Monthly Archives: May 2021

News: OpenUnit raises a $1M seed round to be the online face of self-storage

• May 19, 2021
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How are mom-and-pop self-storage facilities meant to keep up with the tech offered by the massive, ever-growing chains? That’s a key part of the idea behind OpenUnit, a team I first wrote about in August of last year. You bring the storage units, they bring the website, payment processing, and backend tools you need to

How are mom-and-pop self-storage facilities meant to keep up with the tech offered by the massive, ever-growing chains?

That’s a key part of the idea behind OpenUnit, a team I first wrote about in August of last year. You bring the storage units, they bring the website, payment processing, and backend tools you need to manage them. They don’t charge facility owners a monthly subscription fee, instead taking a cut of each payment as the payments processor.

OpenUnit has now raised a $1M seed round, and acquired the IP of a fellow YC company along the way.

Since we last heard from OpenUnit, they’ve been expanding to locations around the US and Canada and now have a waitlist over 800 facilities deep, the team tells me.

Image Credits: OpenUnit

OpenUnit co-founder Taylor Cooney was quick to point out that this seed round is as much about strategic partnerships as it is about the money. Neither Taylor nor co-founder Lucas Playford had much to do with the storage industry until a knock at the door led them down a rabbit hole. As I wrote back in August:

“…Taylor’s landlords came to him with an offer: they wanted to sell the place he was renting, and they’d give him a stack of cash if he could be out within just a few days. Pulling that off meant finding a place to keep all of his stuff while he looked for a new home, which is when he realized how antiquated the self-storage process could be.”

Of the 20+ investors participating in the round, 6 are from the self-storage industry, from prior/current facility owners to the Director of the Canadian Self Storage Association. For some of them, it’s their first time investing in a tech or software company — but all potentially bring something to the table beyond money.

Of course, that’s not to say they’re just letting that money sit around. They’ve grown the team from just Taylor and Lucas up to five, and are still looking to grow. Meanwhile, Taylor tells me that the company has acquired the IP of fellow Y Combinator W20 batchmate Affiga, a product that aimed to automatically provide insights about a new customer after a transaction made through a platform like Stripe.

Writes Taylor: “As self-storage companies move services like rentals, leases, and payments online, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to ‘know’ their customers. We see the integration into our product as a way to help self-storage operators bridge the gap between their online and in-store customer experiences, where the personal touch tends to be lost.”

Affiga initially shutdown its operations back in 2020. After OpenUnit realized they wanted something similar in their product, they set out to buy rather than build. “With a decade in e-commerce under their belt,” Taylor tells me, “their founder had a much better approach to this then we would’ve come up with.”

So what’s next? Besides getting more people off the waitlist and onto the platform, they’re exploring other opportunities, including potentially providing loans to facilities looking to expand or renovate. Because OpenUnit is both the management platform and the payments provider, they have deep insights on how a facility is doing; they know how much a location makes, how punctual their customers are with payments, etc. Take that data and mash it up with insights on what improvements can increase revenue, and it seems like a pretty straightforward formula.

This round includes investment from Garage Capital, Advisors Fund, Insite Property Group, SquareFoot co-founder Jonathan Wasserstrum, and a number of angel investors.

News: 5 innovative fundraising methods for emerging VCs and PEs

• May 19, 2021
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Approaching institutions to raise capital for your venture capital or private equity fund is relatively transparent, but what if you’re targeting family offices and high-net-worth individuals?

Approaching institutions to raise capital for your venture capital or private equity fund is relatively transparent, but what if you’re targeting family offices and high-net-worth individuals? I see five innovative new methods for raising capital that emerging managers such as Versatile VC are using, which I’ve ranked in roughly descending order of popularity:

1. Join online communities and virtual conferences where investors participate.
2. Use a platform that helps other investors access your fund.
3. Generally solicit under the 506(c) designation.
4. Launch a rolling fund.
5. Crowdfund from retail investors into your general partnership.

