Monthly Archives: July 2021

News: Pinterest rolls out new features that let creators make money from Pins

• July 27, 2021
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Pinterest today is increasing its investment in the creator community by introducing new tools that will allow creators to make money from their content. Now, creators will be able to tag products in their Idea Pins — a video-first feature the company first launched this spring — to make their content “shoppable.” They’ll also now

Pinterest today is increasing its investment in the creator community by introducing new tools that will allow creators to make money from their content. Now, creators will be able to tag products in their Idea Pins — a video-first feature the company first launched this spring — to make their content “shoppable.” They’ll also now be able to earn commissions through affiliate links and partner with brands on sponsored content, much like on other social platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Despite its general focus on turning product inspiration into clicks and purchases, Pinterest has been slower to embrace the creator community which today is responsible for driving a significant amount of interest in new products among online shoppers. Over the past several years, brands have increased their influencer marketing budgets from $1.7 billion in 2016 to now $13.8 billion in 2021. However, Pinterest offered few tools for creators to tap into that market on its own site, until its more recent debut of Idea Pins in May.

These Pins are somewhat like Pinterest’s take on TikTok, mixed with Stories, as they offer a way for creators to produce content that combines music, video, and other interactive elements. The videos in Idea Pins can be up to 60 seconds per page, with up to 20 total pages per Pin. Creators can also add other features to their Pins, like stickers or music, and tag other creators with their @username.

Image Credits: Pinterest

While similar in some ways to TikTok, the videos can include “detail pages” where viewers can find associated content, like the ingredient list and instructions for a recipe, or a list of how-to instructions for a craft project.

Now, explains Pinterest, creators will be able to tag products in their Pins, as well. That means fans viewing the Pin content can now go from inspiration to purchase from the Pinterest app. However, the path isn’t as straightforward as it is on Instagram, where a tap on a tag leads you to a page where you can then add an item to a shopping cart. Instead, Pinterest’s product tags tend to take you to another Pinterest page for the product in question, and from there you have to click again to visit the retailer’s website to complete your order.

The company has been testing the feature before today with creators including Olive + Brown, Fall for DIY and UnconventionalSouthernBelle who have already made some of their content shoppable.

The new Idea Pins product tagging tool will roll out to all business accounts in the U.S. and U.K. and will then continue to roll out access over the coming months to international creators.

Image Credits: Pinterest

Other new monetization features rolling out now include support for affiliate programs and brand sponsorships.

Creators will now be able to integrate their affiliate programs for Rakuten and ShopStyle to generate additional revenue from their recommendations. Meanwhile, creators who come to the platform with brand partnerships will be able to use a new tool, still in beta, that will let them disclose those partnerships to their followers.

When they then produce branded content on Pinterest and add the brands to their Idea Pins, the brand will then be able to approve the tag, and the Idea Pin will feature a label that reads “Paid Partnership.”

This paid partnerships tool is now live for select Creators in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru.

Image Credits: Pinterest

Most of Pinterest’s new monetization tools are not necessarily all that innovative or unique.

Instead, they represent a company that’s playing catch up to larger social platforms — like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, an d YouTube — which have been better catering to creators in recent years by allowing them to build their own businesses on their respective platforms and expand their reach. Instagram, in particular, has moved in on Pinterest’s territory to such an extent that many users today start their shopping inspiration searches on its app first.

And Instagram has catered to this growing group of online shoppers by turning its platform into an online shop of sorts, compete with a dedicated Shop button, built-in checkout features, alerts about product drops, and numerous ways for creators to generate profits from their work.

Now that influencer shopping is the norm, the race is on among large platforms and startups alike to bring a similar set of shopping tools to live streamed video.

Given the significant competition, Pinterest’s pitch to the creator community is that its user base is already primed to shop.

By the end of 2020, the company says it saw a 20x increase in product searches on its platform. It also notes that Pinterest users are 89% more likely to exhibit shopping intent on products tagged in creators’ Idea Pins than on its standalone Pins. Plus, the company says that its focus will be more on inspirational content, rather than “influence and entertainment” — a seeming knock at social media and its influencer stars.

