Monthly Archives: May 2021

News: 3 golden rules for health tech entrepreneurs

• May 10, 2021
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Following these rules won’t guarantee success for your health tech startup, but if you can’t pin down these basics, you don’t have a shot.

If the last 10 years practicing family medicine have taught me anything, it’s that there is a desperate need for innovation in healthcare. I don’t just mean in terms of medical treatments or protocols, but really in every aspect. As a physician, I’ve worked with my fair share of “the latest and greatest” innovations both in my outpatient practice and at hospitals.

As I shifted into my current position, I’ve come across some products that were distinguished winners, eventually going on to become not just highly successful but the new gold standard in the industry. Others, unfortunately, never even got off the ground. Often, in the back of my mind, I felt like I could always tell which ones had the staying power to transform healthcare the way it needed to be transformed.

When it comes to ensuring the success of your product, service or innovation, following these three golden rules will put you on the right track. It’s no guarantee, but without getting these three things right, you’ve got no shot.

Design for outcomes first

Stephen Covey coined the phrase: “Begin with the end in mind.” It’s the second of his 7 Habits. But he could have also been writing about habits for health tech innovators. It’s not enough to develop a “new tool” to use in a health setting. Maybe it has a purpose, but does it meaningfully address a need, or solve a problem, in a way that measurably improves outcomes? In other words: Does it have value?

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, pharmaceutical and research firms set out upon a global mission to develop safe and effective vaccines, to bring the virus under control and return life around the world to something approaching “normal” … and quickly. In less than a year, Pfizer and Moderna crossed the finish line first, bringing novel two-jab mRNA vaccines to market with extraordinary speed and with an outstanding efficacy rate.

Vaccine makers started with an outcome in mind and, in countries with plentiful vaccine access, are delivering on those outcomes. But not all outcomes need be so lofty to be effective. Maybe your innovation aims to:

• Improve patient compliance with at-home treatment plans.
• Reduce the burden of documentation on physicians and scribes.
• Increase access to quality care among underserved, impoverished or marginalized communities.

For example, Alertive Healthcare, one of our portfolio companies, wanted to meaningfully improve round-the-clock care for when patients couldn’t get in to see their physicians and developed a platform for clinical-grade remote patient monitoring. Patients download an easy-to-use app that sends intelligent alerts to providers, reducing documentation and decreasing time to treatment. Patients enrolled in the app reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke by 50%. That’s compelling value and an example of designing for outcomes.

When designing for outcomes, it’s also important to know precisely how you’ll measure success. When you can point toward quantifiable metrics, you’re not only giving yourself goals in your product design and development, you’re also establishing the proof points that sell your product into the market. Make them as meaningful and measurable as possible, as soon as possible.

News: NTSB: Autopilot could not have been engaged in fatal Tesla crash

• May 10, 2021
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Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system known as Autopilot could not have been engaged on the stretch of road where a Model S crashed last month in Texas, killing the two occupants, according to a preliminary report released Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board. The results help clear up some of the mysteries around the

Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system known as Autopilot could not have been engaged on the stretch of road where a Model S crashed last month in Texas, killing the two occupants, according to a preliminary report released Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The results help clear up some of the mysteries around the crash, which has received widespread attention after police reported that there was no one in the driver’s seat, leading to speculation that Autopilot was functioning at the time.

Only adaptive cruise control, one of the functions in Autopilot, could be engaged in that section of the road, according to the NTSB. Autosteer, another feature that keeps the vehicle in the lane, was not available on that part of the road, the report says. The preliminary report supports comments made during Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering Lars Moravy, who said during an earnings call that adaptive cruise control was engaged and accelerated to 30 miles per hour before the car crashed.

NTSB also confirmed there were only two occupants in the vehicle. When the two men were found, one was in the passenger seat and the other was in the back seat, which led to speculation about whether Autopilot was engaged and even conspiracy theories that there was a third occupant.

“Footage from the owner’s home security camera shows the owner entering the car’s driver’s seat and the passenger entering the front passenger seat,” the report reads. “The car leaves and travels about 550 feet before departing the road on a curve, driving over the curb, and hitting a drainage culvert, a raised manhole, and a tree.”

What is still unknown is whether the driver moved to another seat before or after the crash.