Will Stringer, CEO of Chisos, feels most family offices won’t respond to cold outreach. “You need to build a true relationship with family office investors or other general partners that can make warm intros to family office decision-makers,” he says. “Family offices, more than any other allocator, rely on trust. [It’s] not always the case (and always changing), but today it’s still the majority.”

The obvious solution therefore is to get in touch with your friends who have earlier raised or pitched to the family offices. You may also find professional intermediaries who are willing to make an introduction to family offices.

That said, the five methods I outline below may be faster and more efficient.

Join online communities and virtual conferences where investors participate

To meet other VCs (some of which may become LPs), among your options are Confluence, Gen Z Mafia, InnovatorsRoom (European focus) and TechAviv (Israeli focus). To find others, see: How to find the right online communities. I maintain a proprietary database of the communities I’ve found most valuable, which I share with other members of the Versatile team.

These venues allow you to efficiently get in front of many pre-qualified investors and follow up with those who seem like a tight fit. Unsurprisingly, the best online communities are limited strictly to LPs. Ideally, you’d partner with an anchor/friendly LP who can pass the word on your fund to other potential investors.

In general, at virtual conferences, I recommend first fill out your online profile with all possible keywords and your photo. Side-channeling is powerful and is the equivalent of going into a corner at a conference and talking privately. Look up the profiles of all the people attending a conference or in an online community and send the relevant folks a customized message introducing yourself.

This is one of the primary advantages of virtual events versus traditional face-to-face conferences, where people do not conveniently wear a hat with their LinkedIn profile visible.

News: Apple Watch gets a motion-controlled cursor with ‘Assistive Touch’

• May 19, 2021
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Tapping the tiny screen of the Apple Watch with precision has certain level of fundamental difficulty, but for some people with disabilities it’s genuinely impossible. Apple has remedied this with a new mode called “Assistive Touch” that detects hand gestures to control a cursor and navigate that way. The feature was announced as part of

Tapping the tiny screen of the Apple Watch with precision has certain level of fundamental difficulty, but for some people with disabilities it’s genuinely impossible. Apple has remedied this with a new mode called “Assistive Touch” that detects hand gestures to control a cursor and navigate that way.

The feature was announced as part of a collection of accessibility-focused additions across its products, but Assistive Touch seems like the one most likely to make a splash across the company’s user base.

It relies on the built-in gyroscope and accelerometer, as well as data from the heart rate sensor, to deduce the position of the wrist and hand. Don’t expect it to tell a peace sign from a metal sign just yet, but for now it detects “pinch” (touching the index finger to the thumb) and “clench” (make a loose fist), which can act as basic “next” and “confirm” actions. Incoming calls, for instance, can be quickly accepted with a clench.

Most impressive, however, is the motion pointer. You can activate it either by selecting it in the Assistive Touch menu, or by shaking your wrist vigorously. It then detects the position of your hand as you move it around, allowing you to “swipe” by letting the cursor linger at the edge of the screen, or interact with things using a pinch or clench.

Needless to say this could be extremely helpful for anyone who only has the one hand available for interacting with the watch. And even for those who don’t strictly need it, the ability to keep one hand on the exercise machine, cane, or whatever else while doing smartwatch things is surely an attractive possibility. (One wonders about the potential of this control method as a cursor for other platforms as well…)

Image Credits: Apple

Assistive Touch is only one of many accessibility updates Apple shared in this news release; other advances for the company’s platforms include:

• SignTime, an ASL interpreter video call for Apple Store visits and support
• Support for new hearing aids
• Improved VoiceOver-based exploration of images
• A built-in background noise generator (which I fully intend to use)
• Replacement of certain buttons with non-verbal mouth noises (for people who have limited speech and mobility)
• Memoji customizations for people with oxygen tubes, cochlear implants, and soft helmets
• Featured media in the App Store, Apple TV, Books, and Maps apps from or geared towards people with disabilities

It’s all clustered around Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which is tomorrow, May 20th.

News: A new tip line invites anyone to name and shame companies for dark pattern designs

• May 19, 2021
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You may not be familiar with the term “dark patterns” but the manipulative design phenomenon is ubiquitous in the apps and services we use every day. Dark patterns nudge consumers to make choices that enrich companies, usually at their own expense. That can look like misleading wording that leads someone to sign their personal data

You may not be familiar with the term “dark patterns” but the manipulative design phenomenon is ubiquitous in the apps and services we use every day.

