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News: How we dodged risks and raised millions for our open-source machine language startup

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Open-source startups hoping to secure funding must be aware of these risks when crafting business models to attract investment.

Open-source software gave birth to a slew of useful software in recent years. Many of the great technologies that we use today were born out of open-source development: Android, Firefox, VLC media player, MongoDB, Linux, Docker and Python, just to name a few, with many of these also developing into very successful for-profit companies.

While there are some dedicated open-source investors such as the Apache Software Foundation incubator and OSS Capital, the majority of open-source companies will raise from traditional venture capital firms.

Our team has raised from traditional venture capital firms like Speedinvest, open-source-specific firms like OSS, and even from more hybrid firms like OpenOcean, which was created by the founders and senior leadership teams at MariaDB and MySQL. These companies understandably have a significant but not exclusive open-source focus.

Our area of innovation is an open-source AutoML server that reduces model training complexity and brings machine learning to the source of the data. Ultimately, we feel democratizing machine learning has the potential to truly transform the modern business world. As such, we successfully raised $5 million in seed funding to help bring our vision to the current marketplace.

Here, we aim to provide insights and advice for open-source startups that hope to follow a similar path for securing funding, and also detail some of the important risks your team needs to consider when crafting a business model to attract investment.

Strategies for acquiring open-source seed funding

Obviously, venture capitalists find many open-source software initiatives to be worthy investments. However, they need to understand any inherent risks involved when successfully commercializing an innovative idea. Finding low-risk investments that lead to lucrative business opportunities remains an important goal for these firms.

In our experience, we found these risks fall into three major categories: market risk, execution risk, and founders’ risk. Explaining all three to potential investors in a concise manner helps dispel their fears. In the end, low-risk, high-reward scenarios obviously attract tangible interest from sources of venture capital.

Ultimately, investment companies want startups to generate enough revenue to reach a valuation exceeding $1 billion. While that number is likely to increase over time, it remains a good starting point for initial funding discussions with investors. Annual revenue of $100 million serves as a good benchmark for achieving that valuation level.

Market risks in open-source initiatives

Market risks for open-source organizations tend to be different when compared to traditional businesses seeking funding. Notably, investors in these traditional startups are taking a larger leap of faith.

News: RWDSU head says rerun election ‘very likely’ following Amazon union vote loss

• April 9, 2021
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However the outcome of today’s vote count turned out, there was one thing we knew for certain: it wasn’t going to mark the end of the battle between Amazon and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. With voting having broken overwhelmingly in Amazon’s favor, the union was quick to challenge the results. The RWDSU

However the outcome of today’s vote count turned out, there was one thing we knew for certain: it wasn’t going to mark the end of the battle between Amazon and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. With voting having broken overwhelmingly in Amazon’s favor, the union was quick to challenge the results.

The RWDSU was quick to offer TechCrunch a statement from President Stuart Appelbaum after no votes broke the 50% threshold, noting, “We demand a comprehensive investigation over Amazon’s behavior in corrupting this election.”

Amazon, unsurprisingly, was quick to take a victory lap. In a blog post credited to “Amazon Staff,” the company writes:

Thank you to employees at our BHM1 fulfillment center in Alabama for participating in the election. There’s been a lot of noise over the past few months, and we’re glad that your collective voices were finally heard. In the end, less than 16% of the employees at BHM1 voted to join the RWDSU union. It’s easy to predict the union will say that Amazon won this election because we intimidated employees, but that’s not true.

While the company was quick to state that the election is “over,” the RWDSU is hopeful, both in terms of future organizing at the Bessemer warehouse and for what the movement will mean for unionizing efforts at Amazon, going forward.

In a press conference held earlier today, Appelbaum suggested that Amazon told workers that they would have to vote against the union if they wanted to keep their jobs.

