Year: 2018

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1. Tesla earns its first profit in two years

Tesla reported a profit in the third quarter, reversing seven consecutive quarters of losses. This is only the third time in the company’s history that it has achieved this milestone.

The turnaround was driven by sales of the Model 3. The company said customers are trading up their relatively cheaper vehicles to buy a Model 3, even though there is not yet a leasing option and the starting price was $49,000.

2. Trump has two ‘secure’ iPhones, but the Chinese are still listening

A new report by The New York Times puts a spotlight on the president’s array of devices and how he uses them. However, both Trump and a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry have denied the story.

(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

3. Red Dead Redemption 2 sets the bar high for the next generation of open world games

Tomorrow, Red Dead Redemption 2 goes live after months of breathless speculation. And according to Devin Coldewey and Jordan Crook, it’s as good as you’ve been hoping.

4. Facebook is building Lasso, a video music app to steal TikTok’s teens

Facebook is building a standalone product where users can record and share videos of themselves lip syncing or dancing to popular songs, according to information from current and former employees.

5. One-year-old Ribbon raises $225m to remove the biggest stress of home buying

The startup wants to replace the incredible stress of securing a mortgage during the home-buying process with a Ribbon Offer: If a buyer can’t secure a mortgage in time for close, Ribbon will pay for the house itself and give the buyer extra time to get financing.

6. Twitter beats Wall St Q3 estimates with $758M in revenue

Twitter reported a 29 percent increase in ad revenue to $650 million, and the company says total ad engagements increased 50 percent year over year. However, user growth didn’t quite match expectations.

7. Confirmed: ShopRunner acquires Spring, raises $40M

ShopRunner is announcing its first infusion of venture funding under CEO Sam Yagan, plus an acquisition of the shopping app Spring. Sources also say it’s readying a major overhaul of its mobile app.

Short of an actual apocalypse (which should be coming any day now), this Nerf-branded gun from Hasbro is (thankfully) probably the closest you’re going to come to any real life Fortnite action in the near future.

The dart-firing gun was announced recently, alongside a Fortnite version of Monopoly (which launched earlier this month), and now we’ve got some pictures and a June 1 release date. The AR-L Blaster was inspired by the firearm in the wildly popular sandbox survival game and has the giant Fortnite branding across its body to provide it.

The gun has a 10-dart clip, flip-up sight and runs on 4 AA batteries. It’s priced at $50 USD — V-Bucks not accepted, apparently. It’s set to be the first of a series of Nerf blasters inspired by the game, according to Hasbro.

Short of an actual apocalypse (which should be coming any day now), this Nerf-branded gun from Hasbro is (thankfully) probably the closest you’re going to come to any real life Fortnite action in the near future.

The dart-firing gun was announced recently, alongside a Fortnite version of Monopoly (which launched earlier this month), and now we’ve got some pictures and a June 1 release date. The AR-L Blaster was inspired by the firearm in the wildly popular sandbox survival game and has the giant Fortnite branding across its body to provide it.

The gun has a 10-dart clip, flip-up sight and runs on 4 AA batteries. It’s priced at $50 USD — V-Bucks not accepted, apparently. It’s set to be the first of a series of Nerf blasters inspired by the game, according to Hasbro.

Teikametrics is a Boston-based startup that helps retailers tackle the challenges of advertising on Amazon. Today, the company is announcing that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding.

CEO Alasdair McLean-Foreman said third-party sellers represent 60 percent of the transactions on Amazon. But they don’t have any real data science capabilities, so they need help advertise their goods in a way that maximizes profitability.

“We are using big data to help sellers optimize for profitability,” McLean-Foreman said. He compared it to the work that Amazon has done “optimizing on the consumer side — all the advanced econometrics” to determine things like the price of Amazon Prime. “We’re on the other side. We’re helping sellers and brands.”

That’s a very different challenge from optimizing Facebook ads to get the most clicks. McLean-Foreman argued that it’s not even something Amazon can do properly, because, “They don’t have critical information on cost of goods sold, and they also don’t have the context of being on the supply chain side.”

