Year: 2018

Moonbug, a kid-focused media business founded by a pair of entertainment executives, has brought in a $145 million Series A investment led by The Raine Group, a merchant bank that supports technology, media and telecom efforts.

Venture capital firms Felix Capital and Fertitta Capital also participated in the financing.

Moonbug, headquartered in London, acquires and distributes media content made for kids. Recently, the company completed its first IP acquisition of Little Baby Bum, a children’s sing-along show popular on YouTube, Amazon and Netflix. According to a Los Angeles Times report, one of the show’s videos is the 20th most popular video in YouTube history, boasting 2.1 billion views. In total, Moonbug says Little Baby Bum has clocked in 23 billion views across multiple platforms.

With its Series A investment, Moonbug will amp up its M&A activity to expand its portfolio of content that “helps children build essential life skills.” Moonbug chief executive officer René Rechtman, who spent the last three years as the head of digital studios at The Walt Disney Co., says they plan to acquire eight media businesses.

Rechtman and John Robson, a former senior vice president of digital distribution at Paramount Pictures and vice president of global content at HTC, launched Moonbug earlier this year.

“I see an independent creator and I put them in very simple brackets: one is high viewership and engagement and one is quality of IP,” Rechtman told TechCrunch. “If they have both of those, I am very interested.”

Lightspeed China Partners, the China-focused affiliate of Silicon Valley-based Lightspeed Venture Partners, has set a $360 million target for its fourth flagship venture fund, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today.

If the target is reached, the fund will be Lightspeed China’s largest yet, per PitchBook. Lightspeed China’s previous two funds each closed on $260 million. The VC raised $168 million for its debut fund in 2013.

Lightspeed China is led by David Mi (pictured). Mi, an investor in multiple billion-dollar Chinese companies, was previously the director of corporate development at Google, where he helped lead the search giant’s investment in Baidu. He joined Lightspeed in 2008 and established the firm’s China presence in 2011. Yan Han, a long-time Lightspeed investor and a founding partner of the firm’s Chinese branch, is also listed on the filing.

Lightspeed China has backed e-commerce platform Pingduoduo and loan provider Rong360, a pair of Chinese “unicorns” that both completed U.S. initial public offerings since 2017. Typically, the firm makes early-stage investments in the internet, mobile and enterprise spaces. 

Earlier this year, Lightspeed Venture Partners filed to raise a record $1.8 billion in new capital commitments. This month, it tacked five new partners onto its consumer and enterprise investment teams, including Slack’s former head of growth and Twitter’s former vice president of global business development.

Lightspeed didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lightspeed China Partners, the China-focused affiliate of Silicon Valley-based Lightspeed Venture Partners, has set a $360 million target for its fourth flagship venture fund, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today.

If the target is reached, the fund will be Lightspeed China’s largest yet, per PitchBook. Lightspeed China’s previous two funds each closed on $260 million. The VC raised $168 million for its debut fund in 2013.

Lightspeed China is led by David Mi (pictured). Mi, an investor in multiple billion-dollar Chinese companies, was previously the director of corporate development at Google, where he helped lead the search giant’s investment in Baidu. He joined Lightspeed in 2008 and established the firm’s China presence in 2011. Yan Han, a long-time Lightspeed investor and a founding partner of the firm’s Chinese branch, is also listed on the filing.

Lightspeed China has backed e-commerce platform Pingduoduo and loan provider Rong360, a pair of Chinese “unicorns” that both completed U.S. initial public offerings since 2017. Typically, the firm makes early-stage investments in the internet, mobile and enterprise spaces. 

Earlier this year, Lightspeed Venture Partners filed to raise a record $1.8 billion in new capital commitments. This month, it tacked five new partners onto its consumer and enterprise investment teams, including Slack’s former head of growth and Twitter’s former vice president of global business development.

Lightspeed didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a letter addressed to the FCC, Senator Ron Wyden urged commissioners to create a three-digit, 911-style suicide hotline number. The Oregon senator cites the CDC’s report that more than 40,000 Americans died by suicide in 2017.