The NTSB said it will continue to collect data to analyze the crash dynamics, postmortem toxicology test results, seat belt use, occupant egress and electric vehicle fires. All aspects of the crash remain under investigation, the NTSB said.

The NTSB’s preliminary report also indicated that the crash of the Tesla Model S, which caught fire after hitting a tree, destroyed an onboard storage device and damaged the restraint control module — two components that could have provided important information about the cause of the incident. The car’s restraint control module, which can record data associated with vehicle speed, belt status, acceleration, and airbag deployment, was recovered but sustained fire damage, the agency said. The NTSB has taken the restraint control module to its recorder laboratory for evaluation.

The NTSB is investigating the crash with support from Tesla and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Harris County Texas Precinct 4 Constable’s Office is conducting a separate, parallel investigation.

News: Facebook is testing pop-up messages telling people to read a link before they share it

• May 10, 2021
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Years after popping open a Pandora’s box of bad behavior, social media companies are trying to figure out subtle ways to reshape how people use their platforms. Following Twitter’s lead, Facebook is trying out a new feature designed to encourage users to read a link before sharing it. The test will reach 6% of Facebook’s

Years after popping open a Pandora’s box of bad behavior, social media companies are trying to figure out subtle ways to reshape how people use their platforms.

Following Twitter’s lead, Facebook is trying out a new feature designed to encourage users to read a link before sharing it. The test will reach 6% of Facebook’s Android users globally in a gradual rollout that aims to encourage “informed sharing” of news stories on the platform.

Users can still easily click through to share a given story, but the idea is that by adding friction to the experience, people might rethink their original impulses to share the kind of inflammatory content that currently dominates on the platform.

Twitter introduced last June prompts urging users to read a link before retweeting it, and the company quickly found the test feature to be successful, expanding it to more users.

Facebook began trying out more prompts like this last year. Last June, the company rolled out pop-up messages to warn users before they share any content that’s more than 90 days old in an an effort to cut down on misleading stories taken out of their original context.

At the time, Facebook said it was looking at other pop-up prompts to cut down on some kinds of misinformation. A few months later, Facebook rolled out similar pop-up messages that noted the date and the source of any links they share related to COVID-19.

The strategy demonstrates Facebook’s preference for a passive strategy of nudging people away from misinformation and toward its own verified resources on hot-button issues like COVID-19 and the 2020 election.

While the jury is still out on how much of an impact this kind of gentle behavioral shaping can make on the misinformation epidemic, both Twitter and Facebook have also explored prompts that discourage users from posting abusive comments.

Pop-up messages that give users a sense that their bad behavior is being observed might be where more automated moderation is headed on social platforms. While users would probably be far better served by social media companies scrapping their misinformation and abuse-ridden existing platforms and rebuilding them more thoughtfully from the ground up, small behavioral nudges will have to do.

News: Voyager Space Holdings sets it sights on space stations with majority stake in Nanoracks

• May 10, 2021
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Voyager Space Holdings has added X.O. Markets, the parent of commercial space service venture Nanoracks, to its growing catalogue of space companies. The agreement was first announced last December. This is Voyager’s fourth majority stake acquisition of a space company since its founding in October 2019, and it won’t be its last. Voyager CEO Dylan

Voyager Space Holdings has added X.O. Markets, the parent of commercial space service venture Nanoracks, to its growing catalogue of space companies. The agreement was first announced last December.

This is Voyager’s fourth majority stake acquisition of a space company since its founding in October 2019, and it won’t be its last. Voyager CEO Dylan Taylor told TechCrunch that he anticipates the company will announce two to four more acquisitions this year. It’s an aggressive strategy but key to understanding Voyager’s business model.

“A lot of people confuse us with a fund or private equity strategy, or some kind of a financial instrument, for lack of a better word, and we’re really none of those things,” Taylor said. “We’re an operating company.”

Voyager wants to reach the same level of capability as the space “primes,” or primary companies, in seven to ten years. To get there, it’s pursued a majority stake in a series of space ventures to build out its portfolio of capabilities. Notably, Voyager has always never opted for 100% equity in these companies and it operates in a relatively decentralized way. These business decisions help keep innovation flourishing amongst Voyager’s many ventures, Taylor said.