Dark patterns nudge consumers to make choices that enrich companies, usually at their own expense. That can look like misleading wording that leads someone to sign their personal data away or a hidden button that results in a renewed subscription they’d probably rather cancel.

If you run across a sketchy dark pattern design, you can now report it on Darkpatternstipline.org, a dedicated site hosted by Consumer Reports. The new tip line is a joint project from the EFF, PEN America, Consumer Reports and Access Now, among other digital rights advocates.

Collecting dark pattern reports is an effort that could actually have teeth now, thanks to new laws taking aim at the manipulative design practice.

In March, California modified its landmark privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), to ban dark patterns in tech’s own backyard. “These protections ensure that consumers will not be confused or misled when seeking to exercise their data privacy rights,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said of the new regulations.

Even Congress is worried about dark patterns. In 2019, a bipartisan bill called the DETOUR Act sought to outlaw user interfaces “obscuring, subverting, or impairing user autonomy” for large companies with more than 100 million users. While that legislation didn’t go anywhere, coercive design choices are one of the many concerns that lawmakers have on their radar as they seek to implement new federal regulations for big tech companies.

For the tip line’s creators, flagging concerns for the regulators shaping tech policy is a priority. “If we want to stop dark patterns on the internet and beyond, we first have to assess what’s out there, and then use these examples to influence policymakers and lawmakers,” EFF Designer Shirin Mori said.

“We hope the Dark Patterns Tip Line will help us move towards more fair, equitable, and accessible technology products and services for everyone.”

News: Liquid Instruments raises $13.7M to bring its education-focused 8-in-1 engineering gadget to market

• May 19, 2021
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Part of learning to be an engineer is understanding the tools you’ll have to work with — voltmeters, spectrum analyzers, things like that. But why use two, or eight for that matter, where one will do? The Moku:Go combines several commonly used tools into one compact package, saving room on your workbench or classroom while

Part of learning to be an engineer is understanding the tools you’ll have to work with — voltmeters, spectrum analyzers, things like that. But why use two, or eight for that matter, where one will do? The Moku:Go combines several commonly used tools into one compact package, saving room on your workbench or classroom while also providing a modern, software-configurable interface. Creator Liquid Instruments has just raised $13.7 million to bring this gadget to students and engineers everywhere.

Image Credits: Liquid Instruments

The idea behind Moku:Go is largely the same as the company’s previous product, the Moku:Lab. Using a standard input port, a set of FPGA-based tools perform the same kind of breakdowns and analyses of electrical signals as you would get in a larger or analog device. But being digital saves a lot of space that would normally go towards bulky analog components.

The Go takes this miniaturization further than the Lab, doing many of the same tasks at half the weight and with a few useful extra features. It’s intended for use in education or smaller engineering shops where space is at a premium. Combining eight tools into one is a major coup when your bench is also your desk and your file cabinet.

Those eight tools, by the way, are: waveform generator, arbitrary waveform generator, frequency response analyzer, logic analyzer/pattern generator, oscilloscope/voltmeter, PID controller, spectrum analyzer, and data logger. It’s hard to say whether that really adds up to more or less than eight, but it’s definitely a lot to have in a package the size of a hardback book.

You access and configure them using a software interface rather than a bunch of knobs and dials — though let’s be clear, there are good arguments for both. When you’re teaching a bunch of young digital natives, however, a clean point-and-click interface is probably a plus. The UI is actually very attractive; you can see several examples by clicking the instruments on this page, but here’s an example of the waveform generator:

Image Credits: Liquid Instruments

Love those pastels.

The Moku:Go currently works with Macs and Windows but doesn’t have a mobile app yet. It integrates with Python, MATLAB, and LabVIEW. Data goes over Wi-Fi.

