Monthly Archives: May 2021

News: GasBuddy tops the App Store for the first time due to Colonial Pipeline attack

• May 12, 2021
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The GasBuddy mobile app, which typically helps consumers find the cheapest gas nearby, has now become the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store for the first time ever, due to the fuel shortages in the U.S. that followed the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline. Americans, fearful that gas would become unavailable, began panic-buying

The GasBuddy mobile app, which typically helps consumers find the cheapest gas nearby, has now become the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store for the first time ever, due to the fuel shortages in the U.S. that followed the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline. Americans, fearful that gas would become unavailable, began panic-buying in ways that haven’t been seen since the great toilet paper outage of 2020. As a result, thousands of gas stations ran out of fuel entirely. This dramatic situation has greatly benefitted the GasBuddy app, which includes a crowdsourced feature that helps users locate which local stations still have gas for sale.

As of Wednesday afternoon, GasBuddy says the effects of the Colonial Pipeline shutdown are being felt across 11 U.S. states, largely in the Southeast, and Washington D.C.. North Carolina had the highest number of gas stations with fuel outages, with 65% of stations reportedly out of gas as of 2:48 PM ET on Wednesday. Kentucky has the lowest at only 2%. Because this data is self-reported by GasBuddy users, it may not represent the most current information, we should note.

Image Credits: GasBuddy app screenshot

During the week, consumers have been turning to GasBuddy to help them find where they can fill up. Yesterday, the app hit No. 1 in the “Travel” category on the App Store, while it steadily climbed its way up the App Store’s Top Overall charts.

This afternoon, GasBuddy became both the No.1 app in the non-games category as well as the highest-ranked app Overall across the U.S. App Store.

According to data from app store intelligence firm Apptopia, GasBuddy yesterday saw 15,203 new downloads — a 59% increase from its average daily downloads, which were 9,560 for the past 30 days. However, third-party data isn’t always accurate for sudden shots in rank — it catches up in a few days after the fact.

Image Credits: Apptopia

Reached for comment, GasBuddy says its downloads were actually far higher than the third-party estimates. Across all platforms, including both iOS and Google Play, it saw 20x more downloads yesterday compared with an average day in 2021. The company told TechCrunch it counted 313,001 total downloads yesterday, compared with an average daily downloads for the previous 30 days of 15,339.

Broken down by platform, GasBuddy says it saw 104,735 downloads on Android and 208,266 downloads on iOS on Tuesday, May 11, 2021.

Apptopia had also noted that GasBuddy hadn’t been the No. 1 app on the App Store in all the time it’s been recording app store rankings, which goes back to Jan. 1, 2015. However, it noted the app itself launched back in 2010, making it possible (though not likely) that the app had reached No. 1 at some point.

GasBuddy confirmed that’s the not the case. Today is the first time it has ever topped the App Store, though it got close once before when it reached No. 2 behind a walkie-talkie app during Hurricane Irma in September 2017.

Image Credits: App Store screenshot on Wed., May 12, 2021

Consumers can continue to track statewide fuel outages here on GasBuddy’s website as well as where highest prices are being found. In the app, they can report whether gas stations have gas or diesel, as well as current prices.

The Colonial Pipeline, which runs 5,500 miles from the Gulf to the Northeast, shut down on Friday due to a ransomware attack from a criminal hacking network known as DarkSide, which is suspected to be based in Russia or Eastern Europe. The pipeline delivers about 45% of fuel used by the Eastern Seaboard. Reports of the shutdown sent Americans to stock up on gas, worsening the situation further. The U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the Colonial Pipeline intends to restore operations by the end of the week.

News: Waymo to lose its CFO and head of automotive partnerships

• May 12, 2021
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Waymo’s chief financial officer Ger Dwyer and its head of automotive partnerships and corporate development Adam Frost — two longtime executives at the autonomous vehicle company — are leaving this month, departures that comes amid some executive shuffling following CEO John Krafcik’s exit earlier this year. Dwyer and Frost’s departure was shared internally this week,

Waymo’s chief financial officer Ger Dwyer and its head of automotive partnerships and corporate development Adam Frost — two longtime executives at the autonomous vehicle company — are leaving this month, departures that comes amid some executive shuffling following CEO John Krafcik’s exit earlier this year.