“We believe a rerun election is going to be very likely,” the union president told media. “I think that if Amazon considers this a victory, they may want to reconsider it. At best, it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Look at what happened during this period. We exposed atrocious working conditions at Amazon for everybody to see.”

Appelbaum’s comments seem to refer, in part, to numerous reports of workers urinating in bottles over concerns about stringent quotas. In the midst of an aggressive social media campaign at the apparent behest of CEO Jeff Bezos, the company initially denied reports, before conceding they may apply to some drivers. Amazon was quick to deflect blame to broader industry issues, however.

“Amazon didn’t win—our employees made the choice to vote against joining a union,” the company added in its post. “Our employees are the heart and soul of Amazon, and we’ve always worked hard to listen to them, take their feedback, make continuous improvements, and invest heavily to offer great pay and benefits in a safe and inclusive workplace. We’re not perfect, but we’re proud of our team and what we offer, and will keep working to get better every day.”

A key part to the RWDSU’s challenge is a ballot box the company reportedly pressured the USPS to install, in defiance of a National Labor Relations Board ruling. Appelbaum said the box “creates the impression of surveillance.”

He added that the union has already been in communication with workers at other Amazon facilities, explaining, “We have already started talking to workers at other facilities, as well, before this election.”

News: APKPure app contained malicious adware, say researchers

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Security researchers say APKPure, a widely popular app for installing older or discontinued Android apps from outside of Google’s app store, contained malicious adware that flooded the victim’s device with unwanted ads. Kaspersky Lab said that it alerted APKPure on Thursday that its most recent app version, 3.17.18, contained malicious code that siphoned off data

Security researchers say APKPure, a widely popular app for installing older or discontinued Android apps from outside of Google’s app store, contained malicious adware that flooded the victim’s device with unwanted ads.

Kaspersky Lab said that it alerted APKPure on Thursday that its most recent app version, 3.17.18, contained malicious code that siphoned off data from a victim’s device without their knowledge, and pushed ads to the device’s lock screen and in the background to generate fraudulent revenue for the adware operators.

But the researchers said that the malicious code had the capacity to download other malware, potentially putting affected victims at further risk.

The researchers said the APKPure developers likely introduced the malicious code, known as a software development kit or SDK, from an unverified source. APKPure removed the malicious code and pushed out a new version, 3.17.19, and the developers no longer list the malicious version on its site.

APKPure was set up in 2014 to allow Android users access to a vast bank of Android apps and games, including old versions, as well as app versions from other regions that are no longer on Android’s official app store Google Play. It later launched an Android app, which also has to be installed outside Google Play, serving as its own app store to allow users to download older apps directly to their Android devices.

APKPure is ranked as one of the most popular sites on the internet.

But security experts have long warned against installing apps outside of the official app stores as quality and security vary wildly as much of the Android malware requires victims to install malicious apps from outside the app store. Google scans all Android apps that make it into Google Play, but some have slipped through the cracks before.

TechCrunch contacted APKPure for comment but did not hear back.

News: European tech event mainstays Shift and TOA find new homes, new models, post-COVID

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Given the pandemic, huge changes are being wrought in tech events, something which used to be the lifeblood of the industry. Many a startup has pitched to win funding, and many a hackathon has formed teams that went on to greater things. It’s a sad fact that this era is over, at least until the

Given the pandemic, huge changes are being wrought in tech events, something which used to be the lifeblood of the industry. Many a startup has pitched to win funding, and many a hackathon has formed teams that went on to greater things. It’s a sad fact that this era is over, at least until the pandemic has fully passed, but this could take some time. Two significant European events have now had to change in order to carry their brands into new realms.

European breakout success story Infobip (which has raised over $200 million) was born out of Croatia. And so was the seminal developer conference Shift. With Infobipo needing that engineering community, and Shift needing a more stable home in uncertain times, it seems only natural that Infobip would put developers front and center of their company strategy with the acquisition of Shift, and appointing its founder and CEO Ivan Burazinto the board as Chief Developer Experience Officer. Shift will now form the basis of Infobip’s all-new Developer Experience department.
 
