Month: August 2018

If you were on the edge of your seat wondering what Facebook’s next major consumer privacy headache would be, the wait is over! The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has deemed Facebook-owned app Onavo in violation of its App Store policies and will be giving it the boot shortly.

In a statement to TechCrunch, an Apple spokesperson explained the reasoning behind its decision to pull the app:

We work hard to protect user privacy and data security throughout the Apple ecosystem. With the latest update to our guidelines, we made it explicitly clear that apps should not collect information about which other apps are installed on a user’s device for the purposes of analytics or advertising/marketing and must make it clear what user data will be collected and how it will be used.

In some ways, it’s a wonder that Onavo has lasted this long.

Onavo, which Facebook bought back in 2013, does two things. As far as regular consumers are concerned, Onavo comports itself like a VPN, offering to “keep you and your data safe” and “blocking potentially harmful websites and securing your personal information.”

But Onavo’s real utility is pumping a ton of app usage data to its parent company, giving Facebook an invaluable bird’s-eye view into mobile trends by observing which apps are gaining traction and which are fizzling out. That perspective is useful both from a product standpoint, allowing Facebook to get ahead of the competition (Snapchat is a fine example), and giving it an edge for considering which competitors to acquire.

That dual personality is likely part of the problem for Apple. In its descriptions, Onavo leans heavily on its promise to “protect your personal information” and the cover story of a fairly legitimate looking VPN.

With no meaningful opt-in for users who want to use Onavo’s VPN services but might be hesitant about sharing data with Facebook, the app’s true intentions were buried deep in its description: “Onavo collects your mobile data traffic… Because we’re part of Facebook, we also use this info to improve Facebook products and services, gain insights into the products and services people value, and build better experiences.”

By February of this year, the Onavo app had been downloaded more than 33 million times across both iOS and Android. While the app is no longer showing up in searches within Apple’s App Store, it’s still alive and well in Google’s considerably more free-wheeling app store, so Facebook will have to lean more heavily on its Android eyes and ears for now.

You can tell a lot about what’s going on in a home from how much electricity it’s using — especially when that information is collected every few minutes and recorded centrally. It’s revealing enough that a federal judge has ruled that people with smart meters have a reasonable expectation of privacy and as such law enforcement will require a warrant to acquire that data.

It may sound like a niche win in the fight for digital privacy, and in a way it is, but it’s still important. One of the risks we’ve assumed as consumers in adopting ubiquitous technology in forms like the so-called internet of things is that we are generating an immense amount of data we weren’t before, and that data is not always protected as it should be.

This case is a great example. Traditional spinning meters are read perhaps once a month by your local utility, and at that level of granularity there’s not much you can tell about a house or apartment other than whether perhaps someone has been living there and whether they have abnormally high electricity use — useful information if you were, say, looking for illicit pot growers with a farm in the basement.

Smart meters, on the other hand, send exact meter readings at short intervals, perhaps every 15 minutes, and these readings may be kept for years. With that much detail you could not only tell whether someone lives in a house, but whether they’re home, whether the fridge has been opened recently, what room they’re in, how often they do laundry, and so on. The fingerprints of individual devices on the house’s electrical network aren’t that difficult to figure out.

To be sure this can help the utility with load balancing, predicting demand and so on. But what if the government wants to do more with it, for example to establish whether someone was home at a certain time in a criminal investigation?

A group of concerned citizens sued the city of Naperville, Illinois, which mandated smart readers several years ago, alleging that collection of the data was unconstitutional as it amounted to an unreasonable search.

An earlier court decision essentially found that by voluntarily sharing electricity consumption data with a third party, residents surrendered their right to privacy. No privacy means it’s not a “search” to ask for the data.

But as the 7th Circuit pointed out in its ruling on appeal (hosted at the EFF), there isn’t really a third party: the city collects the data, and city authorities want to use the data. And even if there were, “a home occupant does not assume the risk of near constant monitoring by choosing to have electricity in her home.” So it is a search.

Collecting the data is not an unreasonable search, however, when it is done with no “prosecutorial intent,” the court ruled. That means that when the city is acting in its own interest as far as administrating and improving the electrical grid, it’s perfectly reasonable for them to collect this information without a warrant.

But should it be required for more than that, for instance in a criminal investigation, a warrant would certainly be required.

This distinction is important and not always observed. Systematic collection and analysis of metadata can produce remarkably detailed records of a person’s movements and habits, and it can be difficult to find and plug the holes by which that data pours out of protected containers like the Fourth Amendment.

