like Alipay or WeChat Pay for domestic payments.

Google Pay added its privacy nutrition label to its iOS app. The app’s references to third-party advertising are due to its “Explore” tab where users find merchant offers they can add to their card, which is optional. The app’s personalization features are off by default and, when turned on, are used to surface relevant merchant offers within Google Pay only.

Social Networking

Instagram launched new tools that will filter out abusive DMs based on keywords and emojis used and to proactively block people, even on new accounts. The blocking account feature is going live globally in the next few weeks, and the feature to filter out abusive DMs will start rolling out in the U.K., France, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in a few weeks, with more countries to follow.

Instagram is now testing ads in its TikTok rival, Reels. The ads can be up to 30 seconds long and may resemble Story ads. But you’ll be able to like and comment on Reels ads, just like you can on TikTok. Parent company Facebook also rolled out “sticker ads” for Stories.

Apple confirmed that Parler will be allowed to return to the App Store, after Parler proposed updates to its app, content and moderation practices that would adhere to Apple’s guidelines. The companies have been in talks following Parler’s ban from the App Store after the Capitol attack. Parler Interim CEO Mark Meckler, on Fox News, referred to the changes it had to make as “censorship.” He said Google had also reached out but the company is less concerned with making amends there as the app can be sideloaded on Android devices.

Twitter began testing “Professional Profiles” for businesses. The new profiles let businesses showcase their website, address, hours, map and more, in a new “About” section under the Following/Followers count on their profiles.

Twitter also rolled out the ability to tweet 4K pictures on iOS and Android to all users. The feature was previously in testing.

A former children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, has filed a case against TikTok over its collection of children’s data. The suit alleges TikTok is violating EU and U.K. children’s data protection laws by processing the information gathered from children without parental consent.

Nextdoor launched a new feature that will alert users if it appears they’re about to post something racist. The feature works by examining words and phrases, like “all lives matter,” that are hurtful to people of color. The app doesn’t prevent users from posting, but will slow them down and ask them to reconsider.

Facebook reminds developers that Apple’s ATT (App Tracking Transparency) will be rolling out next week with the new version of iOS, and shared its resources on how to “minimize disruptions to your business and clients.”

Wattpad social reading community announced it has now paid authors over $1 million as part of its now two-year old Paid Stories program. Today, over 550 writers and 750 stories are a part of the program. Users have also spent more than half a billion minutes reading Wattpad Paid Stories.

Design

Alongside the launch of its whiteboarding tool, Figma released a more fully featured version of its mobile app into beta testing.

Messaging

A Bloomberg report claims that Apple will be working to add more social features to iMessage in an upcoming release of iOS to better compete with WhatsApp. The report didn’t offer any indication about what those features may be.

Facebook partnered with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the 93rd Oscars to give fans a way to engage in real-time, interactive experiences across its platforms. One of these will include a live Messenger Room which will stream the broadcast and exclusive live interviews with winners, engage in activities like trivia, and more. The room will be live starting at 8 PM ET on Sunday April 25. Messenger will also include AR backgrounds for the event.

Clubhouse & Clones

Reddit this week unveiled its Clubhouse Rival, Reddit Talk. The design hasn’t deviated much from Clubhouse’s experience — where speakers sit at the top of the screen in a stage area of sorts, and listeners appear below — all with rounded profile icons, as well as tools to react or raise a hand to ask to speak. However, Reddit Talk will initially live within subreddits, where a community’s moderators will be the only ones able to start a talk for the time being.

Image Credits: Reddit

Clubhouse downloads dropped 72% last month, going from 9.6 million in February to 2.7 million in March, an indication the app, now valued at $4 billion thanks to its fundraise this week, could be losing some momentum as competitors arrive and the world begins to re-open.

A Clubhouse bug let people lurk in rooms invisibly, Wired reports. The “ghosts” could hide in rooms and even disrupt them, while moderators were unable to mute them. Clubhouse said it has fixed the problem.

Facebook announced its suite of audio products this week, including its Clubhouse clone featuring Live Audio Rooms across Facebook and Messenger. The Live Audio Rooms will initially be available in Groups and to public figures and experts. The company also unveiled Spotify integrations for music and podcasts and an audio-only TikTok rival Soundbites, which seems a lot like the startup Cappuccino’s app, its CTO noticed.

Gaming

Discord and Microsoft are no longer having takeover talks. Bloomberg and The WSJ reported. Discord rejected a $12 billion bid for its service that allows gamers (and others) to communicate via text, video and voice. Other companies have been talking to Discord, too, including Twitter, with some discussions valuing Discord between $15 billion-$18 billion.

The Xbox Cloud Gaming beta began rolling out to iOS and PC this week to Game Pass Ultimate users, sending out invites to a limited number of users in the 22 supported countries, and scaling it up over time. Although Apple announced a carve-out that would allow cloud gaming platforms to offer their games through its App Store by making each game an individual app, linked to a main app with IAP, Microsoft has instead chosen to operate its experience through the Safari web browser.

Health & Fitness

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

The top 10 telehealth apps in the U.S. saw their first-time installs climb 33% Y/Y to 7 million in Q1 2021, reported Sensor Tower. MyChart led the subcategory, reaching a record 1.1 million downloads in January — likely thanks to it becoming a tool for booking vaccine appointments.

Travel & Transportation

TripAdvisor is preparing to launch a subscription service in advance of a post-pandemic return to travel. The company expects the new product, TripAdvisor Plus, will grow to generate more than $1 billion per year for the service that will offer consumers discounts on hotels, experiences and more. The service is expected to arrive in the U.S. in June.