(At the same time, he emphasized, “We’re aligned with Amazon, we’re pro-Amazon and we’ve built our company off the back of Amazon.”)

In contrast, Teikametrics — through its “retail optimization platform” Flywheel — allows sellers to incorporate things like transaction data, inventory data and pricing data. So when they look at the results of of their campaigns, they can see their gross profit margins and profitability after ad spend.

How appealing is this to sellers? Well Teikametrics says it’s being used by advertisers who represent 1 percent of all sales on Amazon, including brands like Razer, Power Practical and Zipline Ski. Eventually, the company plans to expand its technology beyond Amazon, to other marketplaces.

Teikametrics has been bootstrapped since its founding in 2013, at least until now. McLean-Foreman said he decided to raise outside funding because “the crown jewel is the sheer amount of data that we can model,” which means hiring “a tremendous amount of very, very high-powered machine learning folks.”

The Series A funding was led by Granite Point Capital, Jump Capital and FJ Lab.

A growing number of states has legalized retail marijuana sales, but ensuring that everything works as advertised is no easy task. Among the many things that regulators have to concern themselves with are: granting licenses to dispensaries, retail sales, delivery, distribution, ensuring marijuana has been tested for pesticides and other materials, and other parts of the cannabis supply system.

In California, the software system that’s being used statewide to record the inventory and movement of cannabis and cannabis products through the commercial cannabis supply chain is made by Metrc, a low-flying, five-year-old, Lakeland, Florida company. In fact, Metrc now services 11 states altogether, including Colorado, Oregon, Alaska, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, and Louisiana. It’s also used by regulators in Washington, D.C.

It’s the kind of traction that investors notice, and indeed, today Metrc is announcing its first outside round of funding, in the form of $50 million from Tiger Global Management and Casa Verde Ventures, the three-year-old, cannabis-focused venture firm that was famously cofounded by rapper Snoop Dogg but is largely managed by Goldman Sachs and Nomura Securities alum Karan Wadhera.

Wadhera tells us he’d been following Metrc for a “number of years as it became one of the de facto track-and-trace systems” for government entities that regulate the cannabis industry. Eventually, he introduced to the company Tiger, with which Case Verde “shares deal flow quite regularly,” says Wadhera, pointing to another co-investment the two firms have made together in Green Bits, a maker of point-of-sale software for dispensaries. (Worth noting: Green Bits launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2015.)

Certainly, that kind of working relationship helps, but the supply chain expertise of Metrc CEO Jeff Wells also presumably gave Tiger and Casa Verde confidence in their investment. Not so long ago, Metrc was part of a larger company called Franwell that was founded by Wells in 1993 and that quickly began developing products for the RFID market. More specifically, Wells tells us, Franwell began focusing on cold chain management and fresh foods, building up resources, research, and knowledge along the way . — including about regulated markets — that he believes gives an edge to its clients today, including those of Metrc.

As for how Metrc will use its fresh capital, Wells says the company plans to remain focused solely on regulators but to “look to expand our regulatory focus,” including, eventually, by potentially expanding into “other regulated markets and products that need the type of tools that Metrc has created.” The company, which currently employs roughly 100 people, also expects to work eventually with both domestic and international regulators.

Surely, as more state and sovereign governments legalize cannabis, compliance will play an even more critical role. Says Wadhera of the deal, “Compliance is the backbone of the cannabis industry. If a license holder isn’t compliant, their business will cease to exist.” That’s good for proponents of greater accessibility to cannabis. It’s good for consumers who can be better assured that the products they’re buying is safe. For Metrc and now Tiger and Casa Verde Capital, that’s also good for business.

Twitch continues to dominate the live streaming market, with approximately 2.5 billion hours watched by viewers in the third quarter of 2018, according to a new industry report out this morning. While YouTube still trails, it’s begun to close the gap with Twitch, it appears. YouTube’s live streaming platform, YouTube Live, started the year with 15 percent of the overall live streaming market’s viewership, but by September 2018, it had grown to roughly 25 percent of all live streaming hours viewed.

