Monthly Archives: May 2021

News: Otter.ai’s new assistant can automatically transcribe your Zoom meetings

• May 19, 2021
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A.I.-powered voice transcription service Otter.ai wants to make it even easier for its business users to record their meetings. The company is today introducing a new feature, Otter Assistant, which can automatically join the Zoom meetings on your calendar, transcribe the conversations, and share the notes with other participants. Though Otter.ai is already integrated with

A.I.-powered voice transcription service Otter.ai wants to make it even easier for its business users to record their meetings. The company is today introducing a new feature, Otter Assistant, which can automatically join the Zoom meetings on your calendar, transcribe the conversations, and share the notes with other participants. Though Otter.ai is already integrated with Zoom, the assistant is designed to make using transcription something you don’t have to constantly remember to enable at the meeting’s start or stop at the end, while also serving as a place where participants can collaborate by asking questions, sharing photos and more, as the meeting is underway.

The feature also works around the earlier limitation with Zoom, where only the meeting host could use the Otter.ai integration directly.

The idea to automate meeting transcription makes sense for the remote work environment created by the pandemic, where people have been splitting their time between work, parenting, homeschooling and other duties. This can often lead to meetings where users are pulled away and miss things that had been said. That’s one area where Otter.ai can help. But it can also help with issues like overlapping meetings, or larger meetings were only a few topics are directly relevant to your work — but where you’d like to be able to review the rest of the meeting discussion later, instead of in real-time.

To use the new Otter Assistant, users first synchronize their Google Calendar or Microsoft Calendar with Otter’s service. The assistant will then automatically join all Zoom meetings going forward, where it appears as an additional meeting participant, for transparency’s sake.

The assistant also posts a link to the transcription in the Zoom chat for everyone to access. In other words, this is not a feature to use to skip meetings without your boss knowing — it’s designed for those times when everyone has already agreed the meeting will be transcribed.

As the meeting continues, attendees can use Otter’s live transcript to highlight key parts, add photos, and make notes. They can also ask questions via the commenting feature, as opposed to speaking up — which may be helpful if you’re in a noisy place at the time of the meeting.

Once the assistant is enabled, you don’t have to remember to turn on Otter.ai for each meeting, and you can even use your headphones to listen to the meeting in progress. The Otter Assistant will still be able to record both sides of the conversation.

However, you are able to turn Otter Assistant off on a per-meeting basis via the “My Agenda” section on the Otter website, which will include new toggles next to each meeting you have scheduled.

When meetings wrap, you can also have Otter.ai configured to automatically share the meeting notes with all the attendees.

The Otter Assistant is available to Otter.ai Business users, which are upgraded plans that start at $20 per month, and include features like two-factor authentication, SOC2 compliance, advanced search, export, custom vocabulary, shared speaker identification, centralized data and billing, and more.

To date, Otter.ai says it has transcribed over 150 million meetings, up from 100 million in the beginning of 2021 . The company doesn’t provide details on its total subscriber base, but did note earlier it saw a sizable 8x increase in revenues in 2020, leading up to its $50 million Series B, announced in February.

News: Gillmor Gang: Party Line

• May 19, 2021
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In the early days of social media, all things seemed possible. Twitter was this weird reboot of blogs, with a social layer atop an RSS feed that gave authority to last in/first out musings by providing data not just about read or unread but shared by who. You could take that authority data and rank

In the early days of social media, all things seemed possible. Twitter was this weird reboot of blogs, with a social layer atop an RSS feed that gave authority to last in/first out musings by providing data not just about read or unread but shared by who. You could take that authority data and rank posts by who shared them and who followed those people and what they in turn recommended. Although this was mostly ignored at the time by vendors and writers looking for a viral eyeball payoff, for those looking to support new talent there was something more valuable than reach.

Something like that could happen with Clubhouse and newsletters. On this week’s edition of the Gillmor Gang, recorded just over a week ago, we talk about Clubhouse, the Facebook advisory board and its siderstep of the Trump deplatforming, and early stuff I can never quite remember because the show always takes a bit too long to fully get up to speed. I’d apologize for this, but the apology would take too long to reach sincerity sufficient to not make things worse. This by the way is why newsletters exist — to save time scouring the Web and cable news for a sufficient return on investment, as in “well there’s another [duration] I’ll never get back.”

Temporal time displacement suffered a serious blow at the hands of HBO Max and its strategy of releasing theater-less blockbusters on the streaming network in 2021 but only intermittently moving forward. As the CDC noted in a confusing but welcome announcement this past Thursday, vaccines are making possible a safe return to theaters in the near future. Soon it will be possible to be confused about the movie Tenet on the big screen. It is not a spoiler to say that Tenet is all about moving through time in the normal forward but also the incomprehensible backward. Time travel stories are invariably brought to a complete standstill when how this works is explained. The only thing harder to do is find a way to end a Saturday Night Live sketch. The only rationale appears to be that the sketch is over, like a bad pun not even worthy of a groan.