Although it’s possible that this could be appealed up to the Supreme Court, it seems unlikely as this is not a major issue of free speech or government access. A warrant for electrical usage is rarely, one presumes, a matter of life or death, but could indeed be critical in a court battle — for which reason requiring a warrant is not an unreasonable requirement.

It seems more likely that the city of Naperville, and others in its position, will abide by this decision. That’s a win for your privacy and a foot in the door for other data collection practices like this one.

Facebook’s vice president of partnerships Dan Rose will leave the company early next year. Rose announced the move on his public Facebook page, indicating that he would stay on through Mobile World Congress in February.

During his long tenure at the company, Rose oversaw Facebook’s transformation into a media giant, steering it toward partnerships with TV networks and traditional news publishers.

In a comment on his announcement, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg summarized Rose’s influence on Facebook’s direction over the years.

“Your idea that we should be a partnership company and work closely with others in the industry has been key to some of our greatest successes,” Sandberg said. “I’ve been lucky to have you not just as a colleague but a friend – and you will always be a part of the Facebook family.”

Per his Facebook post, Rose will step down from his post to spend more time with his wife and children, who relocated to Hawaii a year ago.

“Mark and Sheryl changed my life and my career. I would walk through fire for them, or fly across the ocean on a regular basis,” Rose said. “But they deserve someone in my role who is present and fully engaged every day in the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.”

Rose sounds like he’ll be involved in the search for his replacement and the transition, leaving the door open to remaining involved and “helping Facebook from a distance.”

Prior to his time at Facebook, Rose spent seven years at Amazon as a director of business development in the Kindle’s early days. Rose is the latest major departure announcement from Facebook in recent months, following the planned exit of chief legal officer Colin Stretch and chief security officer Alex Stamos.

You can read Rose’s full announcement, embedded below.

On August 16, Xiaomi celebrated the seventh anniversary of the release of its first phone, and the eighth anniversary of MIUI’s launch. As an early investor in Xiaomi in spring 2010 and a former board member of the company, I attended Xiaomi’s IPO in Hong Kong on July 9. I felt nostalgic and grateful, and marveled at how much Xiaomi — which seemed like a crazy idea to many back in January 2010 — has achieved over the past eight years.

Xiaomi’s business model is not the easiest to appreciate if you have never tried its products. Its holistic value proposition doesn’t have an easy equivalent in the US. I frequently get asked questions about how the company works and what justifies its valuation for each round over the years. Here’s my take on the five most asked questions:

1. Why is Xiaomi an “Internet company”? Isn’t it just a manufacturer of cheap smartphones with really low margin?

At first glance Xiaomi may seem like a hardware company, which traditionally has lower gross margins. But if you look at the company as a whole and how it engages with users, it’s much more – it’s an Internet company.

It is true that around 70% of Xiaomi’s revenue comes from smartphones, 20% comes from connected devices and lifestyle products, and 10% comes from Internet services in 2017. Yet, you can actually think of smartphones as Xiaomi’s customer acquisition tool for its Internet services.

Once users get a taste of Xiaomi through its smartphones, they fall in love with the brand’s superb design, ease of usage, quality, and amazing price-to-performance ratio, and are more likely to buy a Xiaomi smart TV next, then Xiaomi’s smart home appliances, and finally use Xiaomi’s apps. Over time, Xiaomi’s Internet service revenue will grow more rapidly than most people think.

As of March 2018, Xiaomi already had 38 apps with more than 10 million monthly active users, and 18 apps with more than 50 million monthly active users, including the Mi App Store, Mi Browser, Mi Music, and Mi Video apps. Rather than paying search engines to acquire users, Xiaomi is essentially getting paid for acquiring users through selling its smartphones. This allows Xiaomi to have a negative CAC (customer acquisition cost) for its Internet services.

Another under-appreciated pillar of Xiaomi’s growth is its “ecosystem strategy.” Xiaomi strategically invests in many startups as well as the many Internet services providers they work with, both in China and outside of China. Companies in the Xiaomi ecosystem include SmartMi (air purifiers), Zimi (power banks), Huami (Mi bands), Chun Mi (rice cookers), and 80-plus more.

Thanks to these prolific investments, you can find a wide variety of products in any Xiaomi store, from scooters to ukeleles (see below). As a result, every time consumers visit a Xiaomi store, they can find something new, and the frequency of store visits is a lot higher than typical smartphone brands, even Apple. 