Ride-hailing app Gett inked a deal with Curb Mobility to integrate the latter’s some 50,000 yellow taxis into Gett’s app, which will now cover some 65 cities across the U.S. The deal does not involve any investment between Gett and Curb.

Utilities

Apple Maps looks to be adding user reviews and photos in the U.S., after first launching the feature in select markets, including the U.K. A brief shot from Apple’s event this week showed the feature in action.

Security

Secure messaging app Signal reverse engineered Cellebrite’s hacking kit after the cell phone hacking company said it had figured out how to access the Signal app. In the process of doing so, Signal found several vulnerabilities in Cellebrite’s kit. It also implied the team would make changes to Signal to make it more difficult to hack.

Facebook said it took action against two separate groups of hackers in Palestine — a network linked to the Preventive Security Service (PSS) and a threat actor known as Arid Viper. The groups were engaged in cyber espionage activities in Palestine and other nations.

Researchers found that popular running apps — including Strava, Runkeeper, MapMyRun, Nike Run Club and Runtastic — don’t use basic security measures to prevent hackers from breaking in or health and fitness data spilling out.

Developer Kosta Eleftheriou has been hunting down App Store scam apps, after his own app became a victim to Apple’s failures to police misleading apps with fake reviews. One of his more recent discoveries was particularly interesting: he found a crypto casino hidden inside what otherwise looked like a silly kids’ game. The app was removed from the App Store shortly after he tweeted about it.

Funding and M&A

Clubhouse closed an undisclosed round of Series C funding, valuing the business at $4 billion, or triple its earlier valuation. The round was led by Andrew Chen of Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from DST Global, Tiger Global and Elad Gil.

Kandji raised $60 million in a Series B for its solution that helps onboard and update Apple devices to support remote workforces. Felicis Ventures led the round. The company now has 100 employees.

Amsterdam-based Bux raised $80 million for its European Robinhood rival that lets people invest in shares and ETFs without paying commissions. The startup now has around 500,000 users across part of Europe using its main app and two others, including a Bux Crypto app. The round was co-led by Prosus Ventures and Tencent.

Leo AR raised $3 million in seed funding led by Great Oaks Ventures for its app that capitalizes on ARKit to create 3D AR objects. The startup claims its users have now created more than 8 million videos with AR objects to date.

Per Diem raised $2.3 million in seed funding led by Two Sigma Ventures for its service that lets anyone build their own subscription business with shipping and delivery — like Amazon Prime.

Social app IRL is reportedly in talks to raise more than $50 million at a $1 billion valuation, or 10x the size of its last round, according to The Information. The app quickly pivoted from “in real life” events to digital ones during the pandemic.

French startup Alan raised $220 million in funding led by Coatue at a $1.67 billion valuation for its health insurance and healthcare superapp available across web, iOS and Android.

Mobile gaming company AppLovin, which holds about a 1% share of the $189 billion global mobile gaming market, closed down 18.5% on its first day of trading on the Nasdaq. Shares were at $65.20, with a market cap of around $23 billion. The firm also owns app distribution and marketing company Adjust.

French startup BlaBlaCar raised $115 million to build an all-in-one travel app. The round was led by existing investor VNV Global. The company also added a bus marketplace with the acquisition of Ouibus and an online bus ticketing platform with the acquisition of Busfor.

Till Financial raised $5 million from a range of investors, including Melinda Gates’ fund, for its kids’ finance app meant to help them learn how to save and invest.

San Francisco-based Oath Care raised $2 million in seed funding for its subscription-based mobile app focused on improving the lives of new mothers by pairing them with healthcare specialists and moderators who can guide them in chats and video calls.

Downloads

Popl

Image Credits: Popl

This combination NFC tag (available as a phone sticker, wristband or keychain dongle) works alongside a mobile app to help you quickly share your contact info with people you meet in real life. When phone are close, the NFC enables the handoff the data as quickly as an Apple Pay transaction. In the Popl app, meanwhile, you can customize which data you want to share with others — including your contact info, social profiles, website links, etc. — all via an easy-to-use interface. Like some business card apps in the past, you can flip between a personal profile and a business profile in Popl in order to share the appropriate information when out networking.

Yak Tack

Image Credits: YakTack

Wordsmiths will like Yak Tack’s simple app, reviewed here by TechCrunch, that help users remember new words using a system it calls “tacking.” When you find a word you want to remember, you use the app to look it up then “tack” it to start the system of repetition that helps combat forgetting. The words are sent via push notifications at a specific intervals so you can read their definitions again.

News: 8 investors, founders and execs predict cybersecurity, fintech will take Belfast by storm

• April 24, 2021
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Belfast is among one of the U.K.’s fastest growing tech hubs, so we reached out to investors, founders and executives for an inside look at the city’s startup ecosystem.

Things have been looking up for Belfast since the end of the Troubles. The city has undergone infrastructure improvements over the past two decades, tourism has boomed thanks to attractions such as the shipyard where the RMS Titanic was built and Game of Thrones shooting locations, and employment has risen steadily in the city since 2016, according to Northen Ireland’s Department for the Economy. The city also has the famed Queen’s University and low living costs to count in its favor, and gentrification is starting to take place, which shows things are looking up for Northern Ireland’s capital.

And as far as the local startup scene goes, the U.K.’s Tech Nation found in 2018 that about 26% of Belfast’s workforce was employed in tech, and it is among cities in the country with the highest growth potential for 2021.

With that in mind, we reached out to founders, investors and executives in the city to get an inside look at the state of the current tech startup ecosystem. According to the survey, the city is strong in sectors such as fintech, agritech, hospitality tech, emerging tech, cybersecurity, SaaS and medtech. Ignite NI emerged as an important native incubator and accelerator.