Speaking as I was of Clubhouse, we tried it out last Wednesday with Keith Teare and a brief drive-by from Brent Leary. Somehow we were in Hallway mode, which actually captured the feel of the thing nicely. Being in experimental mood, I added anyone who showed up as a speaker whether they wanted to or not. The result felt like a remnant of my childhood in Woodstock, NY, where we were part of a party line with nearby neighbors. You’d be talking with someone and suddenly realize someone else was on the line, interrupting to basically say they needed to make a more important call. Awkward but oddly exhilarating, as you realized the potential of not only lurking but lurked. I’m not sure how this is useful or not, but remember that @mentions and retweets were invented not by Twitter but by users. And using Twitter like a party line turned out to be the true superpower of the social network. On Clubhouse, if no one had anything to say, they were quiet. It was very peaceful.

Another pleasant surprise was a listener/speaker from Manchester, England who professed to being a longtime listener to the Gang. He and Keith, also from Manchester, started talking about Manchester United, an important football team I know nothing about. An old friend from the conference circuit popped in and our producer/director Tina Chase Gillmor somehow started up a conversation about my alleged style as a writer. Talking about me is easily my least favorite thing to do, but having others do the job is high on my most list. It’s also acutely reminiscent of the tech conference hallway conversation stubbed out by the pandemic. I now started to understand why Hallway mode was so-called. It’s the grease of the wheel business rides on. Follow the Gillmor Gang club on Clubhouse and you’ll be notified about our next experiment.

from the Gillmor Gang Newsletter

__________________

The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, May 7, 2021.

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

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

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

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

News: Kia’s fast-charging EV6 electric crossover is coming to the U.S. in early 2022

• May 19, 2021
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The Kia EV6, an all-electric crossover that kicks off the automaker’s Plan S strategy to shift away from internal combustion engines and toward EVs, will come to the U.S. early next year, the company said Tuesday evening during a live streamed event in New York. The EV6 is the first dedicated battery-electric vehicle to built

The Kia EV6, an all-electric crossover that kicks off the automaker’s Plan S strategy to shift away from internal combustion engines and toward EVs, will come to the U.S. early next year, the company said Tuesday evening during a live streamed event in New York.

The EV6 is the first dedicated battery-electric vehicle to built on its new Electric-Global Modular Platform, a platform that is shared with Hyundai and Genesis as part of the Hyundai Motor Group. The EGM-platform is the underlying foundation of the new Hyundai Ioniq 5 compact crossover. And it’s one of 11 electric vehicles that Kia plans to deliver globally by 2026.

Kia said its new dedicated battery electric vehicles will all start with the “EV” prefix. A number will follow “EV” to indicate the vehicle’s position in the lineup. That puts the EV6 somewhere in the middle of its upcoming lineup.

While the global debut held earlier this year provided many of the details, a few new nuggets of information were shared, including that customers can make reservations for 1,500 first edition versions of the EV6 beginning June 3. The automaker has not revealed pricing for any of the vehicle trims.

The EV6 First Edition will be similar to the base model with lots of techie add-ons, including an augmented reality head-up display, remote smart parking assist feature, 14-speaker Meridian audio system and a two-year subscription to SiriusXM. There will be notable mechanical and exterior differences as well, including a wide sunroof, 20-inch wheels, dual-motor AWD and a 77.4 kWh battery.

Nuts and bolts

Kia designed the EV6 to look and perform like a roomy sports car. The four-door crossover has a low front end that moves up into a roofline, giving it coupe-like profile. The LED headlights have a segmented pattern and the traditional grille found on internal combustion engine vehicles is gone.

The EV6 has the same 114.2-inch wheelbase as the Kia Telluride, which gives some sense of its size.

The Kia EV6 will come with two Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese battery pack options — a 58 kWh or 77.4 kWh — with the larger one providing a targeted range of 300 miles. The vehicle is offered in both rear-wheel and AWD, which depending on the electric motor and battery configuration delivers between 167 and 313 horsepower. The EV6 GT, an AWD model that comes with the larger battery and powerful front and rear electric motors, delivers 567 horsepower. The GT model, which won’t be available until late 2022, can travel from 0 to 60 mph in less than 3.5 seconds.

Perhaps more importantly, is that the vehicle supports 400-volt and 800-volt DC charging. Kia claims that 800v DC fast charging from a 350-kW charger can add up to 210 miles to the battery in under 18 minutes.