As Burazin said: “The vision was always to become one of the largest developer conferences in the world, and also to strengthen Croatia’s connection to the world of software developers. So now with the backing of a Unicorn and the freedom to keep working on independently – the vision seems to have finally become possible.”

He says Shift won’t disappear, but will now expand globally, first to the US and then to Latin America and southeast Asia, initially in remote events.
 
Infobip CEO Silvio Kutić said: “Infobip is on a growth trajectory to expand rapidly into the B2C vertical, or more specifically Business-to-Developer (B2D) space. Having Ivan on board with his experience as the founder of Codeanywhere, a B2D SaaS company, and creator of Shift, the largest developer conference in the region, will be an asset to us going forward.”
  
Meanwhile, a key startup and founder/investor-oriented conference “Tech Open Air Berlin” is also changing.

Tech Open Air (TOA), was known for its technology and startup festival, which attracted upwards of 20,000 people in Berlin every summer, but it has now pivoted into a new brand: TOA Klub. This will now be a “cohort-based learning and doing platform.” The 4-6 weeks of online programs will be aimed at help professionals progress in the tech industry.

TOA Klub will offer Founders Klub (for founders learning to startup); Investors Klub (for newbie investors); Crypto Klub (a “crash course in the crypto field”); and Co-Creators Klub (for founders looking to pivot and grow).

The first confirmed mentors and speakers include Rolf Schrömgens (Founder, Trivago), Dominik Richter (Founder, HelloFresh) or Jeanette zu Fürstenberg (Founding Partner, La Famiglia VC).

Nikolas Woischnik, founder of TOA said: “The world will come out of this pandemic having digitally aged by decades, not years.  The complexity of our business environment has greatly accelerated. At TOA this gives our long-time mission of “making people, organizations and the planet futureproof” ever more purpose. With the launch of Klub, it is time for us to leverage technology to deliver on our mission in a more impactful and accessible way.”

I for one am glad these greats brands have found new homes, because I know the brands and the founders both carry huge respect in the European startup scene.

News: Building the right team for a billion-dollar startup

• April 9, 2021
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Bain Capital Ventures managing director Sarah Smith talks about how to ensure the critical early hires are the right ones to grow a business.

From building out Facebook’s first office in Austin to putting together most of Quora’s team, Bain Capital Ventures managing director Sarah Smith has done a bit of everything when it comes to hiring. At TechCrunch Early Stage, she spoke about how to ensure the critical early hires are the right ones to grow a business. As an investor at Bain Capital Ventures, Smith has a broad view into the problems that companies face as they search for the right candidate to spur organizational success.

In our conversation, Smith touched on a number of issues such as who to hire and when, when to fire, and how to ensure diversity from the earliest days.

What to consider when you first think about hiring

When a company is making its first hires — and then evolving into a bigger organization — the processes and needs may change, but the culture should be consistent from the beginning, according to Smith. From there, an emphasis on good early managers is critical.

I would really encourage you to take some time to think about what kind of company you want to make first before you go out and start interviewing people. So that really is going to be about understanding and defining your culture. And then the second thing I’d be thinking about when you’re scaling from, you know, five people up to, you know, 50 and beyond is that managers really are the key to your success as a company. It’s hard to overstate how important managers, great managers, are to the success of your company.

So we’ll talk a little bit about how to think about that, as there’s a lot of questions around helping people grow into management for the first time. You, as a founder, might be managing people for the first time, so how to think about setting up the company for success.

(Timestamp: 4:15)

• The first hires are the hardest

How do you build culture in the new remote environment?