Dwyer and Frost’s departure was shared internally this week, according to multiple sources. Waymo has confirmed to TechCrunch that Dwyer and Frost are leaving.

“We’re grateful to Ger and Adam for all they’ve done for Waymo and wish them all the best,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “An executive search is underway for a new CFO to lead us into our next chapter as we continue to build, deploy and commercialize the Waymo Driver.”

Dwyer, who reported directly to parent company Alphabet’s executive leadership finance team, is among several executives who have left the company in the past five months. Krafcik announced in April that he was stepping down as CEO. Chief Safety Officer Deborah Hersman left in December and Tim Willis, who was head of manufacturing and global supply and general manager of Waymo’s Laser Bear lidar business, departed in February. Sherry House, who had been at Waymo since 2017 and was most recently treasurer and head of investor relations, left the company in April. She is now CFO at Lucid Motors.

Still, some of the critical leaders, and the people directly below them, have remained. Tekedra Mawakana, who was COO, and Dmitri Dolgov, the CTO, are now co-CEOs of Waymo and appear to have the support of Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, according to brief remarks he made during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. Department heads directly below Mawakana and Dolgov are still at Waymo with a few exceptions, according to LinkedIn profiles. In March, both David Twohig, who was director of Future Automotive at Waymo, and Qi Hommes, who was once head of system safety, left. Hommes is now director of system safety engineering and analysis at Zoox, according to LinkedIn.

Dwyer’s departure also comes at a time when the demand for CFOs has rocketed alongside the continuous string of public offerings, including those done via mergers with special purpose acquisition companies. House’s move to Lucid Motors, which is going public via a merger with a SPAC, is one example.

Dwyer is a longtime Google employee, who started at the company in 2006. He made the leap in August 2016 over to Waymo, just a few months before the former Google self-driving project officially announced it had spun out to become a business under parent company Alphabet.

During his tenure, Dwyer oversaw the financial side of the business in a period of explosive growth that took the company from a few hundred employees to more than 2,000 today.

Frost, who headed up automotive partnerships, has also been an important figure at Waymo. He came to Google’s self-driving project in 2013 after nearly 17 years at Ford Motor Co., according to LinkedIn records. He was initially hired as a chief engineer and then rose through the ranks to chief automotive programs and partnerships officer and eventually chief automotive and corporate development officer. Waymo has locked in a number of what it has described as exclusive partnerships with automakers over the past several years, including Volvo, Stellantis (formerly FCA), as well as one with Renault and Nissan to research how commercial autonomous vehicles might work for passengers and packages in France and Japan.

Waymo also expanded its geographic footprint beyond California during both Dwyer and Frost’s stints. The company brought its autonomous vehicles into cities like Austin and Kirkland, Washington for testing and established operations in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, where it now operates a ride-hailing service called Waymo One using driverless vehicles as well as those with safety operators behind the wheel.

Last year, Waymo completed its first external round of fundraising, which was initially $2.25 billion and later expanded to $3 billion. The $2.25 billion round was led by Silver Lake with investments from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Mubadala Investment Company, Magna, Andreessen Horowitz and AutoNation and its parent company Alphabet. The extended capital came from new investors, including those managed by T. Rowe Price, Perry Creek Capital, Fidelity Management and Research Company and others.

The external raise followed a flurry of activity that suggested Waymo was ramping up its commercial enterprise, including expanding its core fleet in Mountain View, Calif., the Phoenix area and into Texas. Waymo also began to move beyond its robotaxi testing and began piloting new business applications for its autonomous vehicle technology such as delivery and trucking and even a plan to start selling its custom lidar sensors to companies in the robotics, security and agricultural technology industries.

It has also made numerous partners and at least one acquisition under Dwyer’s watch. Waymo acquired in December 2019 a U.K. company called Latent Logic that spun out of Oxford University’s computer science department. The company uses a form of machine learning called imitation learning that could beef up Waymo’s simulation efforts. The acquisition marked the launch of Waymo’s first European engineering hub in Oxford, U.K.