Kia loaded up on various charging features. The EV6 has an onboard 11 kW charger for Level 2 charging that will power up the battery in about seven hours. There’s also what Kia calls vehicle-to-load functionality, which is jargony way of saying the EV6 can be a power source for appliances, tools and devices like a computer. It works by taking electricity from the battery to a charging control unit, which provides 1900 watts of power.

The user is able to plug into that power via a 100v outlet located in a socket on front of second row seat base. If the battery is fully charged, Kia says power  can be drawn from the vehicle for 36 or more consecutive hours. It can also be used to charge vehicle-to-vehicle, albeit at 1.1 kW, which is a glacial pace that is equivalent to a 110V charger.

There are numerous other driver assistance, safety and in-car tech features as well. Inside the vehicle, are two 12-inch screens that form a curved display and house the instrument cluster and infotainment center. There is Bluetooth functionality and wireless smartphone charging, which has become standard fare in modern vehicles.

For an extra fee, customers can add on a Wi-FI hotspot and the ability to update the maps and infotainment system software wirelessly. Other features include a in-car commerce feature called Kia Pay, a stolen vehicle recovery tracker, smartwatch accessibility that provides battery status, vehicle notifications and certain vehicle control through Apple and Android smartwatches and connected car functions for weather and routing.

Customers are also able to use Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant through a smart speaker integration to remotely control vehicle functions such as remote start.

Four cameras outside of the vehicle give a 360-degree view and help with to detect obstructions while parking along with several other safety features including a safe exit assist that alerts the driver or passengers opening the door to not exit if the system spots approaching traffic.

There is also 21 standard active advanced driver assistance systems including a feature that keeps a set distance from a car in front and centers the EV6 in the lane. A newer version of this feature will be able to assist with assist with lane changes and adjust the lateral position of the car within the lane, according to Kia.

News: UTEC, one of Asia’s largest deep-tech investment firms, launches new $275M fund

• May 19, 2021
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The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC), a deep-tech investment firm, announced the first close of its fifth fund, which is expected to total 30 billion JPY (or about $275 million USD) by June 2021. UTEC currently has about $780 million in total assets under management, and says this makes it one of the

The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC), a deep-tech investment firm, announced the first close of its fifth fund, which is expected to total 30 billion JPY (or about $275 million USD) by June 2021. UTEC currently has about $780 million in total assets under management, and says this makes it one of the largest venture capital funds focused on science and tech in Japan, and one of the largest deep-tech funds in Asia.

UTEC is an independent firm that works closely with universities. It is associated with The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), where it has a partnership with its Technology Licensing Office (TLO) to spin off and invest in companies that originated as research projects. It has also worked with researchers from Waseda University, Kyoto University, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Cambridge University, the National University of Singapore and the Indian Institute of Technology, among other institutions.

Broadly speaking, UTEC focuses on three areas: healthcare and life sciences, information technology and physical sciences and engineering. More specifically, it is looking for tech that addresses some of the most important issues in Japan, including an aging population, labor shortage and the digitization of legacy industries.

“UTEC 5 will allow us to provide more funds from seed/early to pre-IPO/M&A stages in Japan and worldwide, on a wider scale and in a more consistent manner,” said managing partner and president Tomotaka Goji in a statement. “I believe this will further help our startups expand to address the global issues of humankind.”

The firm also partners with other funds, including Arch Venture Partners and Blume Ventures, to find investment opportunities around the world.

UTEC’s portfolio already includes more than 80 Japanese startups and 30 startups from other places, including the United States, India, Southeast Asia and Europe. So far, 25 of its investments have exited. Thirteen went public and now have an aggregated market cap of about $15 billion, and 12 were through mergers and acquisitions.

Some of its exits include 908 Devices, a mass spectrometry company that went public on Nasdaq last year; Fyusion, a computer vision startup acquired by Cox Automotive; and Phyzios, which was acquired by Google in 2013.

About half of UTEC’s portfolio are university spin-offs. For companies that originated in academic research, UTEC supports their commercialization by helping hire crucial talent, including executive positions, business development and go-to-market strategies. The firm’s first check size is about $500,000 to $5 million, and it also usually provides follow-on capital.

“We typically double-down on our investment in subsequent funding rounds of the company and can invest up to about $23 million per company over its lifecycle,” UTEC principal Kiran Mysore, who leads their global AI investments, told TechCrunch.

UTEC’s other investments include personal mobility robotics company BionicM, which started at UTokyo and spatial intelligence solution developer Locix, spun-off from UC Berkeley. The firm also helps startups collaborate with academic institutions. For example, Indian biotech Bugworks collaborates with the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Japanese industrial robotics startup Mujin now works with Carnegie Mellon.

