Monthly Archives: April 2021

News: What to expect from Apple’s Spring Loaded event

• April 19, 2021
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Surprise! It’s another Apple Event. Gone are the days of getting a few weeks’ notice before these events now that they’re entirely virtual (at least until 2022, most likely). Instead, the company just dropped the news last week. Thankfully, there have been plenty of rumors leading up to tomorrow’s big event — and perhaps even

Surprise! It’s another Apple Event. Gone are the days of getting a few weeks’ notice before these events now that they’re entirely virtual (at least until 2022, most likely). Instead, the company just dropped the news last week.

Thankfully, there have been plenty of rumors leading up to tomorrow’s big event — and perhaps even a few hints in the invite itself. After skipping last year’s spring event, due to cresting COVID-19 numbers in the U.S., the company has grown much more comfortable dropping semi-regular livestreamed events. As ever, we’ll be covering the event as it unfolds, starting at 10AM PT/1PM ET. But here’s what we expect to see, along with the customary high-production-value sweeping-drone transitions.

The closest thing we have to a surefire bet is the arrival of new iPads, keeping in line with what looks to be a finger-drawn image on the invite. Specifically, the iPad Pro is leading the way. The high-end tablet has been rumored to be getting a refresh at some point this season, so no time like the present.

The biggest news is likely to be the addition of a mini-LED display for the 12.9-inch model (a refresh to the 11-inch is coming sometime down the road). Benefits include increased brightness, better battery life and less potential for image burn-in. The tech would arrive in the place of the OLED currently found on iPhone models.

The improved screen technology is said to add a bit of thickness to the design, which otherwise is largely unchanged. Supply constraints could ultimately put a damper on availability, so there’s a possibility that the product could be announced tomorrow, but delayed for a later date.

There’s likely to be a processor update, as well. Rumor has it that the A14X will utilize the same technology that forms the foundation of the M1 chip found on recent Macs. That could, in turn, bring a real big performance bump.

At the other end of the spectrum is the iPad mini. The 8.4-inch tablet would be getting its first major boost in two years. The updates are said to be less pronounced than on the Pro. The classic iPad design language will remain, though the device is said to be getting a performance boost courtesy of new chips. A new Apple Pencil is rumored to be on the way, as well, though details are scarce.

And could this be the event where Apple finally gives the world AirTags? All signs point to “definitely maybe.” After several delays, the company’s Tile competitor is said to finally be arriving. At the very least, the timing makes sense. After all, the company just opened up third-party “Find My” access, along with a bunch of compatible devices. That includes direct competitor, the Chipolo ONE Spot.

Also on the maybe pile is a new Apple TV featuring a Find My compatible remote. That seems like a slam dunk, as one of the most frequently lost products in history. With Apple on a two-year line-wide refresh, some new silicon Macs could be on the list. The most likely candidate? At the moment it seems to be a long-awaited refresh to the iMac line.

News: Druva raises $147M at a valuation north of $2B as the cloud rush continues

• April 19, 2021
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Druva, a software company that sells cloud data backup services, announced today that it has closed a $147 million round of capital. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a group that manages Quebec’s pension fund, led the round, which also saw participation from Neuberger Berman. Prior investors including Atreides Management and Viking Global

Druva, a software company that sells cloud data backup services, announced today that it has closed a $147 million round of capital. Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a group that manages Quebec’s pension fund, led the round, which also saw participation from Neuberger Berman. Prior investors including Atreides Management and Viking Global Investors put capital into the deal, as well.

Druva last raised a $130 million round led by Viking in mid-2019 at around a $1 billion valuation. At the time TechCrunch commented that the company’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) backup service was tackling a large market. (TechCrunch also covered the company’s $51 million round back in 2016 and its $80 million raise from 2017.)

Since then SaaS has continued to grow at a rapid clip, including a strong 2020 spurred on by COVID-19 boosting digital transformation efforts at companies of all sizes. In that context, it’s not surprising to see Druva put together a new capital round.

A recent tie-up between Dell and Druva, first reported in January of this year, was formally announced earlier this month. The selection of Druva by Dell could help provide the unicorn with a customer base to sell into for some time. TechCrunch wrote about Druva earlier this year, during the reporting process the company said that it had “almost tripled its annual revenue in three years.”