“Pinterest is the place where creators with inspiring and actionable ideas get discovered. With this latest update, we’re empowering Creators to reach millions of shoppers on the platform and monetize their work,” said Pinterest Head of Content and Creator Partnerships, Aya Kanai. “Creators deserve to be rewarded for the inspiration they deliver to their followers, and the sales they drive for brands. Creators are central to our mission to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love, and we’ll continue working with them to build their businesses and find success on Pinterest,” she added.

News: Instagram to default young teens to private accounts, restrict ads and unwanted adult contact

• July 27, 2021
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As it gears up to expand access to younger users, Instagram this morning announced a series of updates designed to make its app a safer place for online teens. The company says it will now default users to private accounts at sign-up if they’re under the age of 16  — or under 18 in certain

As it gears up to expand access to younger users, Instagram this morning announced a series of updates designed to make its app a safer place for online teens. The company says it will now default users to private accounts at sign-up if they’re under the age of 16  — or under 18 in certain locales, including in the E.U. It will also push existing users under 16 to switch their account to private, if they have not already done so. In addition, Instagram will roll out new technology aimed at reducing unwanted contact from adults — like those who have already been blocked or reported by other teens — and it will change how advertisers can reach its teenage audience.

The most visible change for younger users will be the shift to private accounts.

Historically, when users signed up for a new Instagram account, they were asked to choose between a public or private account. But Instagram says that its research found that 8 out 10 young people selected the “private” option during setup, so it will now make this the default for those under the age of 16.

Image Credits: Instagram

It won’t, however, force teens to remain private. They can switch to public accounts at any time, including during signup. Those with existing public accounts will be alerted to the benefits of going private and be instructed on how to make the change through an in-app notification, but Instagram will not force them to go private, it says.

This change follows a similar move by rival platform TikTok, which this January announced it would update the private settings and defaults for users under the age of 18. In TikTok’s case, it changed the accounts for users ages 13 to 15 to private by default but also tightened other controls related to how young teens use the app — with comments, video downloads, and other TikTok features, like Duets and Stitches.

Instagram isn’t going so far as to restrict other settings beyond suggesting teens’ default account type, but it is taking action to address some of the problems that result from having adults participate on the same app that minors use.

The company says it will use new technology to identify accounts that have shown “potentially suspicious behavior” — like those who have been recently blocked or reported by other young teens. This is only one of many signals Instagram uses to identify suspicious behavior, but the company says it won’t publicize the others, as it doesn’t want people to be able to game its system.

Once identified as “potentially suspicious,” Instagram will then restrict these adults’ accounts from being able to interact with young people’s accounts.

For starters, Instagram will no longer show young people’s accounts in Explore, Reels or in the “Accounts Suggested For You” feature to these potentially suspicious adults. If the adult instead locates a young person’s account by way of a search, they won’t be able to follow them. And they won’t be able to see comments from young people on other people’s posts or be able to leave comments of their own on young people’s posts.

(Any teens planning to report and block their parents probably won’t trigger the algorithm, Instagram tells us, as it uses a combination of signals to trigger its restrictions.)

These new restrictions build on the technology Instagram introduced earlier this year, which restricted the ability for adults to contact teens who didn’t already follow them. This made it possible for teens to still interact with their family and family friends, while limiting unwanted contact from adults they didn’t know.

Cutting off problematic adults from young teens’ content like this actually goes further that what’s available on other social networks, like TikTok or YouTube, where there are often disturbing comments left on videos of young people — in many cases, girls who are being sexualized and harassed by adult men. YouTube’s comments section was even once home to a pedophile ring, which pushed YouTube to entirely disable comments on videos featuring minor children.

Instagram isn’t blocking the comments section in full — it’s more selectively seeking out the bad actors, then making content created by minors much harder for them to find in the first place.

The other major change rolling out in the next few weeks impacts advertisers looking to target ads to teens under 18 (or older in certain countries).

Image Credits: Instagram

Previously available targeting options — like those based on teens’ interests or activity on other apps or websites — will no longer be available to advertisers. Instead, advertisers will only be able to target based on age, gender and location. This will go into effect across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.