News: Financing for students startup StudentFinance raises $5.3M seed from Giant and Armilar

• May 18, 2021
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Fintech startup StudentFinance — which allows educational institutions to offer success-based financing for students — has raised a $5.3 million (€4.5 million) seed round co-led by Giant Ventures and Armilar Venture Partners. It’s now raised $6.6 million total, to date. StudentFinance launched in Spain first, followed by Germany and Finland, with the U.K. planned this

Fintech startup StudentFinance — which allows educational institutions to offer success-based financing for students — has raised a $5.3 million (€4.5 million) seed round co-led by Giant Ventures and Armilar Venture Partners. It’s now raised $6.6 million total, to date.

StudentFinance launched in Spain first, followed by Germany and Finland, with the U.K. planned this year. Existing investors Mustard Seed Maze and Seedcamp, along with Sabadell Venture Capital, also participated.

The startup, which launched at the beginning of 2020, provides the tech back end for institutions to offer flexible payment plans in the form of ISAs (income-share agreements). It also provides data intelligence on the employment market to predict job demand.

It now has 35 education providers signed up, managing over €5 million worth of ISAs. It also works with upskilling platforms including Ironhack and Le Wagon. StudentFinance’s competitors include (in the USA) Blair, Leif, Vemo Education, Chancen (Germany-based) and EdAid (U.K.-based).

As for why StudentFinance stands out from those companies, Mariano Kostelec, co-founder and CEO of StudentFinance, said: “StudentFinance is the only platform in this space providing the full end-to-end, cross-border infrastructure to deliver ISAs for students whilst helping to plug the growing skills gap. Not only do we provide the infrastructure to support the ISA financing model, but we also provide data intelligence on the employment market and a career-as-a-service platform that focuses on placing students in the right job. We are creating an equilibrium between supply and demand.”

With an ISA, students only start paying back tuition once they are employed and earning above a minimum income threshold, with payments structured as a percentage of their earnings. This makes it a “success-based model”, says StudentFinance, which shifts the risk away from the students. They are likely to be popular as workers need to reskill with the onset of digitization and the pandemic’s effects.

The startup was founded in 2019 by Kostelec, Marta Palmeiro, Sergio Pereira and Miguel Santo Amaro. Kostelec and Santo Amaro previously built Uniplaces, which raised $30 million as a student housing platform in Europe.

Cameron Mclain, managing partner of Giant Ventures, commented: “What StudentFinance has built empowers any educational institution to offer ISAs as an alternative to upfront tuition or student loans, broadening access to education and opportunity.”

Duarte Mineiro, partner at Armilar Venture Partners, commented: “StudentFinance is a great opportunity to invest in because aside from its very compelling core purpose, this is a sound business where its economics are backed by a solid proprietary software technology.”

Sia Houchangnia, partner at Seedcamp, commented: “The need for reskilling the workforce has never been as acute as it is today and we believe StudentFinance has an important role to play in tackling this societal challenge.”

Angel backers include investors, which includes: Victoria van Lennep (founder of Lendable); Martin Villig (founder of Bolt); Ed Vaizey (the U.K.’s longest-serving Culture & Digital Economy Minister); Firestartr (U.K.-based early-stage VC); Serge Chiaramonte (U.K. fintech investor); and more.

News: Google is making it easier to bring Android apps to your car

• May 18, 2021
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By the end of the year, more than 10 car models from Volvo, GM, Renault and Polestar will be powered by the Android Automotive operating system — and all of the built-in Google apps and services that come with it. Now, the company is making it easier for third-party developers to bring their navigation, EV

By the end of the year, more than 10 car models from Volvo, GM, Renault and Polestar will be powered by the Android Automotive operating system — and all of the built-in Google apps and services that come with it. Now, the company is making it easier for third-party developers to bring their navigation, EV charging, parking and media apps directly to a car’s screen.

Google announced Tuesday at its annual developer conference that it’s extending its Android for Cars App Library, which is available as part of Jetpack, to support the Android Automotive operating system. This is good news for developers who can now create an app that is compatible with two different, but sometimes overlapping platforms: Android OS and Android Auto. It also means developers can create one app that should work seamlessly between various makes and models of vehicles.

Google said Tuesday it is already working with Early Access Partners, including Parkwhiz, Plugshare, Sygic, ChargePoint, Flitsmeister, SpotHero and others to bring apps in these categories to cars powered by Android Automotive OS.

Android Automotive OS shouldn’t be confused with Android Auto, which is a secondary interface that lies on top of an operating system. Android Auto is an app that runs on the user’s phone and wirelessly communicates with the vehicle’s infotainment system. Meanwhile, Android Automotive OS is modeled after its open-source mobile operating system that runs on Linux. But instead of running smartphones and tablets, Google modified it so automakers could use it in their cars.  Google has offered an open-source version of this OS to automakers for sometime. But in recent years automakers have worked with the tech company to natively build in an Android OS that is embedded with all the Google apps and services such as Google Assistant, Google Maps and the Google Play Store.