The typical strategy in private equity – to purchase two competing companies, merge them, and sell them onto another financial buyer – doesn’t ultimately spur growth of the new space economy, he pointed out.

“[That strategy is] really not how you capture value in space,” he said. “You capture value in space by Capability A, marrying it with Capability B and unlocking a new Capability C that’s higher up on the food chain.”

The company also plans to go public via a traditional initial public offering sometime around the third quarter of this year. It anticipates filing the S-1 at some point this summer, Taylor said. He declined to provide further details of the recent acquisition.

Voyager’s previous major acquisitions have been with Pioneer Astronautics, an R&D company that performs, amongst other things, research into supporting life in space; advanced robotics startup Altius Space Machines; and The Launch Company, a launch support company that provides standardized hardware and equipment to launch providers.

The newest acquisition, Nanoracks, has been involved in more than 1,000 projects with the International Space Station, most importantly installing the first commercial airlock on the ISS. Last November, the company also entered into a partnership with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office to research agricultural solutions in challenging physical environments, like the desert – or space.

Perhaps the most interesting of Nanoracks’ endeavors is what it calls its Outpost program: building and operating completely commercial space stations out of the spent upper stages of launch vehicles and other space debris. Nanoracks will be launching a demonstration mission on board a SpaceX mission next month.

The four acquisitions taken together – launch support, advanced robotics, a research company, and now Nanoracks – clearly point to a future in which Voyager is primed to build and operate commercial space stations. While that future is still far off, it’s closer than one might think.

“The last ten years of the industry was defined by getting to orbit,” Taylor said. “I think the next 10 years will be about destinations. I think it’s highly likely we’re going to have somewhere between 8-12 space stations in orbit by 2030.”

News: State AGs tell Facebook to scrap Instagram for kids plans

• May 10, 2021
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In a new letter, attorneys general representing 44 U.S. states and territories are pressuring Facebook to walk away from new plans to open Instagram to children. The company is working on an age-gated version of Instagram for kids under the age of 13 that would lure in young users who are currently not permitted to

In a new letter, attorneys general representing 44 U.S. states and territories are pressuring Facebook to walk away from new plans to open Instagram to children. The company is working on an age-gated version of Instagram for kids under the age of 13 that would lure in young users who are currently not permitted to use the app, which was designed for adults.

“It appears that Facebook is not responding to a need, but instead creating one, as this platform appeals primarily to children who otherwise do not or would not have an Instagram account,” the coalition of attorneys general wrote, warning that an Instagram for kids would be “harmful for myriad reasons.”

The state attorneys general call for Facebook to abandon its plans, citing concerns around developmental health, privacy and Facebook’s track record of prioritizing growth over the well-being of children on its platforms. In the letter, embedded below, they delve into specific worries about cyberbullying, online grooming by sexual predators and algorithms that showed dieting ads to users with eating disorders.

Concerns about social media and mental health in kids and teens is a criticism we’ve been hearing more about this year, as some Republicans join Democrats in coalescing around those issues, moving away from the claims of anti-conservative bias that defined politics in tech during the Trump years.

Leaders from both parties have been openly voicing fears over how social platforms are shaping young minds in recent months amidst calls to regulate Facebook and other social media companies. In April, a group of congressional Democrats wrote Facebook with similar warnings over its new plans for children, pressing the company for details on how it plans to protect the privacy of young users.

In light of all the bad press and attention from lawmakers, it’s possible that the company may walk back its brazen plans to boost business by bringing more underage users into the fold. Facebook is already in the hot seat with state and federal regulators in just about every way imaginable. Deep worries over the company’s future failures to protect yet another vulnerable set of users could be enough to keep these plans on the company’s back burner.

News: Activist investor Starboard Value makes official bid for Box board seats in letter

• May 10, 2021
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Last week activist investor Starboard delivered a public letter rebuking the company for what it perceives as under performance. Today the firm, which owns 8% of Box stock, making it the company’s largest stock holder, took it a step further with an official slate of four candidates it will be putting up at the next

Last week activist investor Starboard delivered a public letter rebuking the company for what it perceives as under performance. Today the firm, which owns 8% of Box stock, making it the company’s largest stock holder, took it a step further with an official slate of four candidates it will be putting up at the next stockholder’s meeting.