“I write on behalf of those struggling with mental health issues, our veterans struggling with PTSD and for those impacted by the tragedy of suicide,” Wyden writes. “I urge you to designate a 3-digit code as a Behavioral Health and Suicide Crisis Lifeline. Thank you for your consideration.”

While The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline launched an 800 line in 2004, many believe the number is too long and cumbersome for those reaching out in their time of need. The letter floats the idea of using 611. The call echoes a similar push last week by Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Chris Stewart to designate the number, which is currently used to report phone service problems by some U.S. and Canadian carriers.

Still, it’s widely regarded as the most reasonable three-digit option currently available. 

“We believe 611 is a simple, easy-to-remember number and is the best option for the three-digit dialing code for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline,” they wrote in the letter. “This undertaking is of utmost national importance. This simple change can connect millions of Americans with life-saving resources, including veterans that find themselves in crisis.”

A National Suicide Prevention Hotline Improvement Act was passed and signed into law in August. The current National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 or 1-800-273-TALK.

In a letter addressed to the FCC, Senator Ron Wyden urged commissioners to create a three-digit, 911-style suicide hotline number. The Oregon senator cites the CDC’s report that more than 40,000 Americans died by suicide in 2017.

“I write on behalf of those struggling with mental health issues, our veterans struggling with PTSD and for those impacted by the tragedy of suicide,” Wyden writes. “I urge you to designate a 3-digit code as a Behavioral Health and Suicide Crisis Lifeline. Thank you for your consideration.”

While The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline launched an 800 line in 2004, many believe the number is too long and cumbersome for those reaching out in their time of need. The letter floats the idea of using 611. The call echoes a similar push last week by Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Chris Stewart to designate the number, which is currently used to report phone service problems by some U.S. and Canadian carriers.

Still, it’s widely regarded as the most reasonable three-digit option currently available. 

“We believe 611 is a simple, easy-to-remember number and is the best option for the three-digit dialing code for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline,” they wrote in the letter. “This undertaking is of utmost national importance. This simple change can connect millions of Americans with life-saving resources, including veterans that find themselves in crisis.”

A National Suicide Prevention Hotline Improvement Act was passed and signed into law in August. The current National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 or 1-800-273-TALK.

Twitter accidentally exposed the ability to pull an account’s phone number country code and whether the accounts had been locked by Twitter. The concern here is that malicious actors could have used the security flaw to figure out which countries accounts were based in, which could have ramifications for whistleblowers or political dissidents.

The issue came through one of Twitter’s support forms for contacting the company, and the company found that a large number of inquiries through the form came from IP addresses located in China and Saudi Arabia. Twitter writes “While we cannot confirm intent or attribution for certain, it is possible that some of these IP addresses may have ties to state-sponsored actors.” We’ve requested more info on why it’s suggesting that. Attribution in these situations can be murky, and naming specific countries or suggesting state actors could be involved carry heavy implications.

Twitter began working on the issue on November 15th and fixed it on November 16th. Twitter tells TechCrunch that it has notified the European Union’s Data Protection Commissioner, as EU citizens may have been impacted. However, since country codes aren’t necessarily considered sensitive personal information, the leak may not trigger any GDPR enforcement or fines. Twitter tells us it has also updated the FTC and other regulatory organizations about the issue, though we’ve asked when it informed these different regulators.

Twitter has directly contacted users impacted by the issue, says full phone numbers were not leaked, and users don’t have to do anything in response. Users can contact Twitter here for more info. We’ve asked how many accounts were impacted, but Twitter told us that it doesn’t have more data to share as its investigation continues.

A Twitter spokesperson pointed us to a previous statement:

“It is clear that information operations and coordinated inauthentic behavior will not cease. These types of tactics have been around for far longer than Twitter has existed — they will adapt and change as the geopolitical terrain evolves worldwide and as new technologies emerge. For our part, we are committed to understanding how bad-faith actors use our services. We will continue to proactively combat nefarious attempts to undermine the integrity of Twitter, while partnering with civil society, government, our industry peers, and researchers to improve our collective understanding of coordinated attempts to interfere in the public conversation.”