The company says the decision was influenced by recommendations from youth advocates who said younger people may not be as well-equipped to make decisions related to opting out of interest-based advertising, which led to the new restrictions.

In reality, however, Facebook’s billion-dollar interest-based ad network has been under attack by regulators and competitors alike, and the company has been working to diversify its revenue beyond ads to include things like e-commerce with the expectation that potential changes to its business are around the corner.

In a recent iOS update, for example, Apple restricted the ability for Facebook to collect data from third-party apps by asking users if they wanted to opt out of being tracked. Most people said “no” to tracking. Meanwhile, attacks on the personalized ad industry have included those from advocacy groups who have argued that tech companies should turn off personalized ads for those under 18 — not just the under-13 crowd, who are already protected under current children’s privacy laws.

At the same time, Instagram has been toying with the idea of opening its app up to kids under the age of 13, and today’s series of changes could help to demonstrate to regulators that it’s moving forward with the safety of young people in mind, or so the company hopes.

On this front, Instagram says it has expanded its “Youth Advisors” group to include new experts like Jutta Croll at Stiftung Digitale Chancen, Pattie Gonsalves at Sangath and It’s Okay To Talk, Vicki Shotbolt at ParentZone UK, Alfiee M. Breland-Noble at AAKOMA Project, Rachel Rodgers at Northeastern University, Janis Whitlock at Cornell University, and Amelia Vance at the Future of Privacy Forum.

The group also includes the Family Online Safety Institute, Digital Wellness Lab, MediaSmarts, Project Rockit and the Cyberbullying Research Center.

It’s also working with lawmakers on age verification and parental consent standards that it expects to talk more about in the months to come. In a related announcement, Instagram said it’s using A.I. technology that estimates people’s ages. It can look for signals like people wishing someone a “happy birthday” or “happy quinceañera,” which can help narrow down someone’s age, for instance. This technology is already being used to stop some adults from interacting with young people’s accounts, including the new restrictions announced today.

News: Oova raises $1.2M to develop a better at-home kit for detecting a woman’s best time to conceive

• July 27, 2021
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Oova officially launched its Oova Kit that includes an at-home test that quantitatively measures two hormones, informing a woman — and her doctor — of her fertile days and confirming ovulation.

Oova officially launched its Oova Kit Tuesday after receiving $1.5 million in seed funding led by BBG Ventures with participation by Company Ventures. The kit includes an at-home test that quantitatively measures two hormones, informing a woman — and her doctor — of her fertile days and confirming ovulation.

The New York-based company was founded in 2017 by Amy Divaraniya, CEO, who holds a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences with a focus on genetics. She personally struggled to conceive due to irregular menstrual cycles and was told by doctors to come back after she turned 35 to be evaluated then. Except that Divaraniya didn’t want to wait — she wanted something done right then.

She continued to pursue natural avenues for getting pregnant like peeing on sticks and taking her temperature, and after 18 months she conceived her son. However, Divaraniya realized that all of the tools available were hardwired for women who “have a perfect cycle,” and that was not the case for her. Not funding anything available for women with irregular cycles, she created Oova to provide a tool that would be personalized, non-invasive and done at home to address the personal hormone profile.

Amy Divaraniya, founder and CEO of Oova. Image Credits: Oova

Divaraniya founded the company in 2017 after completing her Ph.D. and has spent the past four years focused on getting the technology to work as accurately as possible, she said. Oova’s at-home kit comes with a handle holder, 15 disposable cartridges and a mobile app. Users will take a urine test, scan the results with their phone’s camera and receive actionable steps, including confirmation that the person ovulated and the best days for conception. The person’s physician can also see the data and talk to the patient.

She boasts that Oova is the only test on the market that measures luteinizing hormone and progesterone and that tracks hormones over time. The only alternative is for women to go into their doctor’s office every day for a blood draw, and they are only doing that if the woman is going through IVF, Divaraniya said.

Susan Lyne, co-founder and managing partner of BBG Ventures, has been focused on women’s health for a while and heard from other founders that she needed to meet Divaraniya.