Many third-party developers like Spotify have used the Android for Cars App Library to create and publish their Android Auto apps to the Play Store. By extending the Cars App to the operating system, developers will only need to build once.

Two years ago, Google opened its Android Automotive operating system to third-party developers to bring music and other entertainment apps into vehicle infotainment systems. Polestar 2, the all-electric vehicle developed by Volvo’s standalone electric performance brand, was the first. And more have followed, including the Volvo XC40 Recharge.

Companies interested in participating in the early access program will have to fill out this interest form, according to Google.

News: Roofr just nailed down a second seed round to make new roofing sales a cinch to close

• May 18, 2021
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Roofer Pro. Roof Snap. Acculynx. There’s suddenly no shortage of companies offering software to make the lives of roofers and their customers easier. Among these is Roofr, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based, 31-person sales platform for roofing contractors that just raised $4.25 million in post-seed funding led by Bullpen Capital, with participation from Avidbank and previous

Roofer Pro. Roof Snap. Acculynx. There’s suddenly no shortage of companies offering software to make the lives of roofers and their customers easier. Among these is Roofr, a five-year-old, San Francisco-based, 31-person sales platform for roofing contractors that just raised $4.25 million in post-seed funding led by Bullpen Capital, with participation from Avidbank and previous backer Crosslink Capital.

Cofounder and CEO Rich Nelson is aware of the competition. But as a third-generation roofer by trade, he also knows well that the industry is far from overcoming its reputation as rife with sketchy, flaky contractors whose customers often question whether they need a new roof or suspect the estimates they are given are wildly inflated.

He also knows — as do his investors — how big a market opportunity Roofr and its rivals are chasing. “It’s a massive, massive market,” says Nelson. “On average, every year, roughly five million buildings in the U.S. have their roof replaced” and they spend $50 billion toward that end, he says.

Right now, Roofr is focused exclusively on the helping close that initial sale. It all starts with a picture of a roof that Roofr obtains from partner companies like Nearmap, whose planes cover cities at low altitude to take high-definition pictures, including of roofs; Roofr software then allows these contractors to draw their own roof measurement reports through these drone, blueprint, and satellite images and produce a report, or they can pay Roofr $10 per report to measure the roof for them.

Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 made the software more attractive to both roofing contractors and customers who weren’t keen on being in close proximity during the pandemic. Offerings like Roofr’s made it possible to quickly and easily send a potential customer a quote without visiting the job site. The bet now is that growing awareness over the product will continue to fuel that momentum.

The company also has new offerings in the pipeline that may also make it more compelling to both roofers and their clients. In addition to quickly providing roofers with measurement data, for example, roofers can now pay a monthly fee to have Roofr auto-populate an estimate based on a specific materials list, as well as the profit margin the roofer wants to incorporate; it also now provides and preserves digital contracts.

As for its current customer base, Nelson says that it includes the largest roofing contractors in North America but that Roofr is even more interested in small businesses, which, while fragmented, represent a much bigger opportunity. He says that there are more than 100,000 registered roofing businesses in the U.S., and that the vast majority are comprised of five employees or less. (Roofr also sells its software to independent insurance adjusters.)

The new round brings Roofr’s total funding to $8.25 million. Crosslink led its initial seed round in early 2019. Roofr also raised money from Y Combinator when it passed through the accelerator program in 2017.

Pictured above from left to right: Roofr cofounders Kevin Redman and Rich Nelson. Redman is the company’s CTO; Nelson is its CEO.

News: Daily Crunch: How Expensify maintained its early-stage startup culture after 13 years

• May 18, 2021
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Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

As summer kicks into gear, the IPO market is mimicking the season by cranking up its temperature. Today, TechCrunch explored the IPO filings from venture-backed Marqeta and software startup WalkMe. Squarespace direct lists later this week, along with public debuts from Oatly and Procore on Thursday. All this is great news for late-stage startups and their backers. Not to mention lots of tech workers around the world.

Also today, the fine folks at the Webbys announced that TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, Equity, is the best of its kind in the technology category. We’re stoked! — Alex

TechCrunch Top 3

Google hosts its yearly developer event: The advertising search company kicked off its yearly developer confab today, with the remote event showing off new tech including the ability to have a conversation with Pluto. Or a paper airplane. In more serious terms, Google has new AI chips that look pretty darn cool.