Compared with the Moku:Lab, it has a few perks. A USB-C port instead of a mini, a magnetic power port, a 16-channel digital I/O, optional power supply of up to four channels, and of course it’s half the size and weight. It compromises on a few things — no SD card slot and less bandwidth for its outputs, but if you need the range and precision of the more expensive tool, you probably need a lot of other stuff too.

Image Credits: Liquid Instruments

Since the smaller option also costs $500 to start (“a price comparable to a textbook”… yikes) compared with the big one’s $3,500, there’s major savings involved. And it’s definitely cheaper than buying all those instruments individually.

The Moku:Go is “targeted squarely at university education,” said Liquid Instruments VP of marketing Doug Phillips. “Professors are able to employ the device in the classroom and individuals, such as students and electronic engineering hobbyists, can experiment with it on their own time. Since its launch in March, the most common customer profile has been students purchasing the device at the direction of their university.”

About a hundred professors have signed on to use the device as part of their Fall classes, and the company is working with other partners in universities around the world. “There is a real demand for portable, flexible systems that can handle the breadth of four years of curriculum,” Phillips said.

Production starts in June (samples are out to testers), the rigors and costs of which likely prompted the recent round of funding. The $13.7M comes from existing investors Anzu Partners and ANU Connect Ventures, and new investors F1 Solutions and Moelis Australia’s Growth Capital Fund. It’s a convertible note “in advance of an anticipated Series B round in 2022,” Phillips said. It’s a larger amount than they intended to raise at first, and the note nature of the round is also not standard, but given the difficulties faced by hardware companies over the last year, some irregularities are probably to be expected.

No doubt the expected B round will depend considerably on the success of the Moku:Go’s launch and adoption. But this promising product looks as if it might be a commonplace item in thousands of classrooms a couple years from now.

News: Google Maps to add more detailed maps, crowd indicators, better routing and more

• May 19, 2021
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Google has announced a series of updates soon coming to Google Maps, as part of the company’s larger goal of delivering over 100 A.I.-powered improvements to the platform by year-end. Among the new improvements, detailed during Google I/O’s developer conference this week, are new routing updates, Live View enhancements, an expansion of detailed street maps,

Google has announced a series of updates soon coming to Google Maps, as part of the company’s larger goal of delivering over 100 A.I.-powered improvements to the platform by year-end. Among the new improvements, detailed during Google I/O’s developer conference this week, are new routing updates, Live View enhancements, an expansion of detailed street maps, a new “area busyness” feature, and a more personalized Maps experience.

The new routing updates will involve the use of machine learning and navigation information to help reduce “hard-braking moments” — meaning, those times when traffic suddenly slows, and you have to slam on your brakes.

Today, when you get your directions in Maps, Google calculates multiple route options based on a variety of factors, like how many lanes a road has or how direct the route is. With the update, it will add one more: which routes are least likely to cause a “hard-braking moment.” Google will recommend the route that has the least likelihood of those sorts of moments, if the ETA is the same or the difference is minimal between another route. The company says it expects this change could potentially eliminate 100 million hard-breaking events in routes driven with Google Maps every year.

Live View, Google Maps’ augmented reality feature launched in 2019, will soon become available directly from the map interface so you can instantly explore the neighborhood and view details about nearby shops and restaurants, including how busy they are, recent reviews and photos. It will also be updated to include street signs for complex intersections, and will tell you where you are in relation to places like your hotel, so you can make your way back more easily, when in unfamiliar territory.

Image Credits: Google

Google will also expand the more detailed maps it first rolled out to last year to New York, San Francisco, and London. These maps offer more granularity, including both natural features and street info like the location of sidewalks, crosswalks and pedestrian islands, for example. The information can be particularly useful for those who navigate a city by foot, scooter, bike, or in a wheelchair.

By the end of 2021, these detailed maps will be available in 50 more cities, including  Berlin, São Paulo, Seattle, and Singapore.

Image Credits: Google

Another new feature expands on the “busyness” information Google already provided for businesses, based on anonymized location data collected by Maps users. During the pandemic, that feature became a useful way to avoid crowds at local stores and other businesses, for health and safety. Now, Google Maps will display “busyness” info for parts of town or neighborhoods, to help you either avoid (or perhaps locate) crowded areas — like a street festival, farmers’ market, or nightlife spot, among other things.