Its new round did include some secondary shares, which Neuberger Berman managing director Raman Gambhir described as difficult to snag during a call with TechCrunch. He explained that some of the secondary sales were due to some prior funds reaching their end-of-life cycle. Druva CEO Jaspreet Singh stressed that his backers are working to do what’s best for the company instead of merely maximizing their returns during a joint interview.

Singh told TechCrunch that business at Druva is accelerating. Normally we’d note that that sounds like IPO fodder, especially as Druva passed the $100 million ARR threshold back in 2019. However, as the company has been making IPO noise for some time, it’s hard to predict when it might pull the trigger. Our coverage of the company’s 2016 round noted that the company could go public within a year. And our coverage of its 2019 investment included Singh telling TechCrunch that an IPO was 12 to 18 months away.

It probably is, now, but that’s beside the point. With refreshed accounts, a market moving in its direction, and some early-investor relieved in its latest investment the company has quarters worth of time to play with. Still, Singh did stress that its new financing round did select investors that he said is building a long-term position; that’s the sort of verbiage that CEOs break out when they are building a pre-IPO cap table.

Gambhir told TechCrunch that his firm has already requested shares in Druva’s eventual IPO. Perhaps we’ll see Fidelity show up with a $50 million check in a few months.

Every startup that raises capital tells the media that they are going to use the funds to expand their staff, double-down on their tech and, often, invest in their go-to-market (GTM) motion. Druva is no exception, but its CEO did tell TechCrunch that his company currently has over 200 open GTM positions. That’s quite a few. Presumably that spend will help the company keep its growth rate strong in percentage terms as it does, finally, look to list.

This is yet another growth round for a late-stage, enterprise-facing software company. But it’s also a round into a company that had to move its operations to the United States when it was founded, at the behest of its investors per Singh. And Druva has done some pretty neat cloud work, it told TechCrunch earlier this year, to ensure that it can defend software-like margins despite material storage loads.

It’s an S-1 that we’re looking forward to. Start the countdown.

News: Flawed data is putting people with disabilities at risk

• April 19, 2021
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Our products are long overdue for a new, fairer data framework to ensure that data is managed with people with disabilities in mind.

Data isn’t abstract — it has a direct impact on people’s lives.

In 2019, an AI-powered delivery robot momentarily blocked a wheelchair user from safely accessing the curb when crossing a busy road. Speaking about the incident, the person noted, “It’s important that the development of technologies [doesn’t put] disabled people on the line as collateral.”

Alongside other minority groups, people with disabilities have long been harmed by flawed data and data tools. Disabilities are diverse, nuanced and dynamic; they don’t fit within the formulaic structure of AI, which is programmed to find patterns and form groups. Because AI treats any outlier data as “noise” and disregards it, too often people with disabilities are excluded from its conclusions.

Take for example the case of Elaine Herzberg, who was struck and killed by a self-driving Uber SUV in 2018. At the time of the collision, Herzberg was pushing a bicycle, which meant Uber’s system struggled to categorize her and flitted between labeling her as a “vehicle,” “bicycle,” and “other.” The tragedy raised many questions for people with disabilities; would a person in a wheelchair or a scooter be at risk of the same fatal misclassification?

We need a new way of collecting and processing data. “Data” ranges from personal information, user feedback, resumes, multimedia, user metrics and much more, and it’s constantly being used to optimize our software. However, it’s not done so with the understanding of the spectrum of nefarious ways that it can and is used in the wrong hands, or when principles are not applied to each touchpoint of building.

Our products are long overdue for a new, fairer data framework to ensure that data is managed with people with disabilities in mind. If it isn’t, people with disabilities will face more friction, and dangers, in a day-to-day life that is increasingly dependent on digital tools.

Misinformed data hampers the building of good tools

Products that lack accessibility might not stop people with disabilities from leaving their homes, but they can stop them from accessing pivot points of life like quality healthcare, education and on-demand deliveries.

Our tools are a product of their environment. They reflect their creators’ worldview and subjective lens. For too long, the same groups of people have been overseeing faulty data systems. It’s a closed loop, where underlying biases are perpetuated and groups that were already invisible remain unseen. But as data progresses, that loop becomes a snowball. We’re dealing with machine-learning models — if they’re taught long enough that “not being X” (read: white, able-bodied, cisgendered) means not being “normal,” they will evolve by building on that foundation.