Our deep-dive into Expensify continues: As Expensify gets closer and closer to its public offering, TechCrunch’s coverage of the company’s history and growth continues. In today’s entry we also got to feature my favorite quote in years. Per CEO David Barrett, “Basically everyone is wrong about basically everything.” Agreed.

Piano shows there’s big money in subscription tech: We have a sheaf of funding round below, but the Piano deal stood out as it’s actually tech we use at TechCrunch. So, we’re super familiar with it. The news is that Piano has just closed an $88 million round, a deal that includes LinkedIn as an investor. Both the dollar amount and the investor list that the transaction sports are notable.

Startups and VC

TechCrunch covered our usual daily delivery of funding rounds today, a list that skewed later-stage today. So, from the land of big dollars:

Explorium scores $75M Series C: This new deal comes less than a year after Explorium closed its Series B round, so something is happening at the company that has investors taking note. In short, Explorium helps “data pros find the best data for a given model” according to our own Ron Miller. And it’s apparently big business.

Extend raises $260M at a $1.6B valuation: The warranty space is pretty hot at the moment. Just days after M25-backed Upsie raised an $18.2 million round, Extend picked up just over 14x as much capital to help retailers and brands offer warranties more efficiently, and, as Ingrid Lunden reports, help “consumers buy and file claims against them.”

Vise raises $65M Series C: The fintech world is hot, but not only when it comes to backend-infra services like Plaid, or shiny consumer plays like Chime. Vise provides portfolio-crunching services to indie financial advisors (hence its name, we presume), and has made enough process since its last round to entice Ribbit Capital to lead its latest private cash infusion.

Klayvio raises $320M at a $9.5B valuation: Recent EC-1 subject Klayvio’s latest round is proof that email is far, far from dead. The email marketing company told TechCrunch that its customer count “doubled over the past 12 months and [that it] now serves over 70,000 paying customers, a more than 110% increase from 2019.” That explains the new raise, and its nearly decacorn valuation.

In the honorable mention category, Styra raised $40 million (it’s best known for Open Policy Agent), commission-free trading startup Stake raised $30 million to expand in Europe, and Beta Technologies raised $368 million to keep working on electric airplanes.

Want to double your rate of return? Seek counsel from experienced executives

As a rule of thumb, it takes 7-8 years for a successful startup to achieve an exit. But there’s a simple way to speed up the clock: Bring in one or more founders who have previous executive experience.

According to data gathered by Rob Olson, partner and head of data strategy at venture engine M13, startups that have two or more experienced founders tend to exit 33% faster and raise 34% less capital.

“Combined, these two improvements can nearly double an investor’s rate of return,” says Olson.

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

Introducing TechCrunch Experts: Email Marketing

Who do you turn to when you need to know how to lay out your content, how to improve your open rates, or for general email marketing advice?

TechCrunch wants to find the top growth marketers in tech! We’re looking to founders for their recommendations on email marketers.

Fill out the survey here.

As the recommendations come in, we’ll begin sharing them publicly so that startups can find the right expert for what they need. This feedback will also help shape our editorial coverage moving forward, so make sure your voice is heard. Find more details at techcrunch.com/experts.

Big Tech Inc.

Today’s Big Tech news is all about Google and its I/O event. If you are super busy and just want the highlights, here you go:

• AI: Google has new AI chips that it is super proud of, and announced Vertex AI, a “new managed machine learning platform that is meant to make it easier for developers to deploy and maintain their AI models.” Keep in mind how competitive and cutthroat the public cloud world is. Here’s Google taking a stand from third place in that particular scrap.
• Android: We all knew that Android was popular, but I have to admit that I did not expect the software service to have found a home in some 3,000,000,000 devices. That’s nearly one device for every two humans and Google is keeping the ball rolling by teasing Android’s 12 iteration at I/O.
• Smart Canvas: Google’s various productivity apps are getting needed love, the company announced. In the mix is the news about Smart canvas, which we described as a “set of new collaborative workspace tools.” What matters more than any single point of news about Docs and friends is that Google is not giving up on them. Which means that, for those of us like myself who live in Google’s productivity suite, we have goodies coming. Good.

 

Community

As you pour through the news out of Google I/O, we wondered … does the latest Android 12 preview make you want to switch from an iPhone? Let us know.

Come chat with us about Google and more on our shiny new Discord server.

News: Everything Google announced at I/O today

• May 18, 2021
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This year’s I/O event from Google was heavy on the “we’re building something cool” and light on the “here’s something you can use or buy tomorrow.” But there were also some interesting surprises from the semi-live event held in and around the company’s Mountain View campus. Read on for all the interesting bits. Android 12

This year’s I/O event from Google was heavy on the “we’re building something cool” and light on the “here’s something you can use or buy tomorrow.” But there were also some interesting surprises from the semi-live event held in and around the company’s Mountain View campus. Read on for all the interesting bits.