“Seeing your cycle visualized is a transformative moment for a lot of women,” Lyne said in an interview. “Oova’s science is strong and enables consumers to understand their test results without having to go to an expert. The fact that you can get a personal hormone profile in the past only meant if you hit a certain level to tell if you are fertile. This one is quantitative, so it tells you yesterday, today, so you can track it and when you are about to ovulate.”

The company’s original goal was to launch direct to consumer, but after fertility clinics were shut down during the pandemic, Divaraniya received calls from physicians last year asking her to launch the kits early so that they could support their patients who now couldn’t come into their offices. Today, over 75 fertility clinics use the platform.

The global fertility technology market, which includes services like in vitro fertilization, genetic testing, egg freezing and reproductive donation, was valued at $33.1 billion in 2020 and is expected to be $47.9 billion by 2027, according to consultancy Precedence Research. That compares to the at-home diagnostics and digital health markets forecasted to be $7 billion and $551 billion, respectively, by 2027.

Other startups are focused on making similar fertility care more accessible — for example, this year, Future Family raised $9 million to make fertility costs and processes transparent, while digital health company Ro acquired Modern Fertility in May in order to add fertility testing and reproductive health to its suite of services. And Mate Fertility launched with $2.8 million in financing to create a network of family planning services.

To meet future demand, Divaraniya intends to use the new funding to add more features and get the hormone tests ready for market. She would also like to work on a rebrand and “make Oova into a company, not just a science experiment.” The starter kit is priced at $159.99, while refillable kits are $99.99 per month with a subscription.

“We started with fertility, but we want to expand into other areas of health, like chronic disease, letting data users and clinicians drive what the demand is,” Divaraniya added. “We are also working on adding estrogen to the panel, which with luteinizing hormone and progesterone will be the perfect trifecta for fertility.”

News: Sequoia, Jay-Z, Will Smith back Landis’ $165M debt, equity round toward making homeownership accessible to everyone

• July 27, 2021
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Homeownership is one of the key components to building intergenerational wealth, and Landis is working to make that a reality for renters.

Homeownership is one of the key components to building intergenerational wealth, and Landis is working to make that a reality for renters.

U.S. homeownership rates in 2020 were about 65.8% according to Statista. The rate reached its peak of 69.2% in 2004 before falling sharply due to the economic recession of 2007-2009. The rate reached 63.7% in 2016 before steadily going back up.

To continue with its mission, Landis raised $165 million in a combination of debt and Series A equity funding. Sequoia Capital led the round and was joined by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation venture investment arm Arrive, Will Smith’s Dreamers VC and existing investor Signia Venture Partners. A group of founders also invested in the company, including those from Plaid, Cash App, Ethos, Instacart, Front, Flatiron Health and Tango. This latest funding brings Landis’ total debt and equity raised to date to $182 million.

“Landis helps families take their very first steps toward homeownership,” Roelof Botha, partner at Sequoia, said in a written statement. “By focusing on financial literacy and individualized coaching, we are giving everyone the opportunity to own their home, increasing financial inclusion and equality in America. Our technology is particularly relevant to those with low-to-moderate income who have been neglected by traditional financial solutions.”

Cyril Berdugo and Tom Petit founded Landis in 2018 and told TechCrunch that the idea for the company came after witnessing renters losing money, by, for example, paying $1,700 per month to live in a home where, based on its value, a mortgage would be $1,000 per month.

The New York-based fintech company receives referrals from real estate agents and mortgage lenders to work with prospective homeowners, who are typically unable to qualify for a mortgage due to poor credit, lack of down payment savings or debt.

It uses its underwriting technology to determine if the client will be able to afford a mortgage in the next 12 to 24 months. If so, Landis gives the client a budget to pick a property, and will purchase the home and rent it to the client, who will then work toward saving money and building a stronger financial footing to get to mortgage-readiness.

Berdugo and Petit don’t see their relationship with renters as a typical landlord-renter one, but instead as a partnership. Clients have also taught the pair that school districts matter in where they purchase a home and setting their children up for equal success is important.