Image Credits: Google

Finally, Google Maps will begin customizing its interface to the individual in new ways.

For starters, it may show relevant information based on the time of day where you are.

For instance, when you open the map at 8 AM on a weekday, you may see coffee shops more prominently highlighted, but at night, you may see dinner spots. If you’ve traveled out of town, Google Maps may instead show you landmarks and tourists attractions. And if you want to see more of the same, you can tap on any place to see similar places nearby.

Image Credits: Google

Google says these features will roll out globally across iOS and Android in the coming months, but did not provide an exact timeframe for each specific feature. The more detailed maps will arrive by year-end, however.

News: Mapping out one edtech company’s $200M bet on lifelong learning

• May 19, 2021
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Emeritus plans to acquire iD Tech, a STEM education service for children, which brings a whole different set of customers to its umbrella.

Mumbai-based Emeritus, an edtech company that works with universities to create online upskilling courses for employed folks, just spent a big chunk of cash to break into K-12.

Emeritus, which is part of the Eruditis group, announced today that it plans to acquire iD Tech, a STEM education service for children. The acquisition, which has not yet closed, is estimated to be around $200 million and leaves iD Tech operating as an independent brand for now.

In August, Eruditis raised a $113 million Series D from investors including Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia India and Leeds Illuminate. Today, the startup has more than 200 programs, from bootcamps to online degree programs, that are offered to career folks in partnership with more than 50 of the world’s top universities, including MIT, Harvard and Columbia. ID Tech brings a whole different set of customers to its umbrella: The startup offers courses for elementary through high-school students across the globe taught by college students in the U.S.

The acquisition will allow Emeritus, which has been on a hiring and fundraising tear as of late, to grow beyond adult learning and well into the world of lifelong learning. It’s a trend we spotted back in a January edtech investor survey: Investors then mentioned how remote education needs to extend beyond school hours as learners become more multilayered. Edtech companies would soon have to find ways to create value for students throughout their educational experience, starting from early childhood into post-employment.

Breaking into lifelong learning sounds great, but it’s a complex goal, given that a freshman in high school learns differently than a full-time employed professional with six years of experience. Emeritus CEO and co-founder Ashwin Damera spoke to TechCrunch to explain why it makes sense from a product and revenue perspective.

“Last year we started seeing a lot of K-12 teaching moving online,” Damera said. “Then we opened our eyes and said, we used to think that this audience is not ready to learn online, but maybe we should relook at that assumption.”

The universe of universities

In order to execute on lifelong learning, a company needs to be able to seamlessly transition its audiences — from high school to college to post-employment — between products. In Emeritus’ case, Damera explained how the two companies already overlap in the middle of that chain: higher ed.

News: Exhibit at TC Disrupt 2021: Snag a Startup Alley Pass before prices go up

• May 19, 2021
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The TC Disrupt 2021 super early bird deal took our best deal in its beak and flew the coop. But you can still buy a Startup Alley Pass and exhibit in our virtual expo area at a great price. Take advantage of our early bird deal, cross an item off your to-do list and keep

The TC Disrupt 2021 super early bird deal took our best deal in its beak and flew the coop. But you can still buy a Startup Alley Pass and exhibit in our virtual expo area at a great price. Take advantage of our early bird deal, cross an item off your to-do list and keep $50 in your wallet.

Pro Tip: The early bird deadline is August 6 at 11:59 pm (PT), and if that feels like a long way off, don’t be fooled. It’ll be here before you know it, and Startup Alley Passes are selling faster than ever. Get yours for just $249 while you can.

In addition to your virtual exhibit space and the abundance of networking that goes on in the Alley, we have additional opportunities for exhibitors. For starters, each exhibiting startup gets to participate in a breakout pitch feedback session.

You’ll have two minutes to pitch live to TechCrunch staff and thousands of Disrupt attendees around the world. And you’ll receive plenty of great feedback to improve your pitch deck.