News: TikTok removes 500k+ accounts in Italy after DPA order to block underage users

• May 12, 2021
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Video sharing social network TikTok has removed more than 500,000 accounts in Italy following an intervention by the country’s data protection watchdog earlier this year ordering it to recheck the age of all Italian users and block access to any under the age of 13. Between February 9 and April 21 more than 12.5M Italian

Video sharing social network TikTok has removed more than 500,000 accounts in Italy following an intervention by the country’s data protection watchdog earlier this year ordering it to recheck the age of all Italian users and block access to any under the age of 13.

Between February 9 and April 21 more than 12.5M Italian users were asked to confirm that they are over 13 years old, according to the regulator.

Online age verification remains a hard problem and it’s not clear how many of the removed accounts definitively belonged to under 13s. The regulator said today that TikTok removed over 500k users because they were “likely” to be under the age of 16; around 400,000 because they declared an age under 13 and 140,000 through what the DPA describes as “a combination of moderation and reporting tools” implemented within the app.

TikTok has also agreed to take a series of additional measures to strengthen its ability to detect and block underage users — including potentially developing AI tools to help it identify when children are using the service.

Reached for comment, TikTok sent us a statement confirming that it is trialling “additional measures to help ensure that only users aged 13 or over are able to use TikTok”.

Here’s the statement, which TikTok attributed to Alexandra Evans, its head of child safety in Europe:

“TikTok’s top priority is protecting the privacy and safety of our users, and in particular our younger users. Following continued engagement with the Garante, we will be trialling additional measures to help ensure that only users aged 13 or over are able to use TikTok.

“We already take industry-leading steps to promote youth safety on TikTok such as setting accounts to private by default for users aged under 16 and enabling parents to link their account to their teen’s through Family Pairing. There is no finish line when it comes to safety, and we continue to evaluate and improve our policies, processes and systems, and consult with external experts.”

Italy’s data protection regulator made an emergency intervention in January — ordering TikTok to recheck the age of all users and block any users whose age it could not verify. The action followed reports in local media about a 10-year-old girl from Palermo who died of asphyxiation after participating in a “blackout challenge” on the social network.

Among the beefed up measures TikTok has agreed to take is a commitment to act faster to remove underage users — with the Italian DPA saying the platform has guaranteed it will cancel reported accounts it verifies as belonging to under 13s within 48 hours.

The regulator said TikTok has also committed to “study and develop” solutions — which may include the use of artificial intelligence — to “minimize the risk of children under 13 using the service”.

TikTok has also agree to launch ad campaigns, both in app and through radio and newspapers in Italy, to raise awareness about safe use of the platform and get the message out that it is not suitable for under-12s — including targeting this messaging in a language and format that’s likely to engage underage minors themselves.

The social network has also agreed to share information with the regulator relating to the effectiveness of the various experimental measures — to work with the regulator to identify the best ways of keeping underage users off the service.

The DPA said it will continue to monitor TikTok’s compliance with its commitments.

Prior to the Garante’s action, TikTok’s age verification checks had been widely criticized as trivially easier for kids to circumvent — with children merely needing to input a false birth date that suggested they are older than 13 to circumvent the age gate and access the service.

A wider investigation that the DPA opened into TikTok’s handling and processing of children’s data last year remains ongoing.

The regulator announced it had begun proceedings against the platform in December 2020, following months of investigation, saying then that it believed TikTok was not complying with EU data protection rules which set stringent requirements for processing children’s data.

In January the Garante also called for the European Data Protection Board to set up an EU taskforce to investigate concerns about the risks of children’s use of the platform — highlighting similar concerns being raised by other agencies in Europe and the U.S.

In February the European consumer rights organization, BEUC, also filed a series of complaints against TikTok, including in relation to its handling of kids’ data.

Earlier this year TikTok announced plans to bring in outside experts in the region to help with content moderation and said it would open a ‘transparency’ center in Europe where outside experts could get information on its content, security and privacy policies.

News: 36 hours left to apply to Startup Battlefield at TC Disrupt 2021

• May 12, 2021
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Do you and your early-stage startup have what it takes to be a modern-day gladiator and compete in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021? You won’t know unless you apply, and time is running out. You have only 48 hours left to throw your helmet into the ring. If you want to compete for glory,

Do you and your early-stage startup have what it takes to be a modern-day gladiator and compete in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021? You won’t know unless you apply, and time is running out. You have only 48 hours left to throw your helmet into the ring.