News: Joby Aviation’s Joe Ben Bevirt and Reid Hoffman to talk about building a startup, the future of flight and SPACs

• April 9, 2021
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Joby Aviation founder JoeBen Bevirt has spent a more than a decade developing an all-electric, vertical take-off and landing passenger aircraft — an effort that was largely shrouded in secrecy until January 2020 when the company announced a $590 million Series C round of funding that was led by Toyota Motor Corporation. (that round later

Joby Aviation founder JoeBen Bevirt has spent a more than a decade developing an all-electric, vertical take-off and landing passenger aircraft — an effort that was largely shrouded in secrecy until January 2020 when the company announced a $590 million Series C round of funding that was led by Toyota Motor Corporation. (that round later expanded to $620M).

The buzzy announcements continued with Joby’s acquisition of Uber Elevate and then culminated in February with its bid to become a publicly traded company through a merger with Reinvent Technology Partners, a special purpose acquisition company from well-known investor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus.

Joby is just getting started. The company plans to use capital generated via its public listing to fund the launch of passenger service, which is expected to begin in 2024. And Joby still must complete certification of its aircraft and develop manufacturing facilities, but it is already on its way to achieving both. The company is also planning to begin construction on a 450,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, designed in conjunction with Toyota, later this year.

The upshot: Bevirt has a lot to share. That’s why we’re excited to announced that Bevirt and Hoffman will will join us on our virtual stage at TC Sessions: Mobility 2021. The virtual event, which features the best and brightest minds in the world of mobility, will be held on June 9. Bevirt and Hoffman will discuss building a startup — and keeping it secret while raising funds — the future of flight and of course, SPACs.

The pair will join other speakers TechCrunch has announced, a list that so far, includes investors Clara Brenner of Urban Innovation Fund, Quin Garcia of Autotech Ventures and Rachel Holt of Construct Capital as well as Starship Technologies co-founder and CEO/CTO Ahti Heinla. Stay tuned for more announcements in the weeks leading up to the event.

“We approach it (SPACs) as venture capital at scale,” Hoffman told TechCrunch in a February interview. So it’s not a ‘this year thing,’ it’s a next three years, next five years, next 10 years.”

And yes, Hoffman believes SPACs are here to stay. Although we plan to check in on his stance in June. “I think that it’s valuable to the market and valuable to society have multiple, different paths, by which companies can go public,” Hoffman said.

Early Bird tickets to the show are now available — book today and save $100 before prices go up.

As for Bevirt, the move to go public marks Joby’s readiness to be more open with the rest of the world.

“We think that this is a really exciting moment, where we stand on the threshold of really redefining mobility,” Bevirt said in a previous interview. “And we really want to bring the world along on our exciting journey. Previously, only a very exclusive set of investors has had access to be part of our journey, and it’s really exciting for us to be able to share that more broadly.”

We can’t wait to hear from Bevirt and Hoffman at TC Sessions: Mobility on June 9. Make sure to grab your Early Bird pass before May 6 to save $!00 on tickets and join the fun!

News: Reap all the benefits of exhibiting in Startup Alley at Disrupt 2021

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If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 1,000 times. Startup Alley is ground zero for entrepreneurial opportunity. It’s where hundreds of savvy, exhibiting startups increase their brand recognition, connect with investors, grow their network, expand their customer base and garner invaluable media coverage. TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23, and we’ve added new

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 1,000 times. Startup Alley is ground zero for entrepreneurial opportunity. It’s where hundreds of savvy, exhibiting startups increase their brand recognition, connect with investors, grow their network, expand their customer base and garner invaluable media coverage.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23, and we’ve added new features and experiences to help Startup Alley exhibitors make the most of the virtual expo area. Ready to make a minimal investment for maximum opportunity? Buy a Startup Alley Pass for $199.

Play beat the clock: That super early-bird price remains in effect only until May 13 at 11:59 pm (PST). Get moving, and you’ll save $50.

Here’s what’s new in Startup Alley this year, starting with yet another reason to get your exhibitor’s pass ASAP.