Sloppy security on the part of tech companies can make it dangerous for political dissidents or others at odds with their governments. Twitter explains that it locks accounts if it suspects they’ve been compromised by hackers or violate “Twitter’s Rules”, that includes “unlawful use” that depends greatly on what national governments deem illegal. What’s worrisome is that attackers with IP addresses in China or Saudi Arabia might have been able to use the exploit to confirm that certain accounts belonged to users in their countries and whether they’ve been locked. That information could be used to hunt down the people who own these accounts.

The company apologized, writing that “We recognize and appreciate the trust you place in us, and are committed to earning that trust every day. We are sorry this happened.” But that echoes other apologies from big tech companies that consistently ring hollow. Here in particular, it fails to acknowledge how the leak could harm people and how it will prevent this kind of thing from happening again. With these companies judged quarterly by their user growth and business, they’re incentivized to cut corners on security, privacy, and societal impact as they chase the favor of Wall Street.

Since launching Getaround at TechCrunch Disrupt New York in 2011, the car-sharing startup has expanded to over 90 cities and, more recently, raised a massive $325 million round of funding led by SoftBank. With the company in a good place and its co-founder and CMO Jessica Scorpio “really happy with where things are,” she told TechCrunch, it’s time for her to take some time off, leave her day-to-day role at the company and move into a role on the board of directors.

In addition to serving on Getaround’s board of directors, Scorpio says she’ll join some other boards and likely do some more angel investing. Meanwhile, Getaround hired five people to join its executive team. Those roles entail a VP of People and Culture, VP of Marketing, General Counsel, VP and GM of Conveyance.

“Today, we are well on our way to realizing the vision that Jessica, Elliot and I set out to achieve years ago,” Getaround CEO Sam Zaid wrote in a blog post. “We have Jessica to thank, in large part, for how far we’ve come, and I’m excited to pass her torch to a world-class executive team.”

Since Getaround’s launch in 2011, a number of competitors have entered the car rental market. General Motors’ Maven, for example, lets people rent relatively new cars by the hour, while Turo offers a more Getaround-like peer-to-peer rental platform. In April, Turo raised $12 million following a $92 million fundraising round earlier in the year. Still, Getaround was most attractive to SoftBank.

“As we saw the space early on, we knew this would be a big market,” she said. “We took a long-term perspective in building technology that would create behavior change, while also tee-ing up the market for self-driving cars and a platform for sharing cars in that future.”

As a car owner, you can list your vehicle for on-demand rentals via Getaround. After you list it, Getaround installs its Connect hardware, which allows renters to locate and unlock your car using the Getaround mobile app. For extra peace of mind for the car owner, the Connect also features GPS tracking, tamper detection and engine lock.

Getaround also has deals in place with brands like Audi and Ford to further incentivize people to share their cars. In 2016, Getaround teamed up with Toyota to enable people to purchase cars that are pre-installed with Getaround connectivity. Earlier this month, Getaround expanded its partnership with Uber to cover four more cities. Dubbed Uber Rent, the platform taps into Getaround’s existing marketplace of cars that are available for instant rentals.

“I’m excited to be involved at the board level,” she said. “We have a lot of exciting plans and will continue innovating on what products we offer, going to more markets, expanding internationally and continuing value-add partnerships.”

Security researchers said they’ve found a new kind of malware that takes its instructions from code hidden in memes posted to Twitter.

The malware itself is relatively underwhelming: like most primitive remote access trojans (RATs), the malware quietly infects a vulnerable computer, takes screenshots and pulls other data from the affected system and sends it back to the malware’s command and control server.

What’s interesting is how the malware uses Twitter as an unwilling conduit in communicating with its malicious mothership.

Trend Micro said in a blog post that the malware listens for commands from a Twitter account run by the malware operator. The researchers found two tweets that used steganography to hide “/print” commands in the meme images, which told the malware to take a screenshot of an infected computer. The malware then separately obtains the address where its command and control server is located from a Pastebin post, which directs the malware where to send the screenshots.

10/10 points for creativity, that’s for sure.