If you want to compete for glory, global exposure and $100,000 in equity-free prize money, apply to Startup Battlefield here before May 13 at 11:59 pm (PT).

Not familiar with Startup Battlefield? It’s launched 922 companies — including the likes of Dropbox, Vurb, Mint and a bunch more — that have collectively raised $9.5 billion and produced 117 exits.

We can tell you what it’s like to compete in Startup Battlefield and about the benefits and opportunities that come from it. But Stacey Hronowski — co-founder and CEO of Canix, the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2020 — describes it best.

“Our experience in Startup Battlefield was excellent. The rigorous training was specific and tailored to our individual business and presentation. I was particularly impressed with the Q&A training. I’ve fundraised numerous times and the practice questions were some of the most insightful and specific questions I’ve faced. I feel extremely well prepared for future fundraises.

Post Startup Battlefield, we received significant press coverage and reach outs from notable investors. The experience was one of the most special of my life; I never thought I’d get the chance to share the story of Canix with investors and media across the globe.”

And guess what?! It won’t cost you a thing to apply or to compete. You can be from anywhere in the world and in any industry — but you should have an MVP. Are you detail oriented? Read more about how Startup Battlefield works.

We’re tapping top VC talent to judge the Battlefield. Here are just a few of the experts you’ll need to impress.

• Terri Burns, partner at GV
• Shauntel Garvey, general partner at Reach Capital
• Sydney Thomas, principal at Precursor Ventures
• Alexa von Tobel, co-founder and managing partner at Inspired Capita

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 22-23, and if you want a shot at massive exposure and $100,000, you need to apply to Startup Battlefield before the deadline expires — in just 48 hours — on May 13 at 11:59 pm (PT). Go, gladiators, go!

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

News: Dear Sophie: Does it make sense to sponsor immigrant talent to work remotely?

• May 12, 2021
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My startup is considering individuals who live outside the U.S. for a few positions we are looking to fill. Does it make sense to sponsor them for a visa to work remotely from somewhere in the U.S.?

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie,

My startup is in big-time hiring mode. All of our employees are currently working remotely and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future — even after the pandemic ends. We are considering individuals who are living outside of the U.S. for a few of the positions we are looking to fill.

Does it make sense to sponsor them for a visa to work remotely from somewhere in the United States?

— Selective in Silicon Valley

Dear Selective,

Thanks for reaching out — I’m always happy to hear about another fast-growing startup! If some of your leadership team is also abroad, check out the recent announcement about the new International Entrepreneur Parole program for founders.

It can make great business sense to sponsor international talent for a visa even if the position involves working remotely from a location inside the U.S. With the right legal setup, your team can work from home in Silicon Valley, nearby in California, or in another state where the cost of living is not quite as high. We’ve received this question from many employers, and many of our clients are proceeding with sponsoring international talent with visas and green cards for work-from-home positions.

I discussed this and other issues related to recruiting and work trends with Katie Lampert for my podcast. Lampert leads the talent acquisition and infrastructure group at General Catalyst, a VC firm that invests in seed to growth-stage startups in the U.S. and abroad. She advises companies in the General Catalyst portfolio on all things talent-related, including establishing company culture, creating a company’s infrastructure for recruiting and retaining talent, and planning for the future.

“Recruiting is going to be more global, which is exciting,” Lampert said during our discussion. “This will have a really positive effect on cultural diversity in the workforce. Studies show that a more diverse workforce leads to greater financial success.”

In fact, the latest McKinsey & Co. report on diversity, “Diversity wins: How inclusion matters,” found that companies with ethnically and culturally diverse executive teams are 36% more likely to achieve above-average profitability than companies with less diverse teams. McKinsey has issued three reports on diversity, and with each subsequent report, the business case for ethnic and cultural diversity and gender diversity in corporate leadership has grown stronger.

In addition to boosting profitability, bringing international talent to the United States to join your startup offers a host of other benefits as well.