Startup Alley+: TechCrunch will select 50 Startup Alley exhibitors to form an elite cohort. These founders receive — at no additional cost — access to a curated pre-Disrupt experience. You’ll compete in a pitch-off at Extra Crunch Live, attend a series of founder masterclasses and receive introductions to top early-stage investors. It’s specifically designed to provide more opportunities for exposure and growth before Disrupt even opens.

The timing matters because Startup Alley+ begins in July at TC Early Stage: Marketing and Fundraising — and the cohort attends for free. If you want a crack at this opportunity, get your exhibitor pass now.

The Startup Alley Crawl: Every tech category gets a dedicated, hour-long crawl. TechCrunch editors will select several startups from each category and interview the founders live from the Disrupt stage. We’ll list the specific times for each on in the agenda closer to the event.

From Startup Alley to Startup Battlefield: TechCrunch will award two stand-out startups a Startup Battlefield Wild Card. Those founders will get to compete in the thrilling Startup Battlefield for a chance to win $100,000.

Everyone pitches: Every exhibiting startup is eligible for this opportunity. You’ll have two minutes to throw your best pitch across the plate and receive feedback from pitch-savvy TechCrunch staff. Talk about an opportunity to improve and impress. Your pitch session can have long-term benefits — as told to us by Jessica McLean, the Director of Marketing and Communications at Infinite-Compute.

“Disrupt is a great avenue to network with potential investors. It carries a lot of street cred and talking about our CEO’s experience pitching in Startup Alley helps us make those connections and start important conversations.”

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23. Maximize your opportunities and minimize your investment. Buy your Startup Alley Pass before the super early-bird deadline expires on May 13, at 11:59 pm (PST).

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

News: Facebook takes down 16,000 groups trading fake reviews after another poke by UK’s CMA

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Facebook has removed 16,000 groups that were trading fake reviews on its platform after another intervention by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the regulator said today. The CMA has been leaning on tech giants to prevent their platforms being used as thriving marketplaces for selling fake reviews since it began investigating the issue

Facebook has removed 16,000 groups that were trading fake reviews on its platform after another intervention by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the regulator said today.

The CMA has been leaning on tech giants to prevent their platforms being used as thriving marketplaces for selling fake reviews since it began investigating the issue in 2018 — pressuring both eBay and Facebook to act against fake review sellers back in 2019.

The two companies pledged to do more to tackle the insidious trade last year, after coming under further pressure from the regulator — which found that Facebook-owned Instagram was also a thriving hub of fake review trades.

The latest intervention by the CMA looks considerably more substantial than last year’s action — when Facebook removed a mere 188 groups and disabled 24 user accounts. Although it’s not clear how many accounts the tech giant has banned and/or suspended this time it has removed orders of magnitude more groups. (We’ve asked.)

Facebook was contacted with questions but it did not answer what we asked directly, sending us this statement instead:

“We have engaged extensively with the CMA to address this issue. Fraudulent and deceptive activity is not allowed on our platforms, including offering or trading fake reviews. Our safety and security teams are continually working to help prevent these practices.”

Since the CMA has been raising the issue of fake review trading, Facebook has been repeatedly criticised for not doing enough to clean up its platforms, plural.

Today the regulator said the social media giant has made further changes to the systems it uses for “identifying, removing and preventing the trading of fake and/or misleading reviews on its platforms to ensure it is fulfilling its previous commitments”.

It’s not clear why it’s taken Facebook well over a year — and a number of high profile interventions — to dial up action against the trade in fake reviews. But the company suggested that the resources it has available to tackle the problem had been strained as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated impacts, such as home working. (Facebook’s full year revenue increased in 2020 but so too did its expenses.)