“Our clients are more motivated than typical renters and really want to hang on, improve their savings, and it is working,” Petit said. “They are so much more successful. We also feel it when they call and ask for advice and even try to beat their deadlines.”

Berdugo did not disclose the round’s debt versus equity breakdown, or go into specifics about growth metrics, but did say the driver for the funding round was to expand into new states, add to Landis’ headcount and improve user experience.

The company is already operating in 29 cities in 11 states and plans to increase that to 20 states by next year. Berdugo and Petit target states where the impact will be greatest, like where rents are higher than they should be.

In addition to the funding announcement, Landis said it opened up access to its Landis Homeownership Coach mobile app for free to everyone with an iPhone. The app provides a dashboard view of credit, down payment savings and debt, with insights and actions for clients toward reaching their goal of qualifying for a mortgage.

“Inequality to financial literacy and financial services are related,” Berdugo said. “People with low-to-moderate income don’t have access to services that wealthier people have, and we are trying to bridge that gap by providing financial literacy and services to get them mortgage ready.”

News: Wiliot raises $200M as it preps a SaaS pivot, licensing its ultra-light, ambient-power chip technology to third parties

• July 27, 2021
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Wiliot — the IoT startup that has developed a new kind of processor that is ultra thin and light and runs on ambient power but possesses all the power of a “computer” — has picked up a huge round of growth funding on the back of strong interest in its technology, and a strategy aimed

Wiliot — the IoT startup that has developed a new kind of processor that is ultra thin and light and runs on ambient power but possesses all the power of a “computer” — has picked up a huge round of growth funding on the back of strong interest in its technology, and a strategy aimed squarely at scale.

The company has raised $200 million, a Series C that it will use towards its next steps as a business: in the coming months, it will make a move into an SaaS model — which Wiliot likes to say refers not to “software as a service”, but “sensing as a service,” using its AI to read and translate different signals on the object attached to the chip — to run and sell its software. This will be combined with a shift to a licensing model for its chip hardware, so that they can be produced by multiple third parties. Wiliot says that it already has several agreements in place for the chip licensing part. The plan is for this, in turn, to lead to a new range of sizes and form factors for the chips down the line.

Softbank’s Vision Fund 2 led the financing, with previous backers — it’s a pretty illustrious list that speaks of the opportunities ahead — including 83North, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), Avery Dennison, Grove Ventures, M Ventures, the corporate VC of Merck KGaA, Maersk Growth, Norwest Venture Partners, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures LLC, Samsung Venture Investment Corp., Vintage Investment Partners, and Verizon Ventures.

Wiliot’s valuation is not being disclosed but Steve Statler, the startup’s SVP, described as “in line” with its pivot to SaaS. For some further context, when we last covered Wiliot funding, a $30 million Series B in 2019, sources told us it was valued at $120 million, although between then and now it also extended that Series B to $70 million, implying a pre-money valuation of closer to $200 million. With basic math, that implies a valuation of more like $400 million now, although the SaaS focus, and strong interest already in licensing the tech, means it could easily be more. (I’ll update as and when I learn more.)

Up to now, the company has been focusing on business development based on “version 1” of its chips, produced by Wiliot itself. (Version 2, which is likely to be announced officially in September, will be the chips that third parties will make.) Wiliot’s chips are, in the words of Statler, printable computers the size and thinness of postage stamps that contain RAM, ROM, sensors, Bluetooth, an ARM CPU, memory and secure communications capabilities, all running on ambient power (radiowaves) already in the air. Thin like RFID tags, these are significantly more powerful and useful.

Statler said Wiliot has 30 paying customers so far using “hundreds of thousands” of these chips. But the scale (and opportunity) of IoT is such that even in the hundreds of thousands bracket, none of these are full deployments but limited tests.

Statler told me that one such customer is a major pharmaceutical company (name not disclosed) that’s making vaccines: it’s attaching the chips to a proportion of its vaccine vials to monitor temperature, dosage amounts (since you get several doses out of one vial) and dilution, with the plan being to use the system across all of its vaccines in the future, something that has particular relevance right now, given how strongly vaccines are figuring in the fight against the Covid-19 health pandemic globally.