Data is interlinked in ways that are invisible to us. It’s not enough to say that your algorithm won’t exclude people with registered disabilities. Biases are present in other sets of data. For example, in the United States it’s illegal to refuse someone a mortgage loan because they’re Black. But by basing the process heavily on credit scores — which have inherent biases detrimental to people of color — banks indirectly exclude that segment of society.

For people with disabilities, indirectly biased data could potentially be frequency of physical activity or number of hours commuted per week. Here’s a concrete example of how indirect bias translates to software: If a hiring algorithm studies candidates’ facial movements during a video interview, a person with a cognitive disability or mobility impairment will experience different barriers than a fully able-bodied applicant.

The problem also stems from people with disabilities not being viewed as part of businesses’ target market. When companies are in the early stage of brainstorming their ideal users, people’s disabilities often don’t figure, especially when they’re less noticeable — like mental health illness. That means the initial user data used to iterate products or services doesn’t come from these individuals. In fact, 56% of organizations still don’t routinely test their digital products among people with disabilities.

If tech companies proactively included individuals with disabilities on their teams, it’s far more likely that their target market would be more representative. In addition, all tech workers need to be aware of and factor in the visible and invisible exclusions in their data. It’s no simple task, and we need to collaborate on this. Ideally, we’ll have more frequent conversations, forums and knowledge-sharing on how to eliminate indirect bias from the data we use daily.

We need an ethical stress test for data

We test our products all the time — on usability, engagement and even logo preferences. We know which colors perform better to convert paying customers, and the words that resonate most with people, so why aren’t we setting a bar for data ethics?

Ultimately, the responsibility of creating ethical tech does not just lie at the top. Those laying the brickwork for a product day after day are also liable. It was the Volkswagen engineer (not the company CEO) who was sent to jail for developing a device that enabled cars to evade U.S. pollution rules.

Engineers, designers, product managers; we all have to acknowledge the data in front of us and think about why we collect it and how we collect it. That means dissecting the data we’re requesting and analyzing what our motivations are. Does it always make sense to ask about someone’s disabilities, sex or race? How does having this information benefit the end user?

At Stark, we’ve developed a five-point framework to run when designing and building any kind of software, service or tech. We have to address:

1. What data we’re collecting.
2. Why we’re collecting it.
3. How it will be used (and how it can be misused).
4. Simulate IFTTT: “If this, then that.” Explain possible scenarios in which the data can be used nefariously, and alternate solutions. For instance, how users can be impacted by an at-scale data breach? What happens if this private information becomes public to their family and friends?
5. Ship or trash the idea.

If we can only explain our data using vague terminology and unclear expectations, or by stretching the truth, we shouldn’t be allowed to have that data. The framework forces us to break down data in the most simple manner. If we can’t, it’s because we’re not yet equipped to handle it responsibly.

Innovation has to include people with disabilities

Complex data technology is entering new sectors all the time, from vaccine development to robotaxis. Any bias against individuals with disabilities in these sectors stops them from accessing the most cutting-edge products and services. As we become more dependent on tech in every niche of our lives, there’s greater room for exclusion in how we carry out everyday activities.

This is all about forward thinking and baking inclusion into your product at the start. Money and/or experience aren’t limiting factors here — changing your thought process and development journey is free; it’s just a conscious pivot in a better direction. While the upfront cost may be a heavy lift, the profits you’d lose from not tapping into these markets, or because you end up retrofitting your product down the line, far outweigh that initial expense. This is especially true for enterprise-level companies that won’t be able to access academia or governmental contracts without being compliant.

So early-stage companies, integrate accessibility principles into your product development and gather user data to constantly reinforce those principles. Sharing data across your onboarding, sales and design teams will give you a more complete picture of where your users are experiencing difficulties. Later-stage companies should carry out a self-assessment to determine where those principles are lacking in their product, and harness historical data and new user feedback to generate a fix.

An overhaul of AI and data isn’t just about adapting businesses’ framework. We still need the people at the helm to be more diverse. The fields remain overwhelmingly male and white, and in tech, there are numerous firsthand accounts of exclusion and bias toward people with disabilities. Until the teams curating data tools are themselves more diverse, nations’ growth will continue to be stifled, and people with disabilities will be some of the hardest-hit casualties.

News: UiPath raises IPO range, still targets lower valuation than final private round

• April 19, 2021
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Robotic process automation unicorn UiPath is set to go public this week, concentrating our focus on its value.

Robotic process automation unicorn UiPath is set to go public this week, concentrating our focus on its value.