According to the CMA changes Facebook has made to its system for combating traders of fake reviews include:

• suspending or banning users who are repeatedly creating Facebook groups and Instagram profiles that promote, encourage or facilitate fake and misleading reviews
• introducing new automated processes that will improve the detection and removal of this content
• making it harder for people to use Facebook’s search tools to find fake and misleading review groups and profiles on Facebook and Instagram
• putting in place dedicated processes to make sure that these changes continue to work effectively and stop the problems from reappearing

Again it’s not clear why Facebook would not have already been suspending or banning repeat offenders — at least, not if it was actually taking good faith action to genuinely quash the problem, rather than seeing if it could get away with doing the bare minimum.

Commenting in a statement, Andrea Coscelli, chief executive of the CMA, essentially makes that point, saying: “Facebook has a duty to do all it can to stop the trading of such content on its platforms. After we intervened again, the company made significant changes — but it is disappointing it has taken them over a year to fix these issues.”

“We will continue to keep a close eye on Facebook, including its Instagram business. Should we find it is failing to honour its commitments, we will not hesitate to take further action,” Coscelli added.

A quick search on Facebook’s platform for UK groups trading in fake reviews appears to return fewer obviously dubious results than when we’ve checked in on this problem in 2019 and 2020. Although the results that were returned included a number of private groups so it was not immediately possible to verify what content is being solicited from members.

We did also find a number of Facebook groups offering Amazon reviews intended for other European markets, such as France and Spain (and in one public group aimed at Amazon Spain we found someone offering a “fee” via PayPal for a review; see below screengrab) — suggesting Facebook isn’t applying the same level of attention to tackling fake reviews that are being traded by users in markets where it’s faced fewer regulatory pokes than it has in the UK.

Screengrab: TechCrunch

News: Cleo Capital is targeting $20 million for Fund II

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Cleo Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 2018 by Sarah Kunst, is raising up to $20 million for its second fund, according to a source familiar with the matter. A recent SEC filing shows that Cleo Capital has already raised $6.7 million of that goal, bringing total assets under management to around $10 million.

Cleo Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 2018 by Sarah Kunst, is raising up to $20 million for its second fund, according to a source familiar with the matter. A recent SEC filing shows that Cleo Capital has already raised $6.7 million of that goal, bringing total assets under management to around $10 million. Kunst was unable to comment on her fundraising efforts.

That new AUM number is close to what Cleo Capital initially set out to do. When Kunst first launched her firm, she targeted a $10 million close. She ended up closing $3.14 million of that goal, and now, she’s back to double down.

Fund II’s $20 million target, if closed, would allow Cleo Capital, which invests in primarily pre-seed companies, to start leading rounds. The firm has already been writing $1 million checks and targets about a 15-20% ownership in its rounds.

“One of the reasons why we are a pre-seed fund is because in seed, especially late-seed, you have everyone from family offices to TikTok stars and rolling funds competing for hot rounds,” she said. “No one is competing in pre-seed.”

There are firms such as Precursor and Hustle Fund that back pre-seed companies, and cut checks around $100,000 and $25,000 to start, respectively. Kunst sees the ability to write a $1 million pre-seed check as a “huge advantage.” Usually early-stage founders without family money or deep networks have to spend a big chunk of time raising their first round. It’s a lot of time to spend fundraising and not building a company. If a firm can cut a big pre-seed check, she thinks that Cleo is “buying back six months of a company‘s runway,” she said.

Like many firms, Cleo Capital has turned to creative measures to diversify deal flow in the era of Zoom investing and pandemic business. For example, Cleo Capital launched a fellowship program for laid off workers during COVID-19 to promote entrepreneurship.

Matt Pauker, a repeat founder who has sold companies to Coinbase and HP Enterprise, was one of the advisors of that program. Pauker has joined Cleo Capital as a general partner presumably to line up with the timing of Fund II.

While the firm has no racial or gender investment focus, about 92% of its current investments are companies started by underrepresented founders.

The firm’s portfolio includes Planet FWD, mmhmm, Lunch Club, and StyleSeat. As for new opportunities, Kunst says that Cleo Capital is looking at anything that helps the individual turn into a collective. With the growth of the creator economy and solo-entrepreneurs, people need to figure out the future of income, health care, and benefit, Kunst explained.