News: Direct-to-consumer orthodontic startup Impress raises $50M to scale across Europe

• May 12, 2021
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As the famous phrase goes, ‘software is eating the world’ and now software is eating dentistry. Or, perhaps more accurately, the arena of orthodontics — the specialty of dentistry that deals with things like braces — is slowly but surely being digitalized. To whit, Impress, a Southern European player in direct-to-consumer orthodontics, has raised a

As the famous phrase goes, ‘software is eating the world’ and now software is eating dentistry. Or, perhaps more accurately, the arena of orthodontics — the specialty of dentistry that deals with things like braces — is slowly but surely being digitalized.

To whit, Impress, a Southern European player in direct-to-consumer orthodontics, has raised a $50 million Series A funding round led by CareCapital (a dental division of Hillhouse Capital in Asia), along with Nickleby capital, UNIQA Ventures, and investors including Michael Linse, Valentin Pitarque, Peter Schiff, Elliot Dornbusch, and others. All existing shareholders, such as TA Ventures and Bynd VC, also participated. 

Impress is an homage to the direct-to-consumer startups in this area in the US such as SmileDirect< and now plans to scale across Europe from its existing bases in Spain, Italy, Portugal, UK, and France.

The company was founded in 2019 in Barcelona by orthodontist Dr. Khaled Kasem and serial entrepreneurs Diliara and Vladimir Lupenko.

Speaking from Barclenoa, Lupenko told me that the idea was to “combine the best orthodontic tradition with the most innovative technology in the sector.”

As things stand, most of the time, consumers can usually only access cosmetic teeth alignment treatments or orthodontic medical treatments in conventional clinics. The new wave of clinics employs 3D scans and panoramic X-rays to check nerve and bone health.

Impress’s model is to offer these high-quality medical treatments directly to consumers, by developing its own chain of orthodontic clinics, which also put an emphasis on design and a ‘modern’ patient experience, it says.

As Diliara Lupenko says: “We didn’t copy what other companies in the space were doing and approached the market from a different angle from the get-go. We doubled down on the doctor-led digital model which brought us way better conversion rates and treatment quality even though on paper it looked complex in the beginning. It’s still very complex but we were able to crack it and scale exponentially.”

Impress now has 75 clinics in Spain, Italy, the UK, France, and Portugal which optimize costs and automate key parts of the value chain.

It now says it’s approaching €50m in annual run-rate and is projected to grow to €150m of revenue in 12 months. 

Andreas Nemeth, managing partner of UNIQA Ventures GmbH commented: “Impress’s customer-centric focus, as well as its demonstrated ability to blitzscale, attracted us to the business. Vladimir and his team leverage technology to create a seamless customer journey for invisible orthodontics and optimized their cost structure in a unique way using software.”

News: Bird Ride’s SPAC filing shows scooter-nomics just doesn’t fly

• May 12, 2021
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What drove the company’s hugely unprofitable revenues and resulting net losses? Unit economics that were nearly comically destructive.

Scooter unicorn Bird Rides is going public, per an agreement to merge with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. After rumors and reports circulated for months about an imminent deal, it has finally arrived.

First, a quick overview of the agreement and the players involved: Bird is merging with Switchback II at an implied valuation of $2.3 billion. Fidelity Management & Research Company will lead the deal’s $106 million in private investment in public equity, or PIPE. Apollo Investment Corp. and MidCap Financial Trust provided an additional $40 million in asset financing. (Disclosure: Apollo is buying TechCrunch’s parent company.)

Historically — and based on what we’re seeing in this fantastical filing — Bird proved to be a simply awful business. Its results from 2019 and 2020 describe a company with a huge cost structure and unprofitable revenue, per filings. After posting negative gross profit in both of the most recent full-year periods, Bird’s initial model appears to have been defeated by the market.

Some of the numbers Bird shared in its investor deck show a business that is growing, in terms of users and geographic footprint. Bird is in 200 cities globally and reports more than 95 million rides to date, and 3 million new riders added during the pandemic. The investor deck also touts year-round positive economics during the COVID-19 era. That all looks positive. But looking into the line-item financials, a different story emerges.

The scooter shop managed to convert a $135.7 million gross loss in 2019 to a smaller gross deficit of $23.5 million in 2020, but it did not manage to shake up its upside-down economics during its full fiscal 2020.