Xiaomi’s users are often loyal to the brand because there are so many great Xiaomi ecosystem products consumers can buy. Over 1.4 million users already own more than five connected Xiaomi products (excluding smartphones and laptops). The rising middle class in China and other emerging markets trust, embrace, and identify with the Xiaomi brand – similar to how Muji and Uniqlo from Japan are loved by consumers worldwide. Overtime, as more users become “Mi fans”, Xiaomi’s Internet service revenue will grow, but there is a lagging effect, which many public investors don’t fully appreciate yet.

In addition, Xiaomi also invests in Internet service providers. It then preloads their content into its own apps, or preloads their apps into its own phones and smart TVs. For example, within the Mi Video app, you can access content from top Chinese video platforms like iQiyi and Youku Tudou, because Xiaomi was an investor in these companies. Xiaomi shares advertising and subscription revenue with these platforms, allowing it to rapidly grow its revenue from Internet services, which have extremely high margins.

• What key factors made you want to invest in Xiaomi? In your opinion, what was the biggest risk about this investment?

I have known CEO and founder LEI Jun for almost 10 years. We first met when he became an angel investor in early 2008. When Lei Jun first told me about his idea for Xiaomi in January 2010 in Beijing, I listened to his pitch (there wasn’t even a PowerPoint) and it took about 90 minutes before I decided to invest. He used five arguments to convince me.

1. In the next 10 years, smartphones will replace laptops as the dominant way people interact with technology.
2. He believed that listening to consumers’ feedback and iterating on products rapidly based on that feedback are essential for success, especially for building customer loyalty. This is a different approach from the one that Apple, HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, etc. had at that time. He wanted to build a phone that is Android-based but with a localized wraparound “MIUI” so that users will feel it’s an OS that listens to them and can grow with them.
3. Internet companies have high margins and therefore are less likely to fully commit to a low margin business like hardware. Think Google and Amazon.
4. Ensure the price of the hardware is as low as possible so the company can grow market share and users. Sell the phones online, direct-to-consumer, bypass the middlemen, and past the enormous cost savings to consumers. Overtime, the company will monetize on Internet services.
5. Build a world-class team that has a combination of overseas returnees and locals.

The team he assembled was the only one that had experience in four out of the five areas that I considered to be critical to the success for his “triathlon model”:

1. E-commerce (via his second startup Joyo.com, which was sold to Amazon in 2004),
2. Software (via Kingsoft, where he was the CEO)
3. Internet services such as online gaming (via Kingsoft, where he was the CEO).
4. Online brand building (via the startup Vancl, where he was an angel investor)
5. Smartphone design (this is the area where his initial team did not have direct experience, but I was confident that he would hire the best talents in smartphone design given his 1 million Sina Weibo fans in 2010)

No one else had all these skills under one roof. This is why I thought Xiaomi might have the chance to do something very special.

However, for anyone who passed on Xiaomi early, it was very a reasonable and logical decision. In the history of mobile phone companies around the world, no startup had ever been successful. Some even predicted that for Xiaomi to succeed, Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia would all have to fail. In 2010, that seemed a crazy idea. But the rest is history. 

• What do you think of Xiaomi’s international expansion strategy?

Xiaomi did a great job in recruiting Hugo Barra, who was formerly an executive at Google Android, to join them as Head of International in 2013. Hugo’s experience lent credibility to Xiaomi, as he became the international face of the company for the next three to four years. He also recruited several young executives and country managers, mostly in their late 20s or early 30s back then, many of whom were first-generation Chinese Americans or Western educated immigrants. These executives have helped Xiaomi become a global company, and they all have a bright future ahead of them with more responsibilities to come. It’s really important to hire the right head of international and country managers to make it work.

Conversely, when US companies go to China, it’s harder to hire young millennials to spearhead the China business because the Chinese Internet space is a lot more difficult to navigate. But as there are more and more Gen Z and millennial consumers in China, American and international companies can take more chances, recruit young entrepreneurs to join them, and form an advisory board of industry veterans and investors around their China initiative.

• How can Xiaomi expand into the US, given Huawei and ZTE’s troubled relationship with the US government and the recent trade tensions between the US and China?

In my opinion, the US market is not an immediate priority for Xiaomi today. Emerging markets, which include India, Southeast Asia, Eastern and Southern Europe, and Latin America, represent much bigger and immediate opportunities.