“I walked away with a bunch of notes to reorganize my pitch deck. It’s a lot of work, but it’s very rewarding because now I have a clear path. Disrupt was like an authoritative instruction manual for how to finish my pitch deck.” — Michael McCarthy, CEO, Repositax.

Note: TechCrunch Editorial team will choose two outstanding exhibiting startups to be Startup Battlefield Wild Cards. Those founders will get to compete for the $100,000 (equity-free) cash and massive exposure in the Startup Battlefield. It. Could. Be. You.

Team TechCrunch will also host a series of Startup Alley Crawls — one hour for each business category. Editors will go live on the Disrupt stage and interview various founders exhibiting in Startup Alley. It’s great global exposure.

Here’s another big reason to get your exhibitor pass sooner rather than later. It’s a new opportunity called Startup Alley+ and you must purchase a Startup Alley Pass before Friday, June 4 at 11:59 pm (PT) to be eligible for this VIP Disrupt experience. TechCrunch will choose up to 50 startups to participate. Read about all the perks and benefits here. Get your pass before the deadline, because the Startup Alley+ experience kicks off in July at Early Stage 2021 — Marketing and Fundraising.

So many great reasons to exhibit in Startup Alley at TC Disrupt 2021, but the clock is ticking on early bird savings. Take one simple task off your overloaded to-do list, buy your Startup Alley Pass now — while it’s on your mind — and save yourself $50 bucks.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

News: Google unpauses privacy-focused changes to Chrome UA strings

• May 19, 2021
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Google is resuming work on reducing the granularity of information presented in user-agent strings on its Chrome browser, it said today — picking up an effort it put on pause last year, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it said it wanted to avoid piling extra migration burden on the web ecosystem

Google is resuming work on reducing the granularity of information presented in user-agent strings on its Chrome browser, it said today — picking up an effort it put on pause last year, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it said it wanted to avoid piling extra migration burden on the web ecosystem in the middle of a public health emergency.

The resumption of the move has implications for web developers as the changes to user-agent strings could break some existing infrastructure without updates to code. Although Google has laid out a pretty generous-looking timeline of origin tests — and its blog post emphasizes that “no User-Agent string changes will be coming to the stable channel of Chrome in 2021“. So the changes certainly won’t ship before 2022.

The move, via development of its Chromium engine, to pare back user-agent strings to reduce their ability to be used to track users is related to Google’s overarching Privacy Sandbox plan — aka the stack of proposals it announced in 2019 — when it said it wanted to evolve web architecture by developing a set of open standards to “fundamentally enhance” web privacy.

Part of this move toward a more private default for Chromium is depreciating support for third party tracking cookies. Another part is Google’s proposed technological alternative for on-device ad-targeting of cohorts of users (aka FLoCs).

Cleaning up exploitable surface areas like fingerprintable user-agent strings is another component — and should be understood as part of the wider ‘hygiene’ drive required to deliver on the goals of Privacy Sandbox.

The latter remains a massive, tanker-turning effort, though.

And while there has been some suggestions Google could be ready to ship Privacy Sandbox in early 2022, given the timelines it’s allowing for origin tests of the changes to user-agent strings — a seven phase rollout, with two origin trials lasting at least six months apiece — that looks unlikely. (At least not for all the constituent parts of the Sandbox to ship.)

Indeed, back in 2019 Google was upfront that the changes it had in mind would not come overnight, saying then: “It’s going to be a multi-year journey”. Albeit in January 2020 it seemed to dial up at least part of the timeline, saying it wanted to phase out support for third party cookies within two years.

Still, Google can’t realistically depreciate tracking cookies without also shipping changes in browser standards that are needed to provide publishers and advertisers with alternative means to do ad targeting, measurement and fraud prevention. So any delay to elements of the Privacy Sandbox could have a knock-on impact on its ‘two-year’ timeline to end support for third party cookies. (And 2022 may well be the very earliest the shift could happen.)

There’s push and pull going on here, as Google’s effort to retool web infrastructure — and, more specifically, to change how web users and activity can and can’t be tracked — has massive implications for many other web users; most notably the adtech players and publishers whose businesses are deeply embedded in this tracking web.