News: TikTok launches a Green Screen Duet feature, tests dedicated ‘Topics’ feeds

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As competition with tech giants heats up, TikTok is rolling out a series of new features to help keep its short-form video app ahead of rivals. The company today announced the launch of a new Green Screen Duet feature, which combines two of TikTok’s most popular editing tools to allow creators to use another video

As competition with tech giants heats up, TikTok is rolling out a series of new features to help keep its short-form video app ahead of rivals. The company today announced the launch of a new Green Screen Duet feature, which combines two of TikTok’s most popular editing tools to allow creators to use another video from TikTok as the background in their new video. It also confirmed the test of a new way to discover videos called “Topics.” These are dedicated interest-based feeds featuring the top, trending videos in a given category.

Green Screen Duet joins an existing set of Duet tools that let creators lay out two videos side-by-side. Today, Duet layouts include “Left & Right,” “React,” and “Top & Bottom.” Creators currently use Duets to sing, dance, joke or act alongside another user’s video, react to a video’s content, or even just watch a video from another, sometimes smaller, creator to raise awareness or call attention to its content.

Editing tools like Duet and Stitch are key to what makes TikTok not just a passive video viewing app but, rather, a new type of video-first social network. It’s also proven so popular, it has since been adopted by Facebook’s TikTok clone, Instagram Reels, where its known as Remix.  Snapchat has been developing a Remix feature of its own, too.

Image Credits: TikTok

TikTok’s new Green Screen Duet will now appear as another option alongside the existing layouts, offering users a way to more easily use another video in the background as they record their own video overlaid on top.

This sort of video experience is something TikTok creators already do in a variety of ways. For example, they may capture images or screen recordings, then use other editing tools to create a green screen effect like this. Or they may react to a video using a Stitch instead, as that can be easier. A built-in Green Screen Duet feature simply offers another way to record new videos that include existing videos.

When the feature is used, the Duetted video plays in the background over the new video being recorded. TikTok believes the launch will inspire new formats for creativity and expression, as a result.

TikTok has been busy upgrading its interface to improve recording and discovering new video content in its app in recent weeks, as Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat have tried to reproduce TikTok’s feature set in their own apps. For instance, TikTok just launched interactive music features last month in an effort to get ahead.

In another leap, TikTok is also now testing a new Discover page in the app, where instead of only featuring the current trends, as before, it now organizes videos into categories.

These categories represent the many areas of interest on TikTok, like gaming, beauty, dance, TV & movies, sports, family, learning, and much more. When you tap into any given category, you’re taken to a feed that includes the community’s top, trending content. The feeds will be affected by factors like relevance, timeliness, and interest, and can help users find new content and creators outside of what their personalized For You page shows.

TikTok confirmed the test has been rolling out in the U.S. over the past few weeks.

The company also currently testing e-commerce shopping features, where some brands like Hype and Walmart have been given a new “Shopping” tab on their TikTok profile where users can shop items, add to cart and then check out without leaving the app.

Image Credits: TikTok

The integration is less elegant than Instagram’s Shops, as there’s not a native, universal cart or integrated payment mechanism. Instead, users are visiting the retailer’s website directly.

The advances TikTok is making, however, has been paying off in terms of capturing a large Gen Z user base.

According to eMarketer, more Gen Z users in the U.S. now use TikTok than Instagram, or 37.3 million monthly active users compared with 33.3 million users, respectively. And by 2023, the firm predicts TikTok will surpass Snapchat in terms of total U.S. users, as well.

But TikTok’s global ambitions are impacted not only by its ban in India but also the possibility that creators will find more monetization opportunities on established platforms.

Yesterday, for example, YouTube announced a $100 million fund for top YouTube Shorts creators, and said it will soon testing ads on Shorts. That could help creators generate revenue from short-form content, while also converting casual viewers to channel subscribers where there are even more opportunities to monetize. Snapchat and Instagram have also been wooing creators with cash, and ultimately, if creators find they can make more money elsewhere they could shift some of their attention away from TikTok, no matter how many creative new features it adds.