The researchers said that memes uploaded to the Twitter page could have included other commands, like “/processos” to retrieve a list of running apps and processes, “/clip” to steal the contents of a user’s clipboard, and “/docs” to retrieve filenames from specific folders.

The malware appears to have first appeared in mid-October, according to a hash analysis by VirusTotal, around the time that the Pastebin post was first created.

But the researchers admit they don’t have all the answers, and more work needs to be done to fully understand the malware. It’s not clear where the malware came from, how it infects its victims, or who’s behind it. It’s also not clear exactly what the malware is for — or its intended use in the future. The researchers also don’t know why the Pastebin post points to a local, non-internet address, suggesting it may be a proof-of-concept for future attacks.

Although Twitter didn’t host any malicious content, nor could the tweets resulted in a malware infection, it’s an interesting (although not unique) way of using the social media site as a clever way of communicating with malware.

The logic goes that in using Twitter, the malware would connect to “twitter.com,” which is far less likely to be flagged or blocked by anti-malware software than a dodgy-looking server.

After Trend Micro reported the account, Twitter pulled the account offline, suspending it permanently.

It’s not the first time malware or botnet operators have used Twitter as a platform for communicating with their networks. Even as far back as 2009, Twitter was used as a way to send commands to a botnet. And, as recently as 2016, Android malware would communicate with a predefined Twitter account to receive commands.

If you’re an experienced traveler, you know that plenty of your delays are due to your plane being stuck somewhere else or because the weather at your local or arrival airport isn’t ideal (I’m looking at you, fogged-in SFO in the morning). So you also know to check on your incoming flight, even when the airline tells you everything is fine, and the FAA’s airspace status pages.

But maybe you are not a frequent flier (be glad and rejoice) or don’t care to go through that process. In that case, you’ll be happy to hear that Google today announced that its Assistant will soon proactively notify you on your phone when its algorithms predict that your flight will be late. This feature is rolling out now and should be available to all users in the next few weeks.

It’s worth noting that flight delay predictions from Google aren’t new. It introduced its first iteration of this in January. At the time, it didn’t proactively alert you of those delays, though. You first had to search for your flight. So unless you knew this feature existed, you probably never saw it in action.

Google says it mostly uses machine learning algorithms trained on historic flight data to predict delays. In addition, though, the company also clearly looks at some other information, given that it knows about delays of incoming flights, too.

The airlines aren’t kidding when they tell you that you should still be at the gate at the original time, by the way. If you’re flying through a hub, they could still swap in another plane, after all. If you’re like me, though, instead of taking to the friendly skies, you will likely have to sit in Newark until well after midnight before the plane finally arrives. That’ll be right as your crew times out and with the next available reserve crew hours away. Chances are Google wouldn’t have been able to alert me of those delays, though, given that incompetence isn’t something it can predict yet, after all.

It’s the end of an era. Earlier this month, Tumblr announced that it would delete all adult content from its platform on December 17. That day, friends, is today.

The blogging platform has been furiously flagging posts as explicit since announcing the ban on December 3. Starting today, all of those flagged posts will be hidden from view. The site has been relying on computers to flag the content.

“Computers are better than humans at scaling process—and we need them for that—but they’re not as good at making nuanced, contextual decisions,” Tumblr notes. “This is an evolving process for all of us, and we’re committed to getting this right. That’s why we will always notify you if your content has been flagged as adult so that you have the opportunity to review it and take any additional action that may be needed.”

The fairly aggressive flagging process has already led to some hilarious mix ups. While it’s instituted a review process for site owners, pages that have been autoflagged will continued to be blocked by a content filter.

Tumblr’s decision to blog content was spurred on when Apple removed it from the App Store over child pornography concerns. The service opted to take a kind of scorched earth approach to the issue of explicit content, a decision that has concerned artists and sex workers alike. Many have also speculated that the end of porn could also spell the end of Tumblr (which, for the record, is owned by the same company that owns TechCrunch).

In spite of that concern, however, Tumblr’s bid appears to have worked, with the service having since returned to the App Store. Blog owners, meanwhile, have scrambled to find more adult-friendly content platforms.