Interesting startups that our respondents mentioned include: CropSafe, SideQuest, Aflo, Material Evolution, Cloudsmith, LegitFit, Continually, Gratsi, 54 North Design, Animal Manager, Kairos Sports Tech, Budibase, Incisiv, Automated Intelligence, loyalBe, Konvi, Lane 44, Teamfeepay.com, Axial3D, Neurovalens, Payhere, and Civic Dollars.

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The tech investment scene was characterized as being strong in software and life sciences, but sometimes too conservative or risk-averse. However, this seems to be changing for the better, and foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important growth factor for the ecosystem.

Although there remains uncertainty around how Brexit will affect Northern Ireland, one executive said, “If we play our cards right, we can capitalize on it. Being positioned both in the EU and U.K. markets gives us advantages that we would be foolish to waste.”

One of the founders foresees more private capital flowing into Belfast as global investors realize that “the combination of great local universities and very strong FDI has attracted some brilliant engineers.” The low cost of living is also encouraging for talent to stay put in the city, which makes for a tech scene that’s poised to take off, this founder added.

Here’s who we spoke to:

• Cormac Quinn, founder & CEO, loyalBe
• Susan Kelly, CEO, Respiratory Analytics
• Ryan Crown, co-founder, Hill Street Hatch
• Fearghal Campbell, founder, Pitchbooking
• Jack Spargo, co-founder & CEO, Gratsi
• Brendan Digney, founder, Machine Eye Technology
• Toyah Warnock, co-founder, Lane 44
• Alan Carson, CEO, Cloudsmith

Cormac Quinn, founder & CEO, loyalBe

Which sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What does it lack?
We’re strong in cybersecurity and (to an arguably lesser extent) fintech. I’m excited by the droves of new startups being created here in all sorts of sectors — traditionally, Belfast hasn’t had a lot of tech startups, but I can see that changing right before my eyes, which is very exciting. I always anticipated having to leave Belfast for the U.S. to be able to start a tech company, but I’m glad this is no longer a requirement or even the standard any more.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city?
There are a few that stand out: Cloudsmith (devtools), LegitFit (scheduling), Continually (chatbots/marketing), and Automated Intelligence (data management). This is certainly not an exhaustive list of interesting startups, just a few that come to mind.

What are the tech investors like in Belfast? What’s their focus?
Investors here can be somewhat conservative and slightly traditional. If you’re raising investment north of £1 million, you would likely need to look outside the jurisdiction. There also just isn’t enough private capital at the moment, which is a shame, as Belfast has some fantastic talent combined with a very low cost of living, which means investor money tends to go further (no crazy rents, reasonable salaries, etc.). It feels we’re at the beginning of a cycle in Belfast, however — I expect to see many more local exits over the coming years, which will likely lead to new private capital inflows.

With the shift to remote working, do you think people will stay in Belfast? Will they move out? Will others move in?
I understand the city was growing pre-pandemic, and I believe this trend will continue once life returns to a semi-normal state. For a long time, Belfast was a city people didn’t want to live in due to historical issues, but that has been slowly changing. New developments are popping up all over the city, from student accommodation to hotels and nice apartments. 15-20 years ago, Belfast had hardly any of this.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g. Investors, founders, lawyers, designers)?
Chris McClelland, MD of Ignite NI: He’s a mentor on the city’s top accelerator program. Co-founded BrewBot.
Ian Browne, COO of Ignite NI: Entrepreneur and another mentor to startups in the city.
Mark Dowds: Venture partner at Anthemis, co-founder at Ormeau Baths (in my opinion it’s the city’s best co-working space).

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years?
We’re in uncertain times due to Brexit, but I think if we play our cards right, we can capitalize on it. Being positioned both in the EU and U.K. markets gives us advantages that we would be foolish to waste. I do think we will see more private capital flowing into Belfast as global investors realize that the combination of great local universities and very strong FDI has attracted some brilliant engineers. Combine that with the fact that cost of living remains quite low, which means their capital can go much further (rather than going to landlords) and you have a tech scene that’s poised for take-off.

Can you recommend any companies that should appear in our global Startup Battlefield competition?
Cloudsmith.

Susan Kelly, CEO, Respiratory Analytics

Which sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What does it lack?
Cybersecurity, fintech, digital — strong medtech — needs building. Great incubator and accelerator in Ignite, but needs expansion to the Northwest where deprivation and poor infrastructure need to be addressed. Public funding supports are good, but too fragmented and hard to access.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city?
CropSafe, SideQuest, Aflo (my startup!), Material Evolution.

What are the tech investors like in Belfast? What’s their focus?
Too conservative, “stale, pale, male”, and risk-averse. But changing for the better, slowly. Legal’s far too costly. Needs to shift to a more U.S. type model. Too few women on the scene. Focus on software, which is great, but too risk-averse in hardware. Needs more experienced angel investors. Halo Business Angel Network feels staid.

With the shift to remote working, do you think people will stay in Belfast? Will they move out? Will others move in?
Huge shift back to Belfast and Northern Ireland in general as a result of COVID.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g. Investors, founders, lawyers, designers)?
Ignite NI is driving the startup scene via Propel (Pre-Accelerator) and the Accelerator — doing an amazing job. Clarendon, Techstart, various angels, and Catalyst. Big Motive is a key design engine.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years?
With more support from Invest NI, the whole of Northern Ireland can be an innovation hub linked to Ireland via the startup ecosystem.

Can you recommend any companies that should appear in our global Startup Battlefield competition?
CropSafe.

Ryan Crown, co-founder, Hill Street Hatch

Which sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What does it lack?
We’re strong in the tech industry. We’re excited by changing how we launch hospitality ventures. Belfast is weak in investment and investors.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city?
Payhere, Civic Dollars, and Konvi.