Unsurprisingly, it has faced a lot of pushback from those sectors.

Its plan to end support for third party tracking cookies is also under regulatory scrutiny in Europe — where advertisers complained it’s an anti-competitive power move to block third parties’ access to user data while continuing to help itself to masses of first party user data (given its dominance of key Internet services). So depending on how regulators respond to ecosystem concerns Google may not be able to keep full control of the timeline, either.

Nonetheless, from a privacy perspective, Chrome paring back user-agent strings is a welcome — if overdue — move.

Indeed Google’s blog post notes that it’s the laggard vs similar efforts already undertaken by the web engines underlying Apple’s Safari browser and Mozilla’s Firefox.

“As noted in the User Agent Client Hints explainer, the User Agent string presents challenges for two reasons. Firstly, it passively exposes quite a lot of information about the browser for every HTTP request that may be used for fingerprinting,” Google writes, fleshing out its rational for the change. “Secondly, it has grown in length and complexity over the years and encourages error-prone string parsing. We believe the User Agent Client Hints API solves both of these problems in a more developer- and user-friendly manner.”

Commenting on the development, Dr Lukasz Olejnik, an independent consultant and security and privacy researcher who has advised the W3C on technical architecture and standards, describes the incoming change as “a great privacy improvement”.

“The user-agent change will reduce entropy and so reduce identifiability,” he told TechCrunch. “I view it as a great privacy improvement because considering IP address and the UA string at the same time is highly identifying. UAs are not exactly simplified in Firefox/Safari in the way Chrome suggests doing them.”

Google’s blog post notes that its UA plan was “designed with backwards compatibility in mind”, and seeks to reassure developers — adding that: “While any changes to the User Agent string need to be managed carefully, we expect minimal friction for developers as we roll this out (i.e., existing parsers should continue to operate as expected).

“If your site, service, library or application relies on certain bits of information being present in the User Agent string such as Chrome minor version, OS version number, or Android device model, you will need to begin the migration to use the User Agent Client Hints API instead,” it goes on. “If you don’t require any of these, then no changes are required and things should continue to operate as they have to date.”

Despite Google’s reassurances, Olejnik suggested some web developers could still be caught on the hop — if they fail to take note of the development and don’t made necessary updates to their code in time.

“Web developers may be concerned as certain libraries or backend systems depend on the strict UA string existing as today,” he noted, adding: “Things may stop working as intended. This might be a sudden and surprising breakage. But the actual impact at a scale is unpredictable.”

News: Bessemer’s Tess Hatch will join us as a judge at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021

• May 19, 2021
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Tess Hatch, vice president and partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, will join us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 as a judge for our Startup Battlefield competition. By the way startups, you can still apply now until May 27 to take part in the competition here! At Bessemer, Tess spearheads frontier tech investments, including the scaling and

Tess Hatch, vice president and partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, will join us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 as a judge for our Startup Battlefield competition. By the way startups, you can still apply now until May 27 to take part in the competition here!

At Bessemer, Tess spearheads frontier tech investments, including the scaling and commercialization of revolutionary technologies, including drones, space-based observation and launch, agritech and much more. She’s focused on sourcing and reproducing tech bets that have the potential to significantly improve society in fundamental ways.

Some of Tess’s investments and board positions include Rocket Lab, Spire, DroneDeploy, Iris and more. Before her time at Bessemer and work as an investor, she worked for both Boeing and SpaceX as a payload integrator and aerospace engineer, building on her aeronautics and astronautics education from the University of Michigan and Stanford. Tess was also recently named one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 in VC.

We’ve been lucky enough to have Tess onstage at prior Disrupt events, and our TC Sessions: Space event as well. She’s definitely one of the best people in the world to talk to about cutting-edge technologies, and companies looking to solve even the most ambitious technical challenges, so she’s sure to bring great perspective to the Startup Battlefield judging panel this year.

Make sure to book your pass to TC Disrupt on September 21-23 to watch 20+ startups compete for $100k in Startup Battlefield and enjoy over 100 hours of content and thousands of enthusiastic startup fans — all for under $99! Secure your seat today!