The well-known company was last valued on the private markets at $35 billion in February when it closed a $750 million round. Living up to that price as a public company, however, at least when it comes to its formal IPO price, is proving to be challenging.

In a sense, that’s not too surprising given that the red-hot IPO market cooled as Q1 2021 came to a close. UiPath raised its last private round when the markets were most interested in public offerings and is now going public in a slightly altered climate.

In numerical terms, UiPath raised its IPO range from $43 to $50 per share, to $52 to $54 per share. That’s a 21% jump in the value of the lower end of its range, and an 8% gain to the value of the upper end of its per-share IPO price interval.

UiPath is also selling more shares than before, which should make its total valuation slightly larger at the top end than a mere 8% gain. So let’s go through the math one more time. Afterward, we’ll stack its new simple, fully diluted IPO valuations against its final private price, ask ourselves if our musings on the company’s recent profitability bore out, and close by asking where the company might finally price, and if we expect it to do so above its new price range.

UiPath at $54

News: Fitbit’s latest is a $149 ‘luxury’ fitness tracker

• April 19, 2021
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It’s been a strange few years for Fitbit. After defining the fitness tracking space, the company was a bit late to the smartwatch trend, but was still able to ride that wave to a rebound. But while watches have received most of the press the now Google-owned company has garnered in recent years, bands still

It’s been a strange few years for Fitbit. After defining the fitness tracking space, the company was a bit late to the smartwatch trend, but was still able to ride that wave to a rebound. But while watches have received most of the press the now Google-owned company has garnered in recent years, bands still comprise a substantial part of its business.

Today Fitbit announced the arrival of the Luxe. It’s a weird product. There’s certainly a market for it, but it’s hard to say how much of a niche were talking about here. The company called its target demo, “a unique set of buyers whose needs weren’t being met.” Specifically, the product is a “fashioned-forward” tracker for people looking for something a bit nicer than a plastic band to wear out and about.

Frankly, it’s hard not to see some reflections of Misfit’s take on the category. Perhaps the Fossil-owned company was ahead of its time. At $149, the device is priced between the Charge and the Versa, but decidedly closer to the former. That is to say, it’s pricey in the grand scheme of fitness trackers, but more or less in line with other Fitbit products.

It is, indeed, a nice-looking tracker, as far of these things go, featuring a color touchscreen surrounded by a stainless steel case. That’s coupled with a broad range of accessories, ranging from leather to gold-colored stainless steel.

Here’s Fitbit co-founder and GM (under Google) James Park:

Over the past year, we’ve had to think differently about our health – from keeping an eye out for possible COVID-19 symptoms to managing the ongoing stress and anxiety of today’s world. Even though we are starting to see positive changes, it has never been more important to manage your holistic health. That’s why we’ve been resolute in introducing products to support you in staying mentally well and physically active. We’ve made major technological advancements with Luxe, creating a smaller, slimmer, beautifully designed tracker packed with advanced features – some that were previously only available with our smartwatches – making these tools accessible to even more people around the globe.

Certainly physical and mental health have been top of mind over the past year, even as step counts have dramatically plummeted. The device sports the usual array of Fitbit sensors, tracking activity, sleep and stress. It also works with a number of different mindfulness/meditation apps, including the company’s recently announced partnership with Deepak Chopra.

The band is up for preorder starting today and starts shipping in the spring.

News: Facebook is expanding Spotify partnership with new ‘Boombox’ project

• April 19, 2021
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Facebook is deepening its relationship with music company Spotify and will allow users to listen to music hosted on Spotify while browsing through its apps as part of a new initiative called “Project Boombox,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday. Facebook is building an in-line audio player that will allow users to listen to songs

Facebook is deepening its relationship with music company Spotify and will allow users to listen to music hosted on Spotify while browsing through its apps as part of a new initiative called “Project Boombox,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Monday.

Facebook is building an in-line audio player that will allow users to listen to songs or playlists being shared on the platforms without being externally linked to Spotify’s app or website. Zuckerberg highlighted the feature as another product designed to improve the experience of creators on its platforms, specifically the ability of musicians to share their work, “basically making audio a first-class type of media,” he said.

We understand from sources familiar with the Spotify integration that this player will support both music and podcasts. It has already been tested in non-U.S. markets, including Mexico and Thailand, and that it’s expected to arrive in about a week.