While the company rehashed many of the same complaints as in last week’s letter, this week’s explicitly stated its intent to run its own slate of candidates for the Box board. “Therefore, in accordance with the Company’s governance deadlines and in order to preserve our rights as stockholders, we have delivered a formal notice to Box nominating four highly qualified director candidates (the “Nominees”) for election to the Board at the Annual Meeting,” Starboard wrote in a public letter to Box.

Box responded in a press release that the Board as currently constituted categorically rejects this attempt by Starboard to take over additional seats.

“The Box Board of Directors does not believe the changes to the Board proposed by Starboard are warranted or in the best interests of all stockholders. The Box Board has been consistently responsive to feedback from all of its stockholders, including suggestions from Starboard, and open-minded toward all value enhancing opportunities. Furthermore, Starboard’s statements do not accurately depict the progress Box has made,” the Board wrote in a statement this morning.

Box further points out that the company overhauled the Board last year with three new board members specifically receiving Starboard approval.

What is driving Starboard to take this action? Like any good activist investor it wants a higher stock price and is seeking for more growth from Box. Activist investors often come in and try to extract value by brute force when they perceive the company is under performing. The end game were they successful could involve removing Levie as CEO or more likely selling the company and grabbing its profit on the way out.

Box asserted that “Starboard’s statements do not accurately depict the progress Box has made,” highlighting some of its recent financial performance including “a $127 million increase in free cash flow in fiscal 2021.” The former private-market darling also argued that its fiscal 2021 “revenue growth rate plus free cash flow margin [came to more than] 26%,” which beat its own target of 25% and was “nearly double” what it managed in its fiscal 2020.

This is a good time for a ‘yes, but‘: Yes, but Box’s ability to improve its profitability does not change the fact that its growth rate has been in steady decline for years. And while a company’s growth rate can cover nearly any sin, slowing growth that has already slipped into the single digits doesn’t cut Box much slack. (For reference, in its most recent quarter, the fourth of its fiscal 2021, Box grew just 8% on a year-over-year basis.)

It’s worth noting that the company did promise “accelerated growth and higher operating margins in the years ahead” in its most recent earnings call, but the company’s recent $500 million investment from KKR particularly irked Starboard, which asserts that it was akin to ‘buying the vote.’

“[Box] made several poor capital allocation decisions, including its recent entry into a financing transaction that we believe serves no business purpose and was done in the face of a potential election contest with Starboard at the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.”

Now it’s becoming a battle over more board seats. Box is putting up Levie, Verisign CFO Dana Evan and Peter Leav, Chief Executive Officer of McAfee and former Chief Executive Officer of BMC.

Starboard nominees include Deborah S. Conrad, former executive at Intel; Peter A. Feld, Starboard’s head of research; John R. McCormack, former CEO of WebSense and Xavier D. Williams, a director of American Virtual Cloud Technologies.

The vote will take place at the Box stockholder’s meeting, which has traditionally been held in late June or early July. To this point, the company has not put out the exact date publicly.

News: Axiom Space and NASA detail first fully private human launch to the Space Station, set for January 2022

• May 10, 2021
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Houston-based startup Axiom Space and NASA unveiled more details Monday about the forthcoming Axiom Mission 1 (AX-1), the first fully private human mission to the International Space Station. The Axiom Mission 1 (AX-1) spaceflight mission will ferry four private astronauts to the International Space Station in January 2022. The eight-day mission will be launched from

Houston-based startup Axiom Space and NASA unveiled more details Monday about the forthcoming Axiom Mission 1 (AX-1), the first fully private human mission to the International Space Station.

The Axiom Mission 1 (AX-1) spaceflight mission will ferry four private astronauts to the International Space Station in January 2022. The eight-day mission will be launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida using a SpaceX Crew Dragon. While in space, the crew will be living and working in the U.S. segment of the ISS.

NASA will be paying Axiom $1.69 million for services associated with the mission, such as transporting supplies to the ISS, though that does not include other reimbursable agreements between the two entities.

There’s a “high degree of confidence in the late January date” for the launch, Axiom CEO Michael Suffredini said.

Axiom in January released the identity of the crew members: Canadian investor Mark Pathy, investor Larry Connor, and former Israeli pilot Eytan Stibbe. Leading the crew as mission commander is former NASA astronaut and Axiom Space VP Michael López-Alegría, who has four spaceflights under his belt.