News: Planck, the insurance data analytics platform, raises $20M growth round

• May 12, 2021
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Planck, the AI-based data platform for commercial insurance underwriting, announced today it has raised a $20 million growth round. The funding came from 3L Capital and Greenfield Partners, along with returning investors Team8, Viola Fintech, Arbor Ventures and Eight Roads. This brings the New York-based startup’s total raised to $48 million, including a $16 million

Planck co-founders (from left to right): David Schapiro, CEO Elad Tsur and CTO Amir Cohen

Planck, the AI-based data platform for commercial insurance underwriting, announced today it has raised a $20 million growth round. The funding came from 3L Capital and Greenfield Partners, along with returning investors Team8, Viola Fintech, Arbor Ventures and Eight Roads.

This brings the New York-based startup’s total raised to $48 million, including a $16 million Series B it announced in June 2020. Planck said it currently works with “dozens of commercial insurance companies in the U.S.,” including more than half of the top-30 insurers. It will use its new funding to build its U.S. team, expand into global markets, and add products for new business segments. Ernie Feirer has also joined Planck as its head of U.S. business. He previously held leadership roles at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, building data analytics solutions for property and casualty insurance carriers.

Planck’s database, which includes online images, text, videos, reviews and public records, allows it to give insurance providers real-time information that helps them determine premiums, process claims and give SMEs faster quotes. It covers more than 50 business segments, including restaurants, construction, retail and manufacturing, and can deliver analytics by simply entering a business’ name and address.

For example, if a healthcare business is seeking to buy or renew an insurance policy, Planck can give underwriters information such as the type of equipment used, what kind of drugs it prescribes and the type of surgeries it performs.

In a statement, 3L Capital principal Paige Thacher said, “Commercial carriers and brokers can no longer afford to rely upon traditional data sources as they prospect, assess risk and monitor a small business insured’s changing exposure during the policy life cycle. The new imperative is to leverage AI and machine learning technologies to dynamically harvest business insights from the insured’s digital footprint.”

News: Don’t hate on low-code and no-code

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You can’t dismiss no- and low-code services as a fountain of technical debt and lukewarm dev projects. If you do, the market is kinda saying that you’re just elitist and obstinate.

As far as I can tell, low-code and no-code services are rapidly proving that prior models for products as broad as enterprise app creation and AI-powered data analytics were lackluster. My evidence? A mix of public- and private-market low- and no-code companies are putting up impressive results.

The Exchange caught up with Appian CEO Matt Calkins after his enterprise app software company reported its first-quarter performance to discuss the low-code market and what he’s hearing in customer meetings. To round out our general thesis — and shore up our somewhat bratty headline — we’ve compiled a list of recent low-code and no-code venture capital rounds, of which there are many.

As we’ll show, the pace at which venture capitalists are putting funds into companies that fall into our two categories is pretty damn rapid, which implies that they are doing well as a cohort. We can infer as much because it has become clear in recent quarters that while today’s private capital market is stupendous for some startups, it’s harder than you’d think for others.

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The dividing factor? Signs of impressive present-day traction: Startups that are growing very fast have nearly unlimited access to capital, while those that are growing at merely fast rates are often finding it difficult to find a dance partner.

So if we can show that a huge, diverse set of no-code and low-code startups are raising oodles of capital, we can infer something relatively sturdy about market demand for their products. (It also doesn’t hurt that no-code automation service Zapier is growing like a weed and has reached IPO scale. And, in other news, Appian just dropped a new version of its low-code automation platform, for whatever that is worth.)

First Appian’s CEO, then a venture capital roundup. This should be fun.

Public performance

Briefly, Appian reported $88.9 million in Q1 2021 revenue, of which $39.1 million came from its cloud subscription business. The latter figure rose 38% in the quarter compared to the year-ago period. Appian also swung to adjusted EBITDA profit in the period. Investors responded by hammering the company’s stock in the wake of the results. From an April share-price range in the mid-$130s, Appian is now trading in the mid $80s, though only some of those declines came post-earnings.

But the company’s stock price is only so important. Precisely how conservative any one public company’s guidance is for the current year and how those forecasts play with investor expectations during a period of generally excessive valuations is not our game. What does matter is what the company’s CEO had to say about the low-code space itself.