What are the tech investors like in Belfast? What’s their focus?
We’re lacking proper investors in Northern Ireland.

With the shift to remote working, do you think people will stay in Belfast? Will they move out? Will others move in?
The cost of living and quality of life is fantastic in Northern Ireland/Belfast. COVID-19 will see a huge influx of people moving from expensive cities such as London, Manchester, or Dublin and relocating to Belfast.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g. Investors, founders, lawyers, designers)?
Chris McClelland.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years?
Booming.

Fearghal Campbell, founder, Pitchbooking

Which sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What does it lack?
Cybersecurity, SaaS, sportstech. Most excited by a range of early-stage tech companies — [there has been] an explosion in pre-seed and seed level companies over the past two to three years. Weaker at scaling up; relative lack of indigenous scale-up companies. Large number of foreign direct investment from U.S.-based companies into the city.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city?
In the sportstech sector, teamfeepay.com are growing fast. loyalBe are a seed-stage fintech company with big plans for reinventing retail loyalty programs that we always keep an eye on. Later-stage companies like medtech mainstays Axial3D and Neurovalens are doing great things too!

What are the tech investors like in Belfast? What’s their focus?
We have a mix of angel and institutional investors in Belfast. Hard to say a specific focus on a particular industry, but there are a couple of sectors that are strong in the city given the focus of the local universities. Medtech and cybersecurity both feature heavily in the startup scene.

With the shift to remote working, do you think people will stay in Belfast? Will they move out? Will others move in?
Belfast benefits from a relatively low cost of living in relation to the rest of the U.K., meaning that we are seeing an increase in startups moving here from other major cities. The support for early-stage startups has also contributed to this influx. As a city, we are well set up for moving to a hybrid way of working. You can traverse across the center of the city in 15 mins on foot, which means popping into a city center office isn’t a big undertaking.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g. Investors, founders, lawyers, designers)?
Invest NI – Government support agency.
Ignite NI – Seed-stage accelerator program.
UlsterBank Accelerator – Early-stage accelerator program.
Aurient Investments – Angel investment group with a diverse investment portfolio.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years?
I believe we will see the strongest seed-stage companies from 2017-2020 becoming established companies within our tech scene to match the influx of FDI companies from further afield.

Jack Spargo, co-founder & CEO, Gratsi

Which sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What does it lack?
Strong in: Fintech, agritech, hospitality tech, and emerging tech.
Most excited by: support (financial, mentoring, etc.) is available and the cost to build and grow is low.
Weakest in: geographical barriers to rest of UK and EU.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city?
loyalBe, Konvi, and Lane 44.

What are the tech investors like in Belfast? What’s their focus?
Great — good support and intros facilitated by accelerators such as Ignite NI, Catalyst, Techstart, Ormeau Baths, etc.

With the shift to remote working, do you think people will stay in Belfast? Will they move out? Will others move in?
More likely to move in: low cost of living and well set up for being remote already.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g. Investors, founders, lawyers, designers)?
Chris McClelland and Ian Browne of Ignite NI; Mark Dowds of anthemis, and Cormac Quinn of loyalBe.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years?
Stronger: a tech hub for the UK and the EU.

Brendan Digney, founder, Machine Eye Technology

Which sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What does it lack?
Agritech and Constuction tech are industries with huge potential, particularly in Ireland and Northern Ireland, where there are traditional strengths and the opportunity to influence based upon use of AI and data.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city?
Kairos Sports Tech, Budibase, Incisiv, and Automated Intelligence.

What are the tech investors like in Belfast? What’s their focus?
There are a number of VCs/funds that are generally linked to each other and Invest NI. INI is a big support and funder. Catalyst are a not-for-profit support who are possibly the most valuable in the whole system. Investment focus is generally around software and life sciences, although other funds are around. Strong focus on foreign and inward businesses.

With the shift to remote working, do you think people will stay in Belfast? Will they move out? Will others move in?
[People will] move out to rural areas within an hour’s drive of the city.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g. Investors, founders, lawyers, designers)?
Catalyst, Ormeau Baths, and Raise Ventures.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years?
Significant growth in the scene, with an expansion into more later-stage businesses.

Toyah Warnock, co-founder, Lane 44

Which sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What does it lack?
Belfast is a growing hub of fantastic businesses and funding opportunities.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city?
Gratsi, 54 North Design, and Animal Manager.

What are the tech investors like in Belfast? What’s their focus?
SaaS.

With the shift to remote working, do you think people will stay in Belfast? Will they move out? Will others move in?
Belfast is inexpensive to live in. Many people will be moving in.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g. Investors, founders, lawyers, designers)?
Ormeau Baths.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years?
It will grow rapidly. Belfast is going through a period of gentrification.

Can you recommend any companies that should appear in our global Startup Battlefield competition?
Lane 44, Animal Manager, and Gratsi.

Alan Carson, CEO, Cloudsmith

Which sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What does it lack?
Strong in security, fintech, and medtech. Excited about devtools.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city?
Cloudsmith and Axial3D.

What are the tech investors like in Belfast? What’s their focus?
Small investor scene, but with an ambitious founder scene. Medtech and security are popular.

With the shift to remote working, do you think people will stay in Belfast? Will they move out? Will others move in?
No idea. Probably a bit of both.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g. Investors, founders, lawyers, designers)?
Techstart Ventures, Ignite NI, Catalyst, Clarendon Co-Fund, Denis Murphy, Colm McGoldrick, and Alastair Bell.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years?
Bigger and better than ever.