Pathy, Connor and Stibbe will engage in research missions while onboard. Pathy will be collaborating with the Montreal Children’s Hospital and the Canadian Space Agency; Connor, the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic; and Stibbe, to conduct scientific experiments coordinated by the Israel Space Agency at the Ministry of Science and Technology.

“Larry and Mark are very serious individuals who are dedicated to being the best they can be in the mold of a NASA astronaut and they’re not interested in being tourists,” López-Alegría said during the media briefing. “They want to do their part to improve humankind.”

To prepare for the mission, the four crew members will go on a “camping trip” in the Alaskan foothills for training in July, López-Alegría said. He will start full-time training around August, with Larry starting in September. The rest of the crew will start in October, with around two-thirds of their time dedicated to ISS-specific training and the rest dedicated to training with SpaceX. The staggered schedule is due to the differing responsibilities between the crew members while on board. Axiom will be using the same contractor that NASA uses to train its astronauts.

While Suffredini declined to specify how much the private astronauts paid for their space on the flight, he said he “wouldn’t argue with” widely reported figures in the tens of millions. The Washington Post in January reported that the ticket prices came in at $55 million each.

Prices may not always be so high, but Suffredini said that the industry is likely at least a decade away from serious price drops that might make space travel feasible for the average space-goer.

Axiom intends to offer astronaut flights – both private and national – to the International Space Station and eventually its own privately-funded space station. While Axiom has “things lined up” for AX-2, AX-3 and AX-4, “like everyone we have to compete for the opportunity,” Suffredini said. The number of missions to the ISS is limited because there are only two docking ports on the ISS, Station deputy manager Dana Weigel added. That suggests that additional stations will be necessary to meet the burgeoning demand for both commercial and scientific space missions.

The company also in January 2020 won a NASA contract to develop and install a commercial module to the Harmony docking port of the ISS as early as 2024.

Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial spaceflight development, said that recent announcements on commercial spaceflights from Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic in addition to the Axiom mission have heralded “a renaissance in U.S. human spaceflight.”

“A lot of times history can feel incremental when you’re in it, but I really feel like we are in it this year. This is a real inflection point with human spaceflight,” he said.

News: As Procore looks to nearly double its private valuation, the IPO market shows signs of life

• May 10, 2021
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With Procore’s range feeling bullish thus far and Kaltura back in the mix, it’s hard to not be at least modestly bullish on today’s IPO market.

This morning, construction tech unicorn Procore Technologies set a price range for its impending public offering. The news comes after the company initially filed to go public in February of 2020, a move delayed by the pandemic. As TechCrunch reporter Mary Ann Azevedo reported at the time, the hiatus came with a large check to see the company through its public-offering pause.

In March 2021, Procore filed again for a public offering, but its second shot ran into a cooling IPO market. The company filed another S-1/A in April, and then another in early May. Today’s filing is the first that sets a price for the Carpinteria, California-based software upstart.

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Procore’s filing sets a price range of $60 to $65 per share for its equity.

But Procore is not the only company that filed and later put on hold an IPO to get back to work on floating. Kaltura, a software company focused on video distribution, also recently got its IPO back on track. Are we seeing a reacceleration of the IPO market? Perhaps.

This morning, let’s find out what Procore is worth at its new IPO valuation range, calculate some revenue multiples for the firm, noodle on its implied multiples, and then ask ourselves if its movement toward the public markets alongside Kaltura’s actions is really enough to claim that the public-offering market is actually back.

Procore’s IPO price range

While private Procore raised well over a half-billion dollars from a host of investors, including ICONIQ, Dragoneer, Tiger Global and D1 Capital Partners, per Crunchbase data, it most recently raised $150 million last year after its IPO delay at a valuation of just over $5 billion calculated on a post-money basis.

According to its latest S-1/A filing, Procore will sell 9,470,000 shares in its IPO, providing it with a post-IPO share count of 128,134,774. At $60 per share, the company’s simple valuation comes to $7.69 billion. At $65 per share, that figure rises to $8.33 billion.