Other industries that have been talking with Wiliot include consumer packaged goods companies, furniture companies and the apparel industry (which has been a big adopter of RFID).

With version 2, the ambient power aspect will also expand. In version 1, the chips can harness energy from radio waves that are already in the air, as well as via inexpensive devices that provide a boost of power to spread the waves around more evenly. Right now the range of those boosters in 1-3 meters, Statler said, but version 2 will be a “major breakthrough” that will see that extended, making the booster a more interesting option. Wiliot also, notably, has been working with Sigfox, which is also developing some very innovative ways of harnessing and using ambient power, so maybe we should watch this space.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” CEO and co-founder Tal Tamir told me back in 2019 (he wasn’t available for an interview this time around, unfortunately). “We think many edge devices will come that will harvest radio frequency energy. But the problem is not what you harvest but how much you need. If you get nanowatts of energy and a phone consumes 3-5 watts when active, you can see where this has to go.”

For a company like SoftBank that is making multiple bets around services and hardware across its investment and ownership portfolios, there is a lot of opportunity here not just as a financial backer but strategic partner, too.

“By inventing the first hyper-scalable, self-powered computer that uses AI to sense the world, Wiliot is positioned to bring together the digital and physical” said Yanni Pipilis managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, in a statement. “We have always believed that with IoT and AI, people will live better and healthier lives – where any food or medicine has the ability to understand if it’s safe to use and communicate seamlessly with people. We are pleased to play a part in helping Wiliot dramatically scale the ever-expanding application of IoT globally.”

News: iAngels raises $55 million, anchored by the European Investment Fund, for first institutional fund

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iAngels, the private investment platform founded and helmed by Mor Assia and Shelly Hod Moyal, has today announced the close of its first institutional fund. The firm has raised $55.5 million, which was anchored by the European Investment Fund, which put in $25 million. This brings iAngels’ total assets under management to $300 million. Until

iAngels, the private investment platform founded and helmed by Mor Assia and Shelly Hod Moyal, has today announced the close of its first institutional fund. The firm has raised $55.5 million, which was anchored by the European Investment Fund, which put in $25 million.

This brings iAngels’ total assets under management to $300 million.

Until now, iAngels has operated in a very unique way. The platform has allowed accredited investors all over Israel and beyond to participate in private funding rounds of some of the best startups in Israel. That said, iAngels does all of the diligence on the startups, handles legal requirements, and even writes the check before the deal is listed on the platform. In other words, the deal flow and investment process isn’t unlike an institutional fund, but rather the firm’s ability to share these deals with angel investors gives it extra fire power in these deals.

This framework also allows iAngels to negotiate on behalf of the angels on the platform, allowing room for follow-on investment, which can be difficult for angels when they bet on a big winner. Thus far, iAngels has invested in 22 startups who have exited profitably, including eight more recent exits, including Arbe, eToro, Applitools and Simplex.

With the institutional fund, not much changes by way of operation. iAngels will still source the deals, do the due diligence, and cut the check, but angels on its platform will be able to participate in these rounds.

Of the $55.5 million (555 is a number that represents good fortune in Israel), around two-thirds are being reserved for follow on. The rest is reserved for leading early stage rounds in Israeli tech companies.

iAngels is most interested in double bottom line companies, with a particular interest in startups working on climate tech, health tech, and food technologies.

News: Robotic AI firm Covariant raises another $80 million

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In May of last year, Covariant announced that it had raised a $40 million Series B. It was a healthy sum of money for the young company, bringing its total funding up to $67 million. Just a little over a year later, the Berkeley-based AI startup is adding another $80 million to its coffers, riding

In May of last year, Covariant announced that it had raised a $40 million Series B. It was a healthy sum of money for the young company, bringing its total funding up to $67 million. Just a little over a year later, the Berkeley-based AI startup is adding another $80 million to its coffers, riding on a wave that dramatically accelerated interest in robotics and AI during the pandemic.