These findings, and more, were the subject of a “state of the industry” report released today by StreamElements, which also dug into what’s making these live streaming sites tick.

Of course, Twitch is still the market leader, with around 750 million monthly viewers, on average, who watched over 813 million hours in September. YouTube Live, by comparison, saw over 226 million hours that month, and Microsoft’s Mixer saw just 13+ million.

Also of note is that Twitch’s growth is now coming from the long tail, the report claims. Its top 100 channels haven’t grown much since the beginning of the year – in fact, they’re down a bit, according to the findings. In January 2018, viewers watch around 262 million hours on the top 100, which dropped to 254 million in September.

In addition, Twitch is growing viewership thanks to its expanded focus outside of gaming content. IRL streaming – meaning, watching creators “in real life” going about their day, vlogging, or participating in other activities, for example – is now one of the site’s most consistently growing categories, with 41 million more hours watched in Q3 2018 than in Q1.

This growth likely impacted Twitch’s recent decision to do away with the overarching “IRL” category to instead break down the content into subcategories like music, food & drink, ASMR, beauty, and more, and other organizational changes to its site.

StreamElements also claims that game streams and other content – but not the competitions known as “esports” –  are what’s attracting viewers.

Esports viewership now makes up 9 to 17 percent of overall Twitch viewership, the report says. (This is consistent with findings Newzoo has reported in past years, as well.)

The report’s data, however, is not first-party – it comes from StreamElements’ position as a production and community management solutions provider for live streamers, which allows it some insight into live streaming trends. The company also partnered with streaming analysts StreamHatchet to compile this report, it says.

That being said, it’s not the only one to point to YouTube’s more recent growth. In StreamLabs’ Q2 report this year, it also found that YouTube’s live gaming streams were on the rise, as was viewership. But StreamLabs tends to look at concurrent streams and viewership, so it’s not a direct comparison.

YouTube recently did away with its standalone YouTube Gaming app, and incorporated gaming content more directly into its main site. This could impact its future growth even more than is reflected in this Q3-focused report.

Finally, the report also found that Fortnite’s popularity may have peaked – it’s still the most watched game on Twitch, but since reaching over 151 million hours watched in July, it’s been shedding viewers. The game saw 20 million fewer hours viewed in August, then dropped by another 25 million hours in September.

ShopRunner chief executive Sam Yagan conquered the online dating world. Can he conquer the e-commerce world, too?

Hot off the heels of its first profitable year, ShopRunner is announcing its first infusion of venture funding under Yagan, an acquisition of the shopping app Spring and, sources tell TechCrunch, it’s readying a major overhaul to its mobile app, signaling what could be a new era for the company.

Yagan, the co-founder of OkCupid, former CEO and vice chairman of The Match Group and managing director of the venture fund Corazon Capital joined ShopRunner in 2016 to test the waters of online retail.

“If you look at founding OkCupid, running Match and incubating Tinder, arguably, I had my hands on the three most important dating businesses ever,” Yagan told TechCrunch. “Finally, I was like, ‘what else is there?’ I am either going to the grave as the online dating guy, or this was the moment.”

Yagan replaced former PayPal president Scott Thompson as ShopRunner’s CEO, moved the Alibaba -backed subscription-based digital shopping company from Silicon Valley to his hometown, Chicago, and readied for battle against Amazon.

ShopRunner teams with mid- to high-end retailers to offer its paying members free two-day shipping and free returns on their sites, taking a small cut of each purchase. As much as it might like to, it doesn’t compete with Amazon Prime. It doesn’t even have a centralized marketplace where users can shop all the ShopRunner partner brands at once, but that may change.

This week, it announced a $40 million investment from August Capital, bringing its total equity funding to around $140 million since it was founded in 2009. The company says it plans to use the cash for product development, data science and to amp up its M&A strategy. It’s already begun the latter, confirming to TechCrunch that it’s acquired Alan and David Tisch’s Spring, a deal first reported by Recode.