Android 12 gets a fresh new look and some quality of life features

We’ve known Android 12 was on its way for months, but today was our first real look at the next big change for the world’s most popular operating system. A new look, called Material You (yes), focuses on users, apps, and things like time of day or weather to change the UI’s colors and other aspects dynamically. Some security features like new camera and microphone use indicators are coming, as well as some “private compute core” features that use AI processes on your phone to customize replies and notifications. There’s a beta out today for the adventurous!

Wow, Android powers 3 billion devices now

Subhed says it all (but read more here). Up from 2 billion in 2017.

Smart Canvas smushes Docs, productivity, and video calls together

Millions of people and businesses use Google’s suite of productivity and collaboration tools, but the company felt it would be better if they weren’t so isolated. Now with Smart Canvas you can have a video call as you work on a shared doc together and bring in information and content from your Drive and elsewhere. Looks complicated, but potentially convenient.

AI conversations get more conversational with LaMDA

It’s a little too easy to stump AIs if you go off script, asking something in a way that to you seems normal but to the language model is totally incomprehensible. Google’s LaMDA is a new natural language processing technique that makes conversations with AI models more resilient to unusual or unexpected queries, making it more like a real person and less like a voice interface for a search function. They demonstrated it by showing conversations with anthropomorphized versions of Pluto and a paper airplane. And yes, it was exactly as weird as it sounds.

Google built a futuristic 3D video calling booth

One of the most surprising things at the keynote had to be Project Starline, a high-tech 3D video call setup that uses Google’s previous research and Lytro DNA to show realistic 3D avatars of people on both sides of the system. It’s still experimental but looks very promising.

Wear OS gets a revamp and lots of health-focused apps

Few people want to watch a movie on their smartwatch, but lots of people like to use it to track their steps, meditation, and other health-related practices. Wear OS is getting a bunch of Fitbit DNA infused, with integrated health tracking stuff and a lot of third party apps like Calm and Flo.

Samsung and Google announce a unified smartwatch platform

These two mobile giants have been fast friends in the phone world for years, but when it comes to wearables, they’ve remained rivals. In the face of Apple’s utter dominance in the smartwatch space, however, the two have put aside their differences and announced they’ll work on a “unified platform” so developers can make apps that work on both Tizen and Wear OS.

And they’re working together on foldables too

Apparently Google and Samsung realized that no one is going to buy foldable devices unless they do some really cool things, and that collaboration is the best way forward there. So the two companies will also be working together to improve how folding screens interact with Android.

Android TV hits 80 million devices and adds phone remote

The smart TV space is a competitive one, and after a few starts Google has really made it happen with Android TV, which the company announced had reached 80 million monthly active devices — putting it, Roku, and Amazon (the latter two with around 50 million monthly active accounts) all in the same league. The company also showed off a powerful new phone-based remote app that will (among other things) make putting in passwords way better than using the d-pad on the clicker. Developers will be glad to hear there’s a new Google TV emulator and Firebase Test Lab will have Android TV support.

Your Android phone is now (also) your car key

Well, assuming you have a really new Android device with a UWB chip in it. Google is working with BMW first, and other automakers soon most likely, to make a new method for unlocking the car when you get near it, or exchanging basic commands without the use of a fob or Bluetooth. Why not Bluetooth you ask? Well, Bluetooth is old. UWB is new.

Vertex collects machine learning development tools in one place

Google and its sibling companies are both leaders in AI research and popular platforms for others to do their own AI work. But its machine learning development tools have been a bit scattershot — useful but disconnected. Vertex is a new development platform for enterprise AI that puts many of these tools in one place and integrates closely with optional services and standards.

There’s a new generation of Google’s custom AI chips

Google does a lot of machine learning stuff. Like, a LOT a lot. So they are constantly working to make better, more efficient computing hardware to handle the massive processing load these AI systems create. TPUv4 is the latest, twice as fast as the old ones, and will soon be packaged into 4,096-strong pods. Why 4,096 and not an even 4,000? The same reason any other number exists in computing: powers of 2.

And they’re powering some new Photos features including one that’s horrifying

Google Photos is a great service, and the company is trying to leverage the huge library of shots most users have to find patterns like “selfies with the family on the couch” and “traveling with my lucky hat” as fun ways to dive back into the archives. Great! But they’re also taking two photos taken a second apart and having an AI hallucinate what comes between them, leading to a truly weird looking form of motion that shoots deep, deep into the uncanny valley, from which hopefully it shall never emerge.