News: Take your shot and apply to compete in Startup Battlefield at TC Disrupt 2021

• May 10, 2021
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Startup Battlefield, the world’s preeminent pitch competition, has launched hundreds of startups over the years — 922 if you want to be a stickler about it. The next Battlefield takes place at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 on September 21-23. Yup, that sound you hear is opportunity knocking. If you want a shot to compete against some

Startup Battlefield, the world’s preeminent pitch competition, has launched hundreds of startups over the years — 922 if you want to be a stickler about it. The next Battlefield takes place at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 on September 21-23. Yup, that sound you hear is opportunity knocking.

If you want a shot to compete against some of the most innovative early-stage startups in the world, apply to Startup Battlefield here before the application window closes on May 13 at 11:59 pm (PT). Still need a nudge? Keep reading.

Founders from these three startups took a chance, gave it their all and ended up winning the championship — and $100,000 — in their respective years: Canix (2020), Render (2019) and Forethought (2018). Oh, and Forethought scored a $9 million Series A investment after it won. Food for thought.

TechCrunch vets every application and will select roughly 25 startups to compete. It costs nothing to apply or compete — no fees, no equity slice. Participants receive weeks of (free!) training with the TC Battlefield team to make sure they’re primed up and ready to face a panel of expert VC judges.

Speaking of judges — you know, the peeps you need to impress, the folks who determine the winner? Yeah, them. We recently announced the first of our Startup Battlefield judges — Terri Burns, a partner at GV (formerly known as Google Ventures). We’re thrilled to have her on board.

Each startup team gets 6 minutes to pitch and present their demo — and then they’ll answer probing questions from the judges. Teams that move on to the second round do it all over again in front of a new panel of experts. Then it’s the finals and one last major push — pitch, demo, Q&A.

One team will emerge the Startup Battlefield 2021 champion, win the Disrupt Cup and take home a whopping $100,000 in prize money.

Beyond the actual competition, all Battlefield competitors receive a VIP experience — free demo space in the virtual Startup Alley, a free membership to Extra Crunch, complimentary tickets to future TC events and a private reception with members of the Startup Battlefield alumni community.

Don’t forget — everyone wants to learn more about the Battlefield contenders. Whether or not you win the whole shooting match, you’ll receive plenty of invaluable exposure to global investors, media outlets and potential customers.

Not a bad return for a small investment of your time and energy, amirite? Want a few more details about how Startup Battlefield works? You’ll find them here.

TC Disrupt 2021 takes place September 21-23, and when opportunity knocks, early-stage startup founders kick down the door. Strap on your boots and take your shot — apply to Startup Battlefield before May 13 at 11:59 pm (PT) and show the startup world what you’re made of.

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

News: Ford reveals three new details about its officially named F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck

• May 10, 2021
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Ford confirmed Monday that its all-electric pickup truck will be named the F-150 Lightning, resurrecting a name that once donned the SVT F-150 in the 1990s. The company hasn’t said much about the powertrain, range or other specs. However, Ford President and CEO Jim Farley provided new details about the electric pickup that is coming

Ford confirmed Monday that its all-electric pickup truck will be named the F-150 Lightning, resurrecting a name that once donned the SVT F-150 in the 1990s.

The company hasn’t said much about the powertrain, range or other specs. However, Ford President and CEO Jim Farley provided new details about the electric pickup that is coming to market next year. Most notably, it seems that the battery on the Ford F-150 Lightning will have the ability to power a home during an outage. Ford has touted the capability of its Hybrid F-150 to power a job site or tools, but this is the first time the company has said one of its vehicles could act as a backup generator to a home.

Farley also said the electric truck will have the capability to handle over-the-air software updates and will be quicker than the original F-150 Lightning performance truck, the V8-powered truck that debuted in 1993.

“Every so often, a new vehicle comes along that disrupts the status quo and changes the game … Model T, Mustang, Prius, Model 3. Now comes the F-150 Lightning,” Farley said in a statement. “America’s favorite vehicle for nearly half a century is going digital and fully electric. F-150 Lightning can power your home during an outage; it’s even quicker than the original F-150 Lightning performance truck; and it will constantly improve through over-the-air updates.”

Production of the electric pickup truck is expected to begin next spring at the company’s Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center.

The Ford F-150 Lightning will be revealed via a livestream May 19 at the company’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.