The news was revealed in a wide-ranging interview with reporter Casey Newton on the company’s future pursuits in the audio world as Facebook aims to keep pace with upstart efforts like Clubhouse and increased activity in the podcasting world. 

“We think that audio is going to be a first-class medium and that there are all these different products to be built across this whole spectrum,” said Zuckerberg. “Of course, it includes some areas that, that have been, you know, popular recently like like podcasting and and kind of live audio rooms like this, but I also think that there’s some interesting things that are that are under explored in the area overall.”

Spotify has already supported a fairly product relationship with the Facebook and Instagram platforms. In recent years the music and podcasts platform has been integrated more deeply into Instagram Stories where users can share content from the service, a feature that’s also been available in Facebook Stories.

News: Facebook invests in audio with short-form Soundbites feature, podcast support, and a Clubhouse clone

• April 19, 2021
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Facebook today officially announced a suite of new audio products — an indication that it’s taking the threat from Clubhouse and other audio platforms more seriously. The company is doing more than just building its own take on Clubhouse, however, it’s also announcing tools that allow podcast creators to share long-form audio, a new Spotify

Facebook today officially announced a suite of new audio products — an indication that it’s taking the threat from Clubhouse and other audio platforms more seriously. The company is doing more than just building its own take on Clubhouse, however, it’s also announcing tools that allow podcast creators to share long-form audio, a new Spotify integration for music, and a brand-new short-form experience called Sound Bites.

The Clubhouse clone was probably the most-discussed of the new products ahead of today’s announcement, given the increased interest in the audio networking market.

Like Clubhouse, the Facebook experience will also involve live audio rooms, where users can engage in topical discussions.

“I think the areas where is where I’m most excited about it on Facebook are basically in the large number of communities and groups that exist. I think that you already have these communities that are organized around interests, and allowing people to come together and have rooms where they can talk is — I think it’d be a very useful thing,” said Zuckerberg, in a friendly interview with Platformer, timed alongside the official announcement. “When we launched video rooms earlier last year, groups and communities were one of the bigger areas where that took off. So, I think around audio, just given how much more accessible it is, that’ll be a pretty exciting area as well.”

Image Credits: Facebook

The Live Audio Rooms will be available across both Facebook and Messenger, Facebook says in an official blog post.

The company will first test Live Audio Rooms in Groups, reaching Groups’ 1.8 billion monthly users. They’ll also be made available to public figures and experts. Early adopters of the feature will include American football quarterback Russell Wilson, Grammy-nominated electronic music artist TOKiMONSTA, artist and director Elle Moxley, and five-time Olympic medalist and entrepreneur Nastia Liukin, Facebook says.

Live Audio Rooms will be available to everyone on Facebook this summer. Also this summer, Live Audio Rooms will be made available on Messenger, for an experience that allows friends to hang out, too.

In addition to products that rehash audio functionality available in tech products from other companies, Zuckerberg also revealed that the company was working on an audio-only version of its TikTok competitor Instagram Reels that allows users to quickly move through algorithmically-sorted short audio clips, a project being called Soundbites. In its blog post, Facebook detailed that they will be testing Soundbites over the next few months with a small group of creators before making it widely available.

Image Credits: Facebook

“The idea here is it’s short form audio clips, whether it’s people sharing things that they find funny… or kind of pithy things that people want to share that cover a bunch of different genres and topics,” Zuckerberg said.

For podcast creators, Zuckerberg said the company will build out tools for those who follow podcasts and creators through Facebook Pages, but don’t currently have a way to access podcast content via the social network. He noted that there are now 170 million Facebook users who are connected to a Page for a podcast, which it why it wants to ensure they have a way to access this audio content more easily.

Image Credits: Facebook

For these users, they’ll be able to discover the audio and start playing it, even in the background. Or they could choose to launch a second app to continue play it, Zuckerberg said. We understand that the experience will actually allow users to directly open Spotify, if they would prefer to listen to the music or audio there, instead.

The feature will also help users with new podcast discovery based on your interests, and users will be able to comment on podcasts and recommend them to friends.

Related to these audio efforts, Zuckerberg referenced Facebook’s partnership with Spotify, which is now being expanded with something it has internally referred to as “Project Boombox” — is an integration that would allow people to share content from their favorite artists, playlists and other types of audio in their feed. That content would then appear in a little, in-line player for others to click and play.