Forget your password? Googlebot to the rescue

Google’s “AI makes a hair appointment for you” service Duplex didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but the company has found a new way to apply it. If you forget your password, Duplex will automatically fill in your old password, pick a new one and let you copy it before submitting it to the site, all by interacting with the website’s normal reset interface. It’s only going to work on Twitter and a handful of other sites via Chrome for now, but hey, if it happens to you a lot, maybe it’ll save you some trouble.

Enter the Shopping Graph

The aged among our readers may remember Froogle, Google’s ill-fated shopping interface. Well, it’s back… kind of. The plan is to include lots of product information, from price to star rating, availability and other info, right in the Google interface when you search for something. It sucks up this information from retail sites, including whether you have something in your cart there. How all this benefits anyone more than Google is hard to imagine, but naturally they’re positioning it as wins all around. Especially for new partner Shopify. (Me, I use DuckDuckGo.)

Flutter cross-platform devkit gets an update

A lot of developers have embraced Google’s Flutter cross-platform UI toolkit. The latest version, announced today, adds some safety settings, performance improvements, and workflow updates. There’s lots more coming, too.

Firebase gets an update too

Popular developer platform Firebase got a bunch of new and updated features as well. Remote Config gets a nice update allowing developers to customize the app experience to individual user types, and App Check provides a basic level of security against external threats. There’s plenty here for devs to chew on.

The next version of Android Studio is Arctic Fox

The beta for the next version of Google’s Android Studio environment is coming soon, and it’s called Arctic Fox. It’s got a brand new UI building toolkit called Jetpack Compose, and a bunch of accessibility testing built in to help developers make their apps more accessible to people with disabilities. Connecting to devices to test on them should be way easier now too. Oh, and there’s going to be a version of Android Studio for Apple Silicon.

News: Android TV OS reaches 80M monthly active devices, adds new features

• May 18, 2021
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Google offered an update on its TV platform, Android OS, at its Google I/O developer event on Tuesday. The company said its Android TV OS now reaches over 80 million monthly active devices, including through its new experience Google TV for Chromecast, as well as other platforms like smart TVs. The company also previewed a

Google offered an update on its TV platform, Android OS, at its Google I/O developer event on Tuesday. The company said its Android TV OS now reaches over 80 million monthly active devices, including through its new experience Google TV for Chromecast, as well as other platforms like smart TVs. The company also previewed a series of upcoming features for Android TV OS, including a remote control feature for consumers and several developer updates around casting, emulators, and more.

The company repositioned Android TV OS last fall with the introduction of the Google TV experience. The new experience, which runs Android TV under the hood, now powers Chromecast with Google TV, smart TVs from Sony, and is coming soon to some TCL TVs. Over 80% of Android TV OS’ growth came from the U.S., Google noted, when announcing its 80 million monthly active devices milestone during the Google I/O event.

Google’s milestone may seem to put Android TV OS is ahead of rivals like Roku and Amazon Fire TV, with 53.6 million and 50+ million monthly active accounts, respectively. However, these are different measurements.

Android TV OS figures are actually calculated by counting the number of devices that were actively used in a month — which means a user with multiple devices could have those devices counted separately, but a family with multiple people watching on one device would be counted once.

Roku and Amazon define monthly active users as “accounts” that have been active during the month. That means, even if that account streams on several different devices during the time period, it would only be counted once. If Roku or Amazon were to calculate active devices as Google is doing, their numbers would be higher.

In addition, Roku and Amazon Fire TV power both their respective company’s own device lineup and select TVs from partners, but Google’s Android TV OS also powers devices and services from TV and streaming device brand partners as well as TV service providers. That means this global number includes operator-tier and set-top boxes also powered by Android TV OS. It’s a different type of market.

Google today also announced it’s adding remote control features directly in Android, so users will be able to control their TV even when their existing remote goes missing. This feature, arriving later this year, will make it easier to type in usernames and passwords or search for longer titles, Google notes. It will work for all users of Android TV OS, including Google TV.

Meanwhile, for those building Android TV experiences, the company announced a handful of new features coming soon. A Cast Connect feature will allow users to cast from their Chrome browser on their phone or tablet to an Android TV app. Stream Transfer and Stream Expansion will allow users to transfer media to other devices or play audio on multiple devices.

Google is also making its first Google TV Emulator available, running on Android 11, along with an Android 11 image with the traditional Android TV experience. And developers can now also use a remote that more closely mimics TV remotes directly within the Emulator.

Following developer requests, Firebase Test Lab is adding Android TV support, as well. Initially, Firebase Test Lab Virtual Devices will run the developer’s app in the cloud on Android TV emulators to scale a test across hundreds or thousands of virtual devices. Support for physical devices will come soon.

Finally, the Android 12 Beta 1 is being made available for TV on its ADT-3 Developer Kit, starting today.