“All of these things are hard for people to do as an individual,” she said. The majority of Cleo Capital’s portfolio is based outside of Silicon Valley.

Cleo Capital’s raise comes just over a week after two venture capital firms founded by Black venture capitalists announced new funds, Harlem Capital and MaC Venture Capital.

News: Amazon defeats warehouse union push, RWDSU challenges results

• April 9, 2021
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Efforts to unionize Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse were defeated by a wide margin in the second day of vote counting. More than half of the 3,215 votes cast broke in in factor of the retailer. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which would have served as the workers’ union, had the vote passed, was

Efforts to unionize Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse were defeated by a wide margin in the second day of vote counting. More than half of the 3,215 votes cast broke in in factor of the retailer. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which would have served as the workers’ union, had the vote passed, was quick to challenge the results.

RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement offered to TechCrunch,

Amazon has left no stone unturned in its efforts to gaslight its own employees. We won’t let Amazon’s lies, deception and illegal activities go unchallenged, which is why we are formally filing charges against all of the egregious and blatantly illegal actions taken by Amazon during the union vote. Amazon knew full well that unless they did everything they possibly could, even illegal activity, their workers would have continued supporting the union.

That’s why they required all their employees to attend lecture after lecture, filled with mistruths and lies, where workers had to listen to the company demand they oppose the union. That’s why they flooded the internet, the airwaves and social media with ads spreading misinformation. That’s why they brought in dozens of outsiders and union-busters to walk the floor of the warehouse. That’s why they bombarded people with signs throughout the facility and with text messages and calls at home. And that’s why they have been lying about union dues in a right to work state. Amazon’s conduct has been despicable.

This initial defeat represents a large setback in the biggest unionization push in Amazon’s 27 year history. What might have represented a sea change for both the retail giant and blue collar tech workers has, for now, been fairly soundly defeated.

Amazon has, of course, long insisted that it treats workers fairly, making such union efforts unnecessary. The company cites such standards as a $15 an hour minimum wage, a factor the company initial pushed back on, but ultimately instated after pressure from legislators.

It was a hard fought battle on both sides. A number of legislators threw their weight behind unionization efforts, in an unlikely alliance that ranged from Bernie Sanders to Marco Rubio. The conservative Florida Senator noted the company’s “uniquely malicious corporate behavior.” President Joe Biden also sided with the workers, calling himself, “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.”

The company will no doubt tout the results as vindication. It noted in an early statement, “[O]ur employees are smart and know the truth—starting wages of $15 or more, health care from day one, and a safe and inclusive workplace. We encourage all of our employees to vote.” We’ve reached out to the company for a statement following this morning’s news.

Among the expected challenges from the union are lingering questions around ballot boxes reportedly installed by the company in violation of labor board terms.”[E]ven though the NLRB definitively denied Amazon’s request for a drop box on the warehouse property, Amazon felt it was above the law and worked with the postal service anyway to install one,” the RWDSU writes. “They did this because it provided a clear ability to intimidate workers.”

The Bessemer warehouse, which employees around 6,000 workers, was opened at the end of March 2020, as the company looked to expand the operation of its essential workers during the impending lock down. The conversation has surface variously long standing complaints around the company’s treatment of blue collar workers, including numerous reports that employees urinate in water bottles, in order to meet stringent performance standards.

The company initially denied these claims during a social media offensive, but later clarified its stance in an apology of sorts, appearing to shift the blame to wider industry problems. The company also ran anti-union ads on its subsidiary, Twitch, before the streaming platform pulled them, stating that they “should never have been allowed to run.”

All told, 3,215 were cast, representing more than half of the workers at the Alabama warehouse. In spite of Amazon winning more than half the votes, counting will continue. Challenges are likely to stretch on for weeks.