Can you recommend any companies that should appear in our global Startup Battlefield competition?
VideoFirst.

News: Bobby Goodlatte has designs on how to succeed in venture (and so far, so good)

• April 23, 2021
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Bobby Goodlatte has only been an investor for about a decade, but he appears to have already made tens of millions of dollars, contrary to the expectations of some traditional VCs who have privately, and publicly, griped that too many novice investors have flooded into the industry. “I remember a very prominent investor saying at

Bobby Goodlatte has only been an investor for about a decade, but he appears to have already made tens of millions of dollars, contrary to the expectations of some traditional VCs who have privately, and publicly, griped that too many novice investors have flooded into the industry.

“I remember a very prominent investor saying at the time, ‘All these new angel investors, they’re all going to lose all their money; they’re fools for doing this’,” recalls Goodlatte, who was recruited out of college to become a product designer at Facebook and left four years later, when the company went public. “I’m glad that I didn’t get shaken off of it.”

As it happens, Goodlatte’s second check went to Coinbase. It was an auspicious start for Goodlatte, who more recently formed his first institutional fund, Form Capital, with entrepreneur Josh Williams, an outfit that offers up to 40 hours of design help with logos or packaging or whatever else a team might need, with each check that it writes.

We talked with Goodlatte this week about the venture firm and its $12 million debut fund, which is largely funded by Goodlatte (it also counts the fund of funds Cendana Capital as a limited partner). He shared why he thinks the biggest returns in the coming years will flow to very small funds that feature a big financial commitment from the general partners. He talked about investing in other small funds to ensure strong deal flow. He also shared why three months ago he moved to Miami, where he believes a “movement” is afoot. Excerpts from that chat follow, edited lightly for length and clarity.

TC: You were an early designer on Facebook’s user growth team, working with Chamath Palihapitiya, among others. It’s interesting that you stayed for just four years, leaving in 2012 when the company went public. 

BG: I had given some thought to staying longer, and obviously many of my friends are still there and have risen in the ranks and done extremely well. I was just very eager to get started as an investor . . . and at the time, Facebook was saying, ‘Well, you can’t stay here and do angel investing.’ Little did I know that some people skirted the rules a bit and ended up angel investing [without leaving]. But I was very excited to dig in and quite glad that I got started when I did [because] my second-ever angel investment was in Coinbase and had I stayed longer, maybe I would have missed that one.

TC: You’ve mentioned in the past that you’d been a Bitcoin nerd and followed some of the discussion threads that others might have missed. What sparked that early interest?

BG: There’s that famous William Gibson quote: “The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.” I think about that in quite literal terms in the sense that there are sort of pockets of the future, these bubble hiding all around. In 2012, think the Bitcoin subreddit was this bubble where, within it, people were talking very excitedly about Bitcoin and if you weren’t in it, you would kind of scratch your head about it.  . . . I felt a similar feeling about Facebook back in the day. I was a college student when Facebook launched, and everyone who was in college at the time was kind of privy to this future that was quite obvious amongst college students. But if you weren’t in college, people would kind of scratch their heads and say, ‘I don’t really understand what’s going on.’

TC: Can you comment on your return from Coinbase? You were an investor in the A, C and E rounds. Is there anything you can say about the cash on cash return?

BG: A lot of this is fairly public knowledge at this point, but the Series A cost basis was 20 cents, so folks can kind of do math based on that.

I think so much of startup investing is [that] you can kind of have a prepared mind about things, but there’s also an element of luck about it. I don’t think I had complete foresight when I made the investment that Coinbase was going to be an $80 billion-plus company. I thought it was going to be successful. But it has clearly eclipsed even my greatest expectations, and I feel very lucky and fortunate to have to realized that.

TC: There are various on-ramps to VC these days, including AngelList syndicates and rolling funds. Did you ever take advantage of these or did you keep writing checks from your own pocket before founding Form Capital?

BG: I don’t know if I should should be embarrassed to say this or not, but when I first got my start as an angel, I got advice from financial advisors and who said, ‘When it comes to angel investing, only invest a tiny percentage of your overall net worth into this.’ And to be honest, I maybe foolishly ignored that advice. Obviously, it has netted out in the long term, [but] it was large risk I took. I did 40 deals out of my own pocket. I was sort of getting closer to the end of running out of tape.

[At that point] I wound up investing through a small scout-like fund for a few deals and hit some incredible deals through that [and] I was able to play around, investing at a larger check size. It also helped me sort of step-stone up to doing [Form Capital]. But yeah, I kind of ignored a lot of the advice and put a lot of my own personal net worth into seed-stage investing and thankfully, it all worked out. Otherwise, I could have been in trouble. I think the advice is well-considered.

TC: How might you advise someone just spinning out of, say, Coinbase and thinking about jumping into angel investing? Go it alone? Use one of these other products?

BG: I think it depends on their risk profile and their own appetite and whether they truly enjoy this type of work, because it can become a lot of work. If you want to develop a real portfolio, you have to take a lot of meetings, you have to make yourself available and put yourself out there in a way that I think a lot of folks who wind up getting a very meaningful personal exit may not want. For those folks who are trying to break into venture who haven’t had this sort of exit, I say go for it. I say welcome. Let’s go invest together. Honestly, there’s a lot of space for small check investors. I think the folks writing small collaborative checks have an incredible opportunity to post some insane multiples.

TC: You stress collaboration. Are people more or less collaborative when you started in 2012? Seed-size checks are getting bigger, which suggests things have grown more competitive.

BG: There was a period where it was extremely competitive, and for some folks who are deploying out of a certain fund size, it might feel extremely competitive right now. To me, it feels at its most collaborative, including because I am personally an LP in a number of tiny funds [headed by] tremendously talented managers who are just getting their start . . .

