Year: 2018

Go to Google Maps and zoom out. Halfway out, the map’s perspective changes from a traditional flat map view to an interactive globe. Zoom all the way out and the Earth is presented as a globe with landmasses of the appropriate size. Greenland is no longer the size of Africa and all is right with the world.

On flat maps, it’s impossible to represent land mass size on a relative scale. Objects in the north and south become distorted as the the flat map compensates for the flattening of the globe. This is most evident in the commonly used Mercator projections that properly represents the size of land around the equator but super-sizes land in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Now, when Google Maps is used on Desktop, users will see the appropriate size of land masses. The update is great but I have yet to find the giant ice wall that’s preventing all of life from sliding off the side of the flat earth and onto the back of the giant turtle we’re riding through the vast emptiness of space.

Epic Games continues to spread the love… to consumers, at least.

Following the launches of Fortnite Battle Royale on iOS earlier this year and Fortnite for the Nintendo Switch earlier this summer, Epic Games is now confirming that the Android version of the game will be available exclusively through the Fortnite website.

Users can visit Fortnite.com and download the Fortnite Launcher, which will then allow them to load Fortnite Battle Royale onto their devices.

When asked why Epic would choose to distribute the game via their own website instead the more official channel of the Google Play Store, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney told TechCrunch in an email:

On open platforms like PC, Mac, and Android, Epic’s goal is to bring its games directly to customers. We believe gamers will benefit from competition among software sources on Android. Competition among services gives consumers lots of great choices and enables the best to succeed based on merit.

Of course, Sweeney didn’t mention the 30 percent fee that goes to Google each time a user makes an in-app purchase, but it’s hard to imagine that that’s not a factor in the decision.

In-game purchases are a huge source of revenue for Epic. After all, Fortnite Battle Royale is still a free download across all platforms. That said, Epic Games has already made more than $1 billion on the game through in-game purchases alone. For context on that 30 percent fee, Epic Games is making approximately $2 million per day as of July, according to Sensor Tower.

Using a virtual currency called V-Bucks, players can buy skins, pick axes, gliders and emotes, none of which offer a competitive advantage. Epic declined to clarify if mobile users have the same purchasing behavior as PC and console players. But if they do on Android, Epic will make 100 percent of the revenue.

Epic Games also declined to give an exact date for the launch, still simply saying that the game will launch this “summer.”

That said, you can expect to see the same game, and the same cross-play compatibility, on the Android version of Fortnite Battle Royale when it launches.

One potential drawback to the launch will be security. As Android Police points out, loads of people will enable unknown sources in settings, forgetting to turn it off after, which could end up being a problem down the line.

We’ll be sure to let you know more specific information around the launch date and supported devices as soon as we hear more from Epic Games.

Stack Overflow and other various sites and tools have made it easy to Google search for solutions — or code snippets — to the easier parts of putting together an app or program for developers, but Aidan Cunniffe wants to take that one automated step further.

That’s the premise behind Optic, which gives developers a way to grab very common coding use cases that they can drop right into their code. It works by finding the sort of routine additions developers might need, like how to create a form that will add a user to a database, as well as all the ancillary parts that come with that like tests. Optic works within a developer’s IDE, so they don’t have to look externally for the code they need, which is compiled together from online sources. Right now it works for JavaScript, with Python next on the docket. Optic is coming out of Y Combinator’s summer 2018 class.

“The biggest problems are when people have a bunch of systems that have to talk together,” Cunniffe siad. “Optic’s really good at syncing that code. If you change something on the backend, it’ll update the front end. That’s a big problem that anyone who develops anything complex. We generate a lot of unit tests for people, speed up the development of new features, and larger companies are using us as an advanced linter to ensure developers write code that conforms to their standards.”

Optic works as a little Clippy-like object within an IDE, where developers can search for things to add to a slice of code. The processing is all done locally, and the project itself is open source with a free version (in addition to a paid version for larger teams). While there are a number of other code-generating tools, Cunniffe says Optic competes primarily with those kinds of Google searches for Stack Overflow results, and one of the primary reasons it’s better is that any changes on any part of the code will propagate through existing code throughout a system.

“Code generators had been around for a long time,” Cunniffe said. “There’s a ton of tradeoffs to tools that existed, people wanted stuff that was useful but didn’t change their workflow. They could also only be used once, so there’s not as much utility, and there wasn’t work to maintain the code. [Code search engines] are really useful, but the biggest drawback they have is it’s not your code. What sets us apart is it’ll help you generate those snippets but it’ll do that in a smart way. All the args and parameters are variables in your own code.”

Back in May, reports surfaced that New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) was developing a Bitcoin trading platform. This morning, it officially announced the creation of Bakkt, a new company that will help trade and convert the best known cryptocurrency to fiat money — government-backed legal tender.

As one might expect from a new company with close ties to the NYSE, Bakkt has enlisted some big names already, including backing from Microsoft, Starbucks and BCG. Microsoft, for its part, will provide cloud infrastructure for the service. Even more compelling, however, is the involvement of Starbucks.

After all, the coffee giant has played an outsized role in helping mainstream mobile payments among the U.S. population, it has worked with Square (which accepts Bitcoin) and it just announced a deal with Alibaba in China for coffee deliveries. The chain isn’t always the first to adopt payment solutions, but its involvement goes a long ways toward legitimizing technologies among the public. If played right, this could be the push Bitcoin as a payment systm for mainstream consumers here in the States.

In a statement, Starbucks referred to itself as “the flagship retailer” involved in the project, hinting at the very real potential that the company is setting itself up to accept Bitcoin converted through the Bakkt system.