Xiaomi is already in 74 countries today. In the first quarter of 2018, over 36% of Xiaomi’s revenue came from markets outside of China. According to IDC, in Q4 2017, Xiaomi was among the top five smartphone brands in terms of unit shipments in 15 countries, including India (No. 1), Indonesia (No. 2), Russia, Poland, Greece, and Israel. Xiaomi also has plans to double down on markets in Latin America such as Mexico.

Why is this significant? Allow me to share a historical lesson. When Yahoo! Invested in Alibaba (another GGV portfolio company) in 2005, the world had 1 billion Internet users. Now, the world has 3.5 billion Internet users. Over the last 13 years, Alibaba’s valuation increased 100 times from $5 billion to $500 billion. The fact that China was the fastest growing market for Internet users during this period, coupled with Alibaba’s amazing ability to execute, turned the company into a growth miracle. In the next 12-13 years, the world will most likely grow to 5 billion Internet users. The world’s next 1 billion Internet users that will come online in the next decade – via affordable but high-quality smartphones – are outside of the US. They are in the 74 countries that Xiaomi is already in today. Going forward, Xiaomi is very well-positioned to take advantage of the next phase of growth through selling hardware, software, and bundled Internet services, as well as by investing in partner companies in those countries.

• What do you think of Xiaomi’s IPO price?

I think Xiaomi is undervalued at HK$17 per share. Xiaomi’s was the world’s largest tech IPO since Alibaba’s in 2014 and it has a relatively complicated business model, so it might take time for public investors to understand and appreciate. I believe Xiaomi will deliver performance that beats expectations going forward.

If you look at the IPO price of HK$17 a share, Xiaomi was valued using a revenue multiple of 10x for its Internet services (a discount to Alibaba and Tencent), and 2x for its hardware-related revenue (an average multiple for one of China’s favorite brands), based on the 2017 numbers. So there is still a lot of potential for upside both in terms of operational growth and multiple expansions. I remember when Facebook went public in 2012, its share was priced at $38 and its first day of trading ended at $38.23. Obviously, six years later, Facebook is now worth about five times its valuation at IPO. Similarly, there’s a lot of room for Xiaomi to grow. 

I’d like to give a shoutout to other major early investors in Xiaomi, including Richard Liu of Morningside Venture Capital, Tuck Koh of ShunWei Capital, and Yuri Milner, Shou Zi Chew (now Xiaomi’s CFO) of DST Global. Their continued support has been instrumental to Xiaomi’s success.

For more on our take on Xiaomi, listen to the latest episode of the 996 Podcast where we discussed Xiaomi’s IPO and an earlier episode of the podcast where we interviewed Xiaomi’s cofounder Lin Bin. You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, or SoundCloud. Just search “996” wherever else you listen to podcasts. You can also watch Hans discussing Xiaomi on CNBC and Bloomberg, or read his previous TechCrunch article “Xiaomi on Its 5^th Birthday. 

To reach Hans and Zara directly, join the 996 listeners’ community via WeChat/Slack at 996.ggvc.com/community

They also run a biweekly email newsletter on tech trends in China. Subscribe at 996.ggvc.com.

The Sill, a startup that sells potted plants online and in physical stores, announced this weekend that it has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Raine Ventures.

The company was founded in 2012 and has now raised a total of $7.5 million. It was bootstrapped until last year, when it raised seed funding from Brand Foundry Ventures, Halogen Ventures, BBG Ventures, Tuesday Capital, BlueSeed and The Chernin Group. (BBG Ventures is backed by TechCrunch’s parent company Oath.)

That seems like a long time for a startup to go without outside funding, and indeed, CEO Eliza Blank acknowledged that she “probably waited too long to go out and raise.” Still, she said those first few years also gave her time to find the right business model (like focusing “exclusively on the direct-to-consumer business,” rather than selling to offices as well.)

And while it’s easy to group The Sill among all the startups using the Internet to build a consumer business around a traditional category of retail, Blank said her vision is bigger than “just putting plants online and being another direct-to-consumer brand.”

After all, there are plenty of people (myself included) who are interested in owning plants but don’t really know how to care for them properly. And our casual interest level probably isn’t going to get us to the local horticultural society to learn more.

Blank said she founded the company in response to her own experience wanting to buy plants, and realizing how limited the resources were for learning “how to approach the category as a newbie.”