“Companies across multiple industries had already been looking to realize significant gains with AI robotics and with COVID-19, market demands then increased by an order of magnitude,” president, chief scientist and co-founder Pieter Abbeel tells TechCrunch. “Combining this with our last year of successes, our investors are keen to double down. We’ll use the funding to significantly accelerate our global expansion and grow our current lead in a competitive industry.”

The Series C was led by existing investor Index Ventures and features Amplify Partners, Radical Ventures, CPPIB and Temasek. It brings the firm’s total funding up to $147 million for what it calls universal AI for robotic manipulation. “Universal” is really the key word for the Covariant Brain, and the company has already proven how versatile its tech can be in the two years since it came out of stealth.

The company currently employs just under 80 people. Part of the funding will go toward increasing its headcount “substantially.” Today’s news also includes the addition of some high-profile team members, including Raghavendra Prabhu as head of Engineering and Research, Ally Lynch as head of Marketing and Sam Cauthen as head of People.

Image Credits: Covariant

Covariant has deployed its technology in a number of markets in North America, Europe and Asia, across a broad range of different sectors requiring pick and place, from grocery to fashion to pharmaceuticals.

“As of today, the Covariant Brain is powering a wide range of industrial robots to manage order picking, putwall, sorter induction — all for companies in various industries with drastically different types of products to manipulate,” CEO Peter Chen said in a release. “The breadth of use demonstrates the Covariant Brain can help robots of different types to manipulate new objects they’ve never seen before in environments where they’ve never operated.”

Existing customers include Obeta, Knapp, ABB and Bastian.

“Forward-looking customers value our platform approach since it allows them to future-proof their long-term modernization strategy,” Abbeel says. “The Covariant Brain has unlimited learning potential to act on multiple applications across the warehouse. Our current deployments are just the tip of the iceberg on everything that AI Robotics can do for the supply chain and beyond.”

News: Tencent’s WeChat suspends new user registration in China to comply with ‘relevant laws and regulations’

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Tencent’s WeChat said on Tuesday it is temporarily suspending registration of new users in China as it works to comply with “relevant laws and regulations,” the latest Chinese firm to face regulatory scrutiny in the world’s largest internet market. In a social media post, Tencent said it is “upgrading” its security technology to align with

Tencent’s WeChat said on Tuesday it is temporarily suspending registration of new users in China as it works to comply with “relevant laws and regulations,” the latest Chinese firm to face regulatory scrutiny in the world’s largest internet market.

In a social media post, Tencent said it is “upgrading” its security technology to align with all relevant laws and regulations and while this process in underway “registration of new Weixin personal and official accounts has been temporarily suspended.”

“Registration services will be restored after the upgrade is complete, which is expected in early August,” the company, which has amassed over 1.2 billion monthly active users in China as of earlier this year, said in a statement.

It’s not immediately clear which law WeChat is citing in its announcement but the move comes at a time amid a broad crackdown on tech firms by Chinese regulators. The crackdown has wiped hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap for Chinese firms and many high-profile global investors including SoftBank are impacted.

This is the first time WeChat, which operates as a super-app in China, has had to take a step of this kind in more than a decade. In addition to offering a messaging service, Weixin (WeChat’s name in China), also allows users to make online payments and access a range of financial services.

(In other markets, it’s a different story. Donald Trump had signed an order to ban transactions with TikTok and WeChat in the U.S. last year. President Joe Biden revoked and replaced those actions last month.)

Some analysts believe that the Chinese government is concerned about the growing influence of tech firms in the country and also the privacy of its citizens’ data.

Earlier this month, China’s cybersecurity regulator ordered ride-hailing giant app Didi to stop signing up new users. That move had come days after Didi’s $4.4 billion initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Didi’s app, which has been pulled from the app stores in China, illegally collecting personal data of its customers, the regulator accused.