I do think there are a number of funds that raised more than they should have; I think there’s a danger zone somewhere around $80 million where you’re forced to be a lead investor and you can’t be a collaborative investor and so it becomes this slug-it-out, duke-it-out [situation] with other other funds as to who’s going to be the lead writer on a given deal . . .

If you’re aiming to write a large check, let’s say $1.5 million, and the founder comes back to you and says, ‘We can’t do that, but we can give you a $150,000 allocation,’ that’s just absolutely fatal to somebody trying to deploy a very large seed fund, versus if my target check size is something like $250,000. If I get squeezed down to $150,000, I can actually make that work economically within the fund math.

TC: So you’ll write a check as small as $150,000. What’s the upper boundary, and how much ownership are you targeting when you fund a startup?

BG: It’s upwards of $500,000, give or take, and our target is 3%. But, again, part of the joy of being a small fund manager is more flexibility in terms of constructing a portfolio. In the cases where we may get squeezed down a little bit, or we want to invest at a slightly higher valuation than is typical, we can paint outside the lines a tiny bit more.

TC: Meaning bigger checks? Do you typically raise special purpose vehicles, or SPVS, in order to take a bigger bite of certain companies?

BG: One pattern for that was my personal investment in Coinbase. By being close to the company, by helping on a few very minor things over the years in terms of design, in terms of making connections to design firms and helping recruit some designers, they gave me follow-on allocations. And then in the Series E, I was able to raise an SPV into the deal based on the idea of building a deep relationship with the company.

That’s essentially the model going forward. We may or may not continue to pursue SPVs. We may pick a different vehicle in the future for how to deploy that follow-on capital. But the idea is: wedge in early with a small check, put a lot of skin in the game on that check [with a bigger general partner commitment in the fund than is typical], and build a relationship and try to be disproportionately helpful relative to our check size.

TC: You tweeted that for that SPV, you pitched 50 different parties, and only three said yes.

I invested a total of 3 times into Coinbase, including an SPV I raised into the last round.

I pitched the SPV to almost 50 different parties. Only three said yes.

Tempted to email the Fortune article to the other 47

— Bobby Goodlatte (@rsg) December 17, 2020

BG: Yeah, it was amazing in late 2018 how in the dumps the crypto market was, and people thought that the overall stock market was going to be heading that way, so this was a very, very difficult SPV to raise. I wasn’t the only person who had one, and so there was some amount of market competition. Then just the nature of SPVs is such that you get your allocation, and bang goes the starting gun, and you need to very quickly talk to a lot of people.

[Still] it is remarkable how quickly the perception of that company has changed over just two short years, give or take. I give a lot of credit to the investors who backed us on that SPV because they they took the risk with us. I’ve had a number of people [since] say, ‘Oh, you should have called me, I would have invested.’ And maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t have.

TC: You talked at the outset about communities and bubbles and I can’t help but wonder if you think you are hearing about more interesting deals, having moved recently to Miami three months ago, than you would in the Bay Area. 

BG: It does really feel like that’s the case, and I started seeing this maybe in late November, and then very quickly said, ‘Okay, why not? This feels fun, this feels exciting.’ And I’m glad I made the jump, because while I love San Francisco — I think San Francisco is a tremendous place [that] will always be one of the great tech epicenters of the world — I think a lot of folks moved here because they were looking to change things up. And the energy that comes from that, where everyone’s trying to make this work, is really quite exciting.

A lot of people said, ‘Oh, you’re going to miss out on things by moving to Miami, you’re going to take a step back in your career.’ And really, it’s been the opposite of that. It’s been a total accelerant of my career and investing.

We’re an interesting fit for Miami because Miami is known as being a design capital, and we’re a really design-driven fund, and there’s a lot of parallels there. [But I also realized that] I can be one of many thousands of new funds based in the Bay Area, or I can be one of a tiny handful based here in Miami and get all these tailwinds and have the mayor hype us up, and that sounds like a good deal to me.

Pictured above, left to right: Goodlatte with Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, who more recently co-founded the cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm.

News: Passwordstate users warned to ‘reset all passwords’ after attackers plant malicious update

• April 23, 2021
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Click Studios, the Australian software house that develops the enterprise password manager Passwordstate, has warned customers to reset passwords across their organizations after a cyberattack on the password manager. An email sent by Click Studios to customers said the company had confirmed that attackers had “compromised” the password manager’s software update feature in order to

Click Studios, the Australian software house that develops the enterprise password manager Passwordstate, has warned customers to reset passwords across their organizations after a cyberattack on the password manager.

An email sent by Click Studios to customers said the company had confirmed that attackers had “compromised” the password manager’s software update feature in order to steal customer passwords.

The email, posted on Twitter by Polish news site Niebezpiecznik early on Friday, said the malicious update exposed Passwordstate customers over a 28-hour window between April 20-22. Once installed, the malicious update contacts the attacker’s servers to retrieve malware designed to steal and send the password manager’s contents back to the attackers. The email also told customers to “commence resetting all passwords contained within Passwordstate.”

Click Studios did not say how the attackers compromised the password manager’s update feature, but emailed customers with a security fix.

The company also said the attacker’s servers were taken down on April 22. But Passwordstate users could still be at risk if the attacker’s are able to get their infrastructure online again.

Enterprise password managers let employees at companies share passwords and other sensitive secrets across their organization, such as network devices — including firewalls and VPNs, shared email accounts, internal databases, and social media accounts. Click Studios claims Passwordstate is used by “more than 29,000 customers,” including in the Fortune 500, government, banking, defense and aerospace, and most major industries.