We understand from sources familiar with the Spotify integration that this player will support both music and podcasts. It has already been tested in non-U.S. markets, including Mexico and Thailand. It’s expected to arrive in about a week.

“Facebook’s interest in audio is further validation of the category and reinforces what we’ve known all along — the power and potential for audio is limitless,” a spokesperson for Spotify told TechCrunch. “Our ambition has always been to make Spotify ubiquitous across platforms and devices — bringing music and podcasts to more people — and our new integration with Facebook is another step in these efforts. We look forward to a continued partnership with Facebook, fueling audio discovery around the world,” they added.

Zuckerberg also referenced the need to serve the growing creator economy with its new products.

With Live Audio Rooms, fans will be able to support creators through Stars, Facebook’s existing in-app tipping feature, or donate to causes. Facebook says it will later offer other monetization tools like access to Live Audio Rooms on subscriptions. There’s also an Audio Creator Fund being made available to kick off the launch of Soundbites.

The exec also spoke about Facebook’s plans for a newsletters product, all under the umbrella of serving the creator community with a suite of tools — something Twitter is now doing, too, with its plans for Super Follow.

“I think a product where a journalist or a creator can basically create a subscription for people who want to follow them, that spans both a newsletter and a podcast, is going to be a really powerful thing,” said Zuckerberg. “So that’s a big part of what we’re going to enable with some of the monetization tools around podcasts. That dovetails with the work that we’re that we’re planning to do…our work on on our newsletters and giving tools for for independent journalists. I think enabling both of those things to come together on extremely favorable terms to journalists and creators, will be a pretty powerful thing,” he noted.

The product launches, which Vox scooped on Sunday, indicate how seriously Facebook considers the disruption to its dominance that could be attributed to the growing number of places where fans connect with creators. The threat for Facebook today is not just a new app like Clubhouse or Substack’s newsletters or even Patreon, but the fact that the creator economy, in general, isn’t being centralized and owned by Facebook itself.

News: Geico admits fraudsters stole customer driver’s license numbers for months

• April 19, 2021
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Geico, the second-largest auto insurer in the U.S., has fixed a security bug that let fraudsters steal customer driver’s license numbers from its website. In a data breach notice filed with the California attorney general’s office, Geico said information gathered from other sources was used to “obtain unauthorized access to your driver’s license number through

Geico, the second-largest auto insurer in the U.S., has fixed a security bug that let fraudsters steal customer driver’s license numbers from its website.

In a data breach notice filed with the California attorney general’s office, Geico said information gathered from other sources was used to “obtain unauthorized access to your driver’s license number through the online sales system on our website.”

The insurance giant did not say how many customers were affected by the breach but said the fraudsters accessed customer driver’s license numbers between January 21 and March 1. Companies are required to alert the state’s attorney general’s office when more than 500 state residents are affected by a security incident.

Geico said it had “reason to believe that this information could be used to fraudulently apply for unemployment benefits in your name.”

Many financially-driven criminals target government agencies using stolen identities or data. But many U.S. states require a government ID — like a driver’s license — to file for unemployment benefits. To get a driver’s license number, fraudsters take public or previously breached data and exploit weaknesses in auto insurance websites to obtain a customer’s driver’s license number. That allows the fraudsters to obtain unemployment benefits in another person’s name.

Earlier this year, San Francisco-based insurance startup Metromile admitted a bug on its website was used to obtain driver’s license numbers for six months before the bug was fixed in January.

If you’ve received correspondence from your state government and haven’t filed for unemployment benefits, there’s a good chance your personal data may have been used fraudulently.

Geico spokesperson Christine Tasher did not return multiple requests for comment.

News: These three investors think founders need some TLC (Collective funds)

• April 19, 2021
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Venture capital is a networks business — from networks of founders to the web of investors and angels and gossamer threads of potential customers, talent, and service providers. The density of those networks determines success: find just the right person to fit a role or a slot on a cap table, and a startup might

Venture capital is a networks business — from networks of founders to the web of investors and angels and gossamer threads of potential customers, talent, and service providers. The density of those networks determines success: find just the right person to fit a role or a slot on a cap table, and a startup might just get a bit more lift.

It’s a topic that Casey Caruso has thought a lot about. In a research project at Stanford, she looked at a slightly different form of network density: using convolution neural network (CNN) models to evaluate investment decisions, working with a group of three other authors to analyze how to optimize VC using algorithms. It’s a cross-over point she’s familiar with, building upon a technical background and an engineering role at Google while also part-time investing with Bessemer.