So The Sill doesn’t just sell you a plant (along with basic care instructions). It also allows you to ask questions of the company’s plant experts — and with the opening of its first brick-and-mortar stores in New York City, it also offers weekly workshops.

“We have a much longer relationship than a typical transaction business,” Blank said. “Making the purchase is almost like the start — or maybe the middle — of a conversation.”

The company says it sold more than 75,000 products in the last six months, with sales up 500 percent year-over-year, and anticipated revenue for the year of more than $10 million.

Root Insurance, an Ohio-based car insurance startup with a tech twist, said Wednesday it has raised $100 million in a Series D funding round led of Tiger Global Management, pushing the company’s valuation to $1 billion. 

Redpoint Ventures, Ribbit Capital, and Scale Venture Partners all participated as follow-on investors in this latest round.

The car insurance company, founded in 2015, plans to use the funds to expand into existing markets and make inroads into new states as well as hire more employees such as  engineers, actuaries, claims, and customer service to support increased scale. 

Root provides car insurance to drivers. Not exactly a new concept. But it establishes the premium customers based on their driving along with other factors. Drivers download the app and take a test drive that typically lasts two or three weeks. Then Root provides a quote that rewards good driving behavior and allows customers to switch their insurance policy. Customers can purchase and manage their policy through the mobile phone Root app.

Root says its approach allows good drivers to save more than 50% on their policies compared to traditional insurance carriers.

The company uses AI algorithms to adjust risk and sometimes provide discounts. For example, a vehicle with an advanced driver assistance system that it deems improves safety might receive further discounts.

“Root Insurance is leading digital innovation in U.S. auto insurance,” Lee Fixel, a partner at Tiger Global Management said in a statement. “This industry is ripe for change, and we are excited to invest in a team that has the expertise, vision, and momentum to deliver real results. We look forward to growing our partnership with Root and helping them expand their footprint across the United States.”

The company has grown from its home market of Ohio into 20 other states in the past two years. The company plans to expand to all 50 states and Washington, D.C., by the end of 2019.

Drive Capital and Silicon Valley Bank are also investors in the company.

After finally settling on a new apartment, packing your last box and rushing out to pick up your moving van for the measly three hours you could book it for — have you ever taken a moment to think, “Wow, this is so easy?”

Nope, and neither has anybody else. But Shyft, a logistics platform company based in San Francisco, is hoping to change that.

Originally named Crater, the company has announced today a re-brand of its name and mission to focus on helping improve the corporate relocation process for millions of movers per year. The company is bringing with it three years of experience developing software and technology to help moving companies provide better estimates and service to customers.

“We spend hours thinking about these global citizens who are moving everyday and literally shifting their lives,” Shyft CMO Rajiv Parikh told TechCrunch. “They’re moving to new communities, they’re finding new schools, they’re finding new opportunities. It’s a monumental and pivotal moment in someone’s life.”

The process works two-fold. First, Shyft is continuing its partnerships with moving companies and selling its software to them in order to help update their portals and make the process as seamless as possible for their existing customers. As part of these partnerships, Shyft is able to create a reliable network of moving companies and services that it can utilize in the second part of its service — connecting with corporate Fortune 500 companies to help their transferees easily and intuitively complete their moving process.

Through the platform, employees planning a move can fill out information like how many boxes they’re moving, what their housing needs will be, and even what kind of food they like and dietary restrictions they have. With this data, Shyft will help direct them to the services they need and work to help them best integrate into their new communities.

Shyft works with corporate companies’ lump sum funds to help employees find the best price possible for their move. And transferees can use the services for free (or be reimbursed the difference).

“A traditional moving company is focused on moving — dollars and cents — [and] they want the largest and the biggest moves out there,” Shyft CEO Alex Alpert told TechCrunch. “From our perspective, we’re agnostic to that. If it’s in someone’s best interest to sell their sofa and buy a new one, we want to help facilitate that.”

In a recent collaboration with eBay, the company says it has seen large increases in the number of employees using its portal instead of trying to figure out logistics on their own.

“We have monitored the use of Shyft in our lump sum program and have seen a marked increase in the willingness of employees to engage with Shyft to identify the best solution to their moving needs,” eBay Director of HR Global Mobility Eric Halverson said in a statement. “Shyft is helping our employees optimize their lump sum allowance with a variety of moving solutions geared to their personal needs and circumstances.”