Although affected customers were notified this morning, news of the breach only became widely known several hours later after Danish cybersecurity firm CSIS Group published a blog post with details of the attack.

Click Studios chief executive Mark Sanford did not respond to a request for comment outside Australian business hours.

Read more:

• President Trump’s Twitter accessed by security expert who guessed password ‘maga2020!’
• Spotify resets passwords after a security bug exposed users’ private account information
• Ubiquiti says customer data may have been accessed in data breach
• Long read: How Have I Been Pwned became the keeper of the internet’s biggest data breaches
• Amazon’s Ring Neighbors app exposed users’ precise locations and home addresses

News: Daily Crunch: Meet Disney Imagineering’s new robot

• April 23, 2021
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We get up close with a robotic Groot, SpaceX has a successful astronaut launch and cryptocurrency prices tumble. This is your Daily Crunch for April 23, 2021. The big story: Meet Disney Imagineering’s new robot Disney Imagineering’s Project Kiwi represents a real robotics milestone — a free-walking robot that seems to fully capture the personality

We get up close with a robotic Groot, SpaceX has a successful astronaut launch and cryptocurrency prices tumble. This is your Daily Crunch for April 23, 2021.

The big story: Meet Disney Imagineering’s new robot

Disney Imagineering’s Project Kiwi represents a real robotics milestone — a free-walking robot that seems to fully capture the personality of the original character. In this case, the original is Groot, the beloved tree character from “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

I’m not just saying that based on the demo video, either. Matthew Panzarino has seen Project Kiwi in person and reports:

The pint-sized character has accurately rendered textures on its face, hands and feet. It’s dressed in a distressed red flight suit that you may remember from the films. And its eyes are expressive as it looks at me and waves. This is the moment, the one that Disney Imagineers and park goers alike have been waiting decades to realize.

Startups, funding and venture capital

SpaceX successfully launches astronauts with a re-used Dragon spacecraft for the first time — This was SpaceX’s second official astronaut delivery mission for NASA.

Hyundai invests in teleoperations startup Ottopia as part of $9M round — Ottopia’s first product is a universal teleoperation platform that allows a human operator to monitor and control any type of vehicle from thousands of miles away.

Introvoke raises $2.7M to power online events that can be embedded anywhere — While there’s been plenty of attention and money lavished on virtual event platforms over the past year, Introvoke co-founder and CEO Oana Manolache predicted that we’re only at the beginning of a “third wave of digital transformation.”

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

2021 should be a banner year for biotech startups that make smart choices early — Be wise when managing legal risk and choosing investors.

After going public, once-hot startups are riding a valuation roller coaster — A short meditation on value.

Should you give an anchor investor a stake in your fund’s management company? — A GP stake investor brings significant advantages and disadvantages.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Crypto market takes a dive with Bitcoin leading the way — Cryptocurrency prices continued to tumble today, with Bitcoin leading the charge.

India restricts American Express from adding new customers for violating data storage rules — In a statement, the Reserve Bank of India said existing customers of either of the two card companies (American Express and Diners Club) will not be impacted by the new order, which goes into effect May 1.

Just one week left to save $100 on TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising — Get ready to join your community of early-inning startup founders for a two-day bootcamp July 8-9.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

News: Filing: Snap paid $124M for Fit Analytics as it gears up for a bigger e-commerce push

• April 23, 2021
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Earlier this year we reported on how Snap had acquired Berlin-based Fit Analytics, an AI-based fitting technology startup, as part of a wider push into e-commerce services, specifically to gain technology that can help prospective online shoppers get a better sense of how a particular item or size would fit them. A 10-Q filing from

Earlier this year we reported on how Snap had acquired Berlin-based Fit Analytics, an AI-based fitting technology startup, as part of a wider push into e-commerce services, specifically to gain technology that can help prospective online shoppers get a better sense of how a particular item or size would fit them. A 10-Q filing from Snap today has now put a price tag on that deal.

Snap paid a total of $124.4 million, covering technology, IP, customer relationships and payouts to the team. The filing also noted that Snap spent a total of $204.5 million on acquisitions in 2020, but did not break them out.

The news comes ahead of Snap — whose flagship app Snapchat now has 280 million daily active users — preparing for its Snap Partner Conference in May. Sources say the company plans to announce, among other news, deeper commerce features for Snapchat — specifically tools to make it easier for Snapchat users to interact with and buy items that appear in the app, either in ads or more organically in content shared by other users.

While the exact details of those commerce tools, and the timing of when they might come online, are not yet known, Snap has hardly kept its interest in commerce a secret.

Snap has been hiring for roles to support its commerce efforts. Currently it’s advertising for a variety of engineering, marketing and product roles in commerce, to, in the words of one of the listings, for a Product Manager, “develop and launch shopping experiences and services that make shopping fun for Snapchatters and drive results for brands.” The listings also include a role specifically to work on Snapchat-based e-commerce efforts for direct-to-consumer (D2C) businesses.

And it has been making other recent acquisitions in addition to Fit Analytics that also line up with that.

They have included Screenshop, an app that describes itself as “the first AI-back style lens,” which can identify shoppable items in photos and then build a custom catalog of similar products that you can buy (akin to “shop the look” features that you will have come across in fashion media). And it’s also acquired Ariel AI, which has built technology to quickly render people in 3D, technology that can be used in a diverse set of applications, from games to virtual try-ons of clothing, makeup or accessories.

Snap confirmed the Ariel acquisition to CNBC in January. And while Screenshop deal was first reported earlier this month by The Information, Snap has declined to comment on it, although we have found people who worked at the startup now working at Snap.