News: Rocketium raises $3.2M to help creative teams create massive marketing campaigns

• July 27, 2021
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In between A/B testing, customizing targeted ads and formatting for different digital platforms, some design teams are tasked with campaigns that include thousands of images, videos and other visual content. Based in Bangalore, Rocketium automates much of the process, allowing teams to scale-up campaigns while reducing their workload. The company announced it has raised $3.2

In between A/B testing, customizing targeted ads and formatting for different digital platforms, some design teams are tasked with campaigns that include thousands of images, videos and other visual content. Based in Bangalore, Rocketium automates much of the process, allowing teams to scale-up campaigns while reducing their workload. The company announced it has raised $3.2 million led by Emergent Ventures to launch in the United States and expand in other markets.

Rocketium’s clients include Urban Company, CasaOne, BigBasket, cure.fit and Meesho. It says visuals made on its platform are seen by 100 million end users. Its latest funding brings Rocketium’s total raised so far to $4.2 million, including a $1 million seed round from Blume Ventures and 1Crowd.

Rocketium’s platform is currently invite-only and it plans to open self-service usage and purchases in 2022, along with more integrations with e-commerce and advertising platforms (its current integrations include Salesforce, Mailchimp, YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia and Hubspot).

To use Rocketium, design teams create a core set of templates in Photoshop or After Effects and import them to the platform. Then Rocketium customizes ads for different scenarios. For example, if a retailer is running a targeted campaign with free shipping in certain areas, they enter that information into a spreadsheet and Rocketium automatically updates the text in the templates. Then ads and videos are formatted for different platforms, like banners for web advertising or square format for Instagram.

Rocketium’s size adaptation tool

One of Rocketium’s clients, fitness app cure.fit, uses it to run about five to six campaigns each month for different membership plans. The platform enables cure.fit to reduce the production time for visual content and personalize campaigns based on users’ interests, demographics and locations.

Rocketium’s AI-based copywriter

Rocketium also includes tools for A/B testing, ad targeting and data analytics.

Other companies that help marketing teams create visual advertising campaigns include Canva, InVideo and Lumen5. Co-founder and chief executive officer Satej Sirur told TechCrunch that Rocketium was designed specifically for clients that need to create hundreds or thousands of ads, video and other creative content a month, and can be used to create up to 10,000 visuals at a time.

While Canva, InVideo and Lumen5 provide templates, Rocketium is more focused on users who want to import their own designs from PhotoShop and After Effects.

In a statement, Emergent Ventures founder and partner Ankur Jain said, “From high-volume content production to data-driven campaign optimization, Rocketium is challenging traditional organizational silos to deliver a product that is truly loved and relied on by performance marketers and designers alike.”

News: Indonesia-based grocery app HappyFresh reaps $65M led by Naver Financial and Gafina

• July 27, 2021
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HappyFresh, the on-demand grocery app based in Indonesia, announced today it has raised a $65 million Series D. The round was led by Naver Financial Corporation and Gafina B.V., with participation from STIC, LB and Mirae Asset Indonesia and Singapore. It also included returning investors Mirae-Asset Naver Asia Growth Fund and Z Venture Capital. The

HappyFresh, the on-demand grocery app based in Indonesia, announced today it has raised a $65 million Series D. The round was led by Naver Financial Corporation and Gafina B.V., with participation from STIC, LB and Mirae Asset Indonesia and Singapore. It also included returning investors Mirae-Asset Naver Asia Growth Fund and Z Venture Capital.

The company’s previous round of funding was a $20 million Series C announced in April 2019.

Founded in 2014, HappyFresh was the first Instacart-style grocery delivery service to launch in Southeast Asia. It expanded into five markets before shutting down its operations in Taiwan and the Philippines in 2016. It continues to operate in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

In a press release, HappyFresh said it “has been experiencing an unprecedented growth” over the past 18 months as customers turned to grocery deliveries during the pandemic, with traffic growing by 10x to 20x in its three countries.

In a statement, HappyFresh chief executive officer Guillem Segarra said, “We see a big shift in customers’ behavior; retention and frequency rates have significantly increased while the overall basket size has been consistently growing. We attribute this to a major shift in share of wallet from offline to online, which is here to stay.”

The new funding will be used to scale HappyFresh’s operations, including growing its fleet of drivers. The company also plans to add more payment methods, improve user experience and increase its assortment of items.