Alpert says that Shyft is now focusing on growing and refining its service, and this summer was accepted to join Moderne Venture’s summer Passport Program. The 7-month industry immersion program is designed to help companies refine their go-to-market strategies and network with others working in the real estate, finance, insurance and home-services space.

Latch announced this morning that it has raised $70 million in Series B funding.

The round was led by Brookfield Ventures, the investment arm of Brookfield Asset Management. As part of the deal, Brookfield Properties will also be installing Latch systems in its multi-family properties that are currently under development.

“We are thrilled to support Latch, the clear market leader in a nearly $25 billion space that is expected to grow at twice the rate of traditional access over the next several years,” said Brookfield’s Josh Raffaelli in the funding announcement.

Lux Capital, RRE Ventures, Primary Venture Partners, Third Prime, Camber Creek, Corigin Ventures, Tishman Speyer and Balyasny Asset Management also participated int he new funding.

Latch’s smart lock system is designed for apartment buildings rather than single family homes, allowing you to open doors with a smartphone, keycard or door code. It also allows residents to create temporary access codes for guests and service providers.

Speaking of service providers, Latch announced a pilot partnership with UPS earlier this summer that will allow UPS drivers to receive unique credentials for entering buildings to make deliveries.

Latch was founded five years ago, but stayed in stealth mode until 2016. It previously raised $26 million funding.

An apparent hacking attempt on the Democratic National Committee’s voter database was a false alarm, the organization has said.

CNN and the Associated Press reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed party official, that the political organization was warned of an attempt on its systems. DNC officials contacted the FBI after Lookout, a security firm, detected and reported a phishing page that replicated a login page for NGP VAN, a technology provider for Democratic campaigns.

But the party’s security chief quickly reversed its position Thursday, confirming that the phishing page was “simulated.”

“The test, which mimicked several attributes of actual attacks on the Democratic party’s voter file, was not authorized by the DNC… or any of our vendors,” said Bob Lord, DNC’s chief security officer, in a statement.

Just a day earlier, he briefed Democratic officials on the apparent incident in Chicago on Wednesday.

It’s believed that the Michigan Democratic Party asked a third party to conduct the test without clearance or authorization from the DNC, according to one reporter.

In the case of phishing attacks, hackers attempt to obtain the username and password for sensitive internal systems by tricking staff into entering their credentials on spoofed sites. Hackers can then reuse those credentials to log in themselves.

Mike Murray, Lookout’s vice president of security intelligence who originally informed the DNC of the phishing page, said in a tweet that, “you don’t know that they’re false until you’ve showed up to investigate.”

It’s not uncommon for political parties to store vast amounts of information on voters. Political parties and national committees often use the data to target voters with political messaging.

In recent years, several voter databases have leaked or were exposed on unprotected servers for anyone to find.

Earlier this week, Microsoft said it thwarted an attempt by a Russian-backed advanced persistent threat group known as Fancy Bear (or APT28) to steal data from political organizations.

Updated on August 23: with new information from the DNC. This story and its headline have been updated.

2018 has been the year that AR promises came face-to-face with reality. While Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore sparked a ravenous response from developers that had grown worried about VR’s near-term market and the fate of AR headsets from Microsoft and Magic Leap, little seemed to resonate deeply with consumers.

That realization is part of the reason that AR startups working on backend services and more base level development pipelines have seen so much success. Onstage at Disrupt SF 2018, we’ll be chatting with Anjney Midha, the CEO of an AR startup called Ubiquity6.

The startup was founded just a year ago but has already raised over $37 million to solve some of the hardest augmented reality problems that companies like Google and Apple are working hard to solve as well. Its backers include Google’s Gradient Ventures, First Round, Benchmark and KPCB where Midha previously ran a small fund.

The company is tackling problems like multiplayer interactions and world mapping as well as issues key to more immersive gameplay like making sure that virtual objects stay tied to physical markers in-between gaming sessions. Ultimately, the company’s work is aiming to promote the Ubiquity6 app to be a hub for AR experiences that will have a development backbone that enables much deeper AR interactions for users.

Ubiquity6 is ambitious about the scale of their AR capabilities. While so many companies are focusing their efforts on how to capture AR interactions taking place in the living room, Ubiquity6 is actively working to map entire cities so that it can deliver massive AR experiences that can turn heads (or at least phones).

We’re looking forward to chatting with Midha and hearing about how his startup is planning to compete with some of the world’s biggest tech companies in building out a digital reality that’s projected onto our own.

The full agenda is here. Passes for the show are available here.