Both acquisitions closed in 2020, according to reports, meaning that they came out of that year’s $204.5 million acquisition run. (Snap also noted a smaller acquisition, for $7.6 million, in the most recent quarter, but it did not disclose any further details.)

Even before all this, Snap had been making smaller efforts and tests in commerce going back years, although none of them have tipped into mainstream efforts.

Among them, in 2018 it launched a Snap Store — but that so far has not progressed beyond selling merchandise based on Bitmoji characters. And work on a Gucci shoe campaign last year, where Snapchat users could try shoes on in AR and then buy them, was seen by some as its big step into commerce — “we’ve moved from pure entertainment and expanded the use-case. And so with brands, it’s a really exciting time, especially in fashion and beauty. The Snapchat camera is connecting brands to their audiences in new ways,” a Snapchat AR executive said at the time — but that also didn’t develop into much beyond a one-off effort.

But with the pandemic leading to a surge of shopping online, and technology continuing to improve, the iron may finally be hot here.

As we said around the Fit Analytics acquisition, the idea of diversifying Snapchat’s revenue streams by building in more commerce experiences makes a lot of sense.

It gives the company another revenue stream at a time when Apple is introducing changes that might well affect how advertising can run and be monetized in the future. (The company most recently posted average revenues per user of $2.74, a figure Wall Street will be hoping will grow, not shrink.) It also plays into the demographics that Snapchat targets, where younger consumers are using social media apps to discover, share and shop for goods.

And specifically in the case of fashion, building experiences to shop for items on Snapchat leans into the augmented reality, image-altering, hyper-visual technology that has become a well-known and much-used hallmark of Snapchat and its owner, self-titled “camera company” Snap.

News: Honda targets 100% EV sales in North America by 2040

• April 23, 2021
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Honda’s new goal is to achieve 100% EV sales in North America by 2040 as part of its broader target of being carbon neutral by 2050. CEO Toshihiro Mibe announced planned shift away from internal combustion engines at a news conference on Friday, his first since taking over executive leadership of the company in early

Honda’s new goal is to achieve 100% EV sales in North America by 2040 as part of its broader target of being carbon neutral by 2050. CEO Toshihiro Mibe announced planned shift away from internal combustion engines at a news conference on Friday, his first since taking over executive leadership of the company in early April.

This is the latest in a stream of pledges from legacy car manufacturers to introduce high percentages of zero-emissions vehicles into their fleets and achieve carbon neutrality. General Motors plans to eliminate gas and diesel light-duty cars and SUVs by 2035 and be carbon neutral by 2040, and Mazda, Mitsubishi and Nissan have all said they plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Honda’s goals are also in alignment with Japan’s electrification strategy, which aims for a 46% cut in emissions by 2030.

Honda will start on this road immediately, expecting EVs to account for 40% of sales by 2030, and 80% by 2035 in all major markets. By the second half of 2020, Japan’s second-largest automaker will launch a series of new electric models in North America based on the company’s in-house e:Architecture platform, which “increases the commonality of the body and three primary EV components (battery, motor and invertor) while also featuring high space efficiency and battery mounting efficiency,” according to a Honda spokesperson.

Honda, and its subsidiary Acura, will also introduce two large-sized EV models using GM’s Ultium batteries by 2024. The company will further its collaboration with GM by using fuel cell technology for a range of vehicles and applications, like commercial trucks and power sources.

News: Two investors weigh in: Is your SPAC just a PIPE dream?

• April 23, 2021
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SPACs have been around for decades, but they took the 2020 IPO market by storm. For some context: 2020 had more than 248 SPACs — more than the sum of the SPACs in the previous decade.

This past year has brought many new developments to a historically traditional process: taking a company public. Many of the standard levers in an initial public offering (IPO) are being redefined as we write.

The emergence of direct listings is just one example. Even in more traditional IPOs, we have seen unique lock-up provisions, different auction approaches, virtual and rapid roadshows become the norm, and company-centric approaches to investor allocations.

But clearly the most disruptive trend of the past 12 months has been the predominance of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company, commonly known as SPAC. A SPAC is a company with no commercial operations that is formed strictly to raise capital through an IPO for the purpose of acquiring an existing, private company.

Also known as “blank check companies,” these entities typically have 24 months to find a company to buy or merge with.

That process essentially makes the acquired company a publicly traded one. SPACs can, and generally do, raise additional capital in the form of a PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) in order to reaffirm the SPAC valuation and raise additional capital with the identified target company.

SPACs have been around for decades, but they took the 2020 IPO market by storm. For some context: 2020 had more than 248 SPACs — more than the sum of the SPACs in the previous decade. And while SPACs and the general sentiment around them continue to evolve, 2021 started off strong with 298 newly formed blank-check companies to date that have raised a collective $95 billion (vs. $83 billion in 2020). It’s worth noting that there has since been some slow down in new SPAC formation and an uptick in regulatory caution. We expect such shifts to continue in these early days.

For a SPAC, finding a company to merge with in 24 months might sound like a good amount of time, but in reality, the diligence and SEC process can easily consume six months or more. So identifying the target company relatively quickly becomes critical. As a result of this new trend, many private companies are being approached and courted by a number of newly formed SPACs.

Image Credits: Madrona Venture Capital

At Madrona, we invest in companies early in their journey (often Day One), and walk with them through the years of opportunities, challenges and financing goals. As such, for many of our companies, the conversation around raising capital via a SPAC transaction has come up, and more than once.

How to evaluate the pros and cons of SPACs relative to other financing options can be convoluted and confusing, to say the least.

Are you ready to be a public company?

The fundamental thing to remember about the SPAC process is that the result is a publicly traded company open to the regulatory environment of the SEC and the scrutiny of public shareholders.