While at a dinner at San Francisco’s northern Italian restaurant SPQR in Lower Pac Heights, she talked about investing with friends Lauren Stephanian, now a principal at blockchain-focused Pantera Capital, and Terri Burns, a partner at GV. They realized that much like how all roads lead to Rome, all three were on paths heading for the same direction: using technology to improve venture decision-making. “We are all computer scientists by training,” Caruso said. “Because of that fundamental training, we all approach problems pretty pragmatically.”

The three began collaborating outside of their day jobs on how to integrate AI better into the earliest stages of venture, identifying features from models while also being open to the qualitative nature of the business. Then, they decided to more formally build a compact around investing in 2019, creating TLC Collective (their combined initials) as a base to invest from.

Investing using their own combined capital, TLC writes angel and pre-seed checks into companies built by technical founders. So far, the group has invested in 11 companies, including data discovery platform Select Star (which I profiled a couple of weeks ago), audio breakout app Clubhouse, biology data platform Watershed, remote work manager Friday, cryptocurrency risk compliance platform TRM and a variety of others.

While their investments span sectors, the thread holding them all together is the technical chops of the founders. “We invest in very technical teams because we are very technical and that is our first qualifier,” Caruso said. Stephanian meanwhile emphasized that while technical talent is a key benchmark, the trio can diverge on areas of focus. “Despite having a similar background, we all have different interests and skillsets,” she said. They noted that Burns focuses on consumer, Stephanian on fintech, enterprise and crypto, and Caruso on frontier tech.

So far, the group remains a “side gig” for the three, and they are continuing to iterate on their underlying algorithm. “We go back and forth between using the actual algorithm versus just using it as a framework or reference,” Caruso explained. “We are finding a balance between the art and the science by applying our programming background.”

The collective’s pace has been roughly an investment per quarter, a bandwidth that the group said they are likely to continue for the time being. They continue to invest their own capital, and they don’t feel pressure to expand into new models like rolling funds or crowdfunding — at least, not yet. “We haven’t even considered doing a rolling fund,” Caruso said, although noted that the group is part of On Deck Angels. Stephanian said that the competition today in that space is keen. “I have gotten so many messages from people who are raising their own syndicates,” she said.

The firm’s checks range from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands of dollars per investment.

Like the networks powering their AI models and the networks they are building among their founders, TLC Collective has built a triangle of connections amidst its investors. As those connections expand out, the hope for the group is that they are able to expand the data data to optimize their models while also investing in the best technical founders growing new businesses.

News: Xbox Cloud Gaming beta starts rolling out on iOS and PC this week

• April 19, 2021
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The era of cloud gaming hasn’t arrived with the intensity that may have seemed imminent a couple years ago when major tech platforms announced their plays. In 2021, the market is still pretty much non-existent despite established presences from nearly all of tech’s biggest players. Microsoft has been slow to roll out its Xbox Cloud

The era of cloud gaming hasn’t arrived with the intensity that may have seemed imminent a couple years ago when major tech platforms announced their plays. In 2021, the market is still pretty much non-existent despite established presences from nearly all of tech’s biggest players.

Microsoft has been slow to roll out its Xbox Cloud Gaming beta to its users widely across platforms, but that’s likely because they know that, unlike other upstart platforms, there’s not a huge advantage to them rushing out the gate first. This week, the company will begin rolling out the service on iOS and PC to Game Pass Ultimate users, sending out invited to a limited number of users and scaling it up over time.

“The limited beta is our time to test and learn; we’ll send out more invites on a continuous basis to players in all 22 supported countries, evaluate feedback, continue to improve the experience, and add support for more devices,” wrote Xbox’s Catherine Gluckstein in a blog post. “Our plan is to iterate quickly and open up to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members in the coming months so more people have the opportunity to play Xbox in all-new ways.”

The service has been available in beta for Android users since last year but it’s been a slow expansion to other platforms outside that world.

A big part of that slowdown has been the result of Apple playing hardball with cloud gaming platform providers, whose business models represent a major threat to App Store gaming revenues. Apple announced a carve-out provision for cloud-gaming platforms that would maintain dependency on the App Store and in-app purchase frameworks but none of the providers seemed very happy with Apple’s solution. As a result, Xbox Cloud Gaming will operate entirely through the web on iOS inside mobile Safari.