Yagan declined to disclose both ShopRunner’s latest valuation and the terms of the Spring acquisition. Though he did say ShopRunner’s valuation is in the “hundreds of millions” range and that they had purchased Spring’s platform and 30 of its employees, a majority of which are engineers.

ShopRunner did not take on all of Spring’s employees. Why? Yagan said it was because the two were similar companies and there wasn’t a need for Spring’s entire team. As a result, Spring’s remaining employees, a mix of engineers and otherwise, are joining real estate tech startup Compass as part of a separate transaction, Spring’s CEO Alan Tisch confirmed to TechCrunch.

Backed with $105 million in VC funding, Spring had reportedly struggled to scale and had drifted from the mobile-first strategy it touted right out of the gate. TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden has more on this and Compass’ acquihire.

ShopRunner and Spring had some preexisting ties. Recode reports that Michael Rubin, the billionaire owner of ShopRunner via Kynetic, ShopRunner’s parent company, is close friends with Alan. Moving forward, Alan is serving as an advisor to ShopRunner, while Spring’s president Marshall Porter will continue to lead the startup.

“Shopping on your phone isn’t fun and it’s not easy,” Alan told TechCrunch. “And many of the brands that people love and shop every day you can’t find on Amazon. We wanted to create an experience that was as fun and easy as walking into a great store. We still don’t feel today that the dream has been fully realized but we think combining the scale of ShopRunner and the product Spring has really puts us in the position to make that happen.”

By pairing up with Spring, ShopRunner is multiplying the number of brands available to its paying members by 10 and offering, for the first time, an actual marketplace where customers can gain access to hundreds of those brands at once.

For now, both companies will continue to operate independently, but Yagan says they will revisit whether to fully merge the platforms in 2019.

Spring is ShopRunner’s first major M&A deal, but won’t be its last. Yagan said they have their eyes peeled for any-point solutions that help retailers take on Jeff Bezos, or that have large member bases and provide a great shopping experience.

Finally, according to sources familiar with the company, ShopRunner is planning to unveil a major update to its mobile app in November. Historically, users weren’t able to access ShopRunner brands via its app, making it an essentially useless piece of the company’s product. The update, coupled with the acquisition of Spring, will put ShopRunner on the path toward creating a digital mall with frictionless payments, a necessary step forward for the aspiring Amazon competitor.

Google Maps has been steadily rolling out new features to make its app more than just a way to find places and navigate to them. In recent months, it’s added things like group trip planning, music controls, commuter tools, ETA sharing, personalized recommendations, and more. Now, it’s introducing a new way for users to follow their favorite businesses, as well – like restaurants, bars, or stores, for example – in order to stay on top of their news and updates.

If that sounds a lot like Google Maps’ own version of Facebook Pages, you’re right.

Explains the company, once you tap the new “follow” to track a business, you’ll then be able to see news from those places like their upcoming events, their offers, and other updates right in the “For You” tab on Google Maps.

Events, deals and photo-filled posts designed to encourage foot traffic? That definitely sounds like a Facebook Page competitor aimed at the brick-and-mortar crowd.

Businesses can also use the Google Maps platform to start reaching potential customers before they open to the public, Google notes.

After building a Business Profile using Google My Business which includes their opening date, the business will then be surfaced in users’ searches on mobile web and in the app, up to three months before their opening.

This profile will display the opening date in orange just below the business name, and users can save the business to one of their lists, if they choose. Users can also view all the other usual business information, like address, phone, website and photos.

The new “follow” feature will be accessible to the over 150 million places already on Google Maps, as well as the millions of users who are seeking them out.

The feature has been spotted in the wild for some time before Google’s official announcement this week, and is rolling out over the next few weeks, initially on Android.

The “For You” tab is currently available in limited markets, with more countries coming soon, says Google.

Can’t wait to get your giant hand on Palm’s tiny “ultra-mobile?” Turns out it will be arriving sooner than later — next Friday, in fact. Verizon (you know, the giant telecom that owns the media conglomerate that owns TechCrunch) announced today that it will be launching the strange new thing on November 2.

The 3.3-inch device runs $349 off-contract. On-contract, it’s $14.58 a month for two years. It wll be available through the carrier’s stores o through Best Buy kiosks. The companies are also betting big on accessories, from companies including Kate Spade, Zagg, LifeActiv and some Verizon-branded products.

Makes sense, as the device is being positioned as somewhere between a smartphone and smartwatch, given its small size. It’s novel, for sure, the notion of what’s essentially a smaller, second phone. It’s also fairly retro, both from the standpoint of the startup licensing out the familiar name and the fact that it sports roughly the same size screen as the original iPhone.

I know I’m excited to try the thing out. The built quality is certainly there from my initial impressions, and you can’t really go wrong with a design that looks like nothing more than a shrunk down iPhone. Of course, the company has painted itself into a bit of a corner with a single carrier launch for a device that already includes a number of barriers to entry.

Of course, with the run that Steph’s been having lately, maybe they’ll pull it off, after all.

Streaming news company Cheddar announced this morning it’s acquiring Rate My Professors, the Viacom-owned site where students go online to rate and review their professors and schools across the U.S. The site, founded in 1999, has become something of a staple on the web, and by its nature it attracts the young demographic that Cheddar itself is also after.

According to Cheddar, Rate My Professors is being used by more than 6 million college students per month, who write an average of 125,000 new professor and class ratings monthly. Seasonally, these figures peak at 7 million and 300,000, respectively.

The site traffic has been steadily growing year-over-year, and it now boasts 20 million total ratings across 1.8 million professors. Its iOS app has thousands of reviews, and a 4.8 star rating, as well.

Cheddar already has big plans for its new purchase, promising a site redesign and a set of features for professors, it says.

“Rate My Professors is a trusted tool for millions of students each month; we’re excited to redesign the site, improve the user experience, and offer students a better toolset to search, evaluate and compare professors” said Eric Harris, President and Chief Operating Officer of Cheddar, in a statement. “In 2019, we also plan to offer educators a premium toolset similar to those offered to employers by Glassdoor.”

Despite the overlap in demographics, the site isn’t the most obvious choice for Cheddar, whose key focus to date has been on its streaming news networks.

Today, Cheddar operates two live video networks: the business news network Cheddar, which often scoops tech news stories; and the newer Cheddar Big News, which is its fast-paced general and headline news network. These channels are carried across streaming TV and video services, like Sling TV, Hulu, YouTube TV, fuboTV, Philo, and Amazon and on social platforms like Snapchat, Twitch, Facebook, and Twitter.

It also operates the place-based CheddarU network across 1,600 on 600 campuses – or a reach of 9 million students.

As part of the deal, Cheddar says it’s bringing in Taboola as a strategic in-feed discovery partner for Cheddar’s Rate My Professors. Taboola says it will bring an infinite scrolling experience to the site, through its Taboola Feed – a personalized experience designed for those who grew up scrolling through social media.

Rate My Professors is not the first move Cheddar has made recently as a part of a strategy to reach the coveted younger demographic.

It also in May 2018 bought Viacom’s MTV Networks on Campus, the distribution platform for Viacom’s campus-based service, MTVU – which then became CheddarU. Chegg and Pandora were launch partners, with Chegg collaborating on programming focused on education and study, and Pandora on daily coverage of artists, playlists and music charts.

With the new acquisition, Cheddar gains a user-generated content site that has a strong direct-to-consumer relationship, Cheddar CEO Jon Steinberg tells us.

“We already have a superior model to traditional ad-supported media companies – we are in premium skinny bundles next to CNN and CNBC and focused on live, not page views. Everyone, even NBC is chasing us…but we are one step ahead!,” he said.

Deal terms were not disclosed. Cheddar told Axios it’s on track for nearly $30 million in revenue this year, up from the $25 million it estimated in July.