“As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars for use at Starbucks,” said Starbucks Payments VP Maria Smith said in the statement. “As a leader in Mobile Pay to our more than 15 million Starbucks Rewards members, Starbucks is committed to innovation for expanding payment options for our customers.”

Bakkt’s implications go well beyond mobile payments, of course. As Fortune notes, the system could help attract investors who have been put off by Bitcoin’s extremely volatile nature. Among other things, it could help make the currency a safer choice for 401(k)s, IRAs and other retirement plans. That, in turn, could help propel Bitcoin toward wider Wall Street trading.

Walmart is testing a new robotics system that picks customers’ grocery orders. The retailer this morning announced it has partnered with Alert Innovation to deploy Alphabot, a system designed for Walmart, in its Salem, New Hampshire superstore. The automated technology will be installed in a 20,000-square foot extension connected to the store, which will also serve as the dedicated grocery pick-up point with drive-thru lanes for customers.

The idea being tested here is to find out how much a robotics system like this can speed up the fulfillment of customers’ online grocery orders.

Alphabot helps with this by automatically bringing items from storage to Walmart’s store staff, who then assemble customers’ orders. The system is capable of picking the “vast majority” of grocery items, the retailer says, including dry goods, refrigerated and frozen items. That means Walmart’s personal shoppers won’t have to walk the aisles to fulfill grocery orders, except for handpicking produce and other fresh items.

Walmart’s online grocery pick-up program is popular with consumers who don’t have time to shop, but don’t want to pay the higher prices associated with grocery delivery services like Shipt and Instacart. It also gives Walmart a way to compete as it tries to figure out its grocery delivery strategy, in the face of the Amazon/Whole Foods threat.

The company’s earlier delivery partnerships with Uber and Lyft have been terminated, and now Walmart works with an assortment of partners, including Postmates, Deliv and Doordash. The retailer earlier this year claimed it would provide delivery services in 100 markets by year-end.

But the number of stores offering grocery pickup services is much larger – 1,200 as of March up from 600 two years ago, with plans to expand to 1,000 more throughout 2018. There are 1,800 stores offering grocery pickup at present.

Making the grocery picking process more efficient means customers could place orders online which would then be ready by the time they arrived, in some cases.

Walmart says Alphabot will go online by the end of 2018. However, shoppers at the Salem store will be able to order groceries online for pick-up beginning October 1. The store will also this year begin offering grocery delivery, but no date was given.

The Salem store itself is serving as a flagship testing ground for Walmart’s newer technologies. Following its remodel, it will serve as a home to Walmart’s Pickup Tower for online orders; an automated shelf-scanner that identifies out-of-stock items; the FAST unloader which helps move items off trucks; and Walmart’s mobile point-of-sale, Check Out With Me.

Alphabot is considered a pilot program, as Walmart is making no promises of a wider rollout at this time. Instead, it’s hoping to learn more about how the technology can aid this part of its business.

Airstream has made travel trailers for generations, and the company is ramping up plans to bring connected technology to the product line. Airstream recently announced several new products that will bring new features expected by today’s consumers including less expensive and more capable trailers.

The iconic silver bullet trailers are a mainstay on America’s highways and byways. Trailers made today have the same classic lines as those made for past generations. For the most part, that’s not going to change. While Airstream has new two new trailers that slightly depart from the shiny aluminum exterior, they’re still Airstream trailers. And for the classic models, which can command prices over $150,000, Airstream is now equipping them with smart control technology that will let owners control various functions through a smartphone app.

Featured on initially the 2019 Classic models, Airstream’s Smart Technology puts a bevy of controls in a smartphone app. It lets owners control the majority of the trailers systems and monitor different levels from an app. Check the propane, water and battery levels from the app or control the awning from afar. The app even lets owners locate the trailer through GPS, in case, you know, you lose your $100,000 trailer among an RV lot of other $100,000 trailers.

“Airstream owners have long been bringing digital technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) into their trailers, often in very creative ways,” said Airstream Vice President of Product Development and Engineering McKay Featherstone, in a released statement. “So, it’s no surprise they embrace the idea of a smart trailer, a recreational vehicle that allows them to adventure with all the digital comforts and connectivity of home.”

Airstream also has two new travel trailers that bring the Airstream product line to lower price points. But without the silver bullet design.

An updated and more capable version of the smallest Airstream was just announced. Called the Basecamp X (pictured above), it’s designed to go places most Airstream trailers would scoff at. It’s more rugged and, frankly, cheaper than most Airstream models.

“Airstream is targeting outdoor enthusiasts with the Basecamp X,” Justin Humphrey, Airstream COO told TechCrunch. “They aren’t always younger, but they certainly index much higher in terms of outdoor activities they participate in a given year versus our more traditional buyers.”

He explained that Airstream built this model, not for a target age group but rather the outdoor enthusiast of any age. The Basecamp X’s features back up that claim, too.

The Basecamp X is a smaller trailer, with room for two to sleep comfortably. It has a 3-inch lift kit for added ground clearance and Goodyear Wrangler tires along with side skirts and wheel flares to help prevent damage. A large back door makes it easy to store kayaks or bikes inside the trailer. The smaller size allows mid-size SUVs or large crossovers to tow the trailer without much effort. The Basecamp X comes pre-wired for solar power, and there are a handful of USB charging ports and lockable gadget compartments. Prices start at $36,000, so while this might be the smallest Airstream, it still commands an Airstream price.

Announced earlier this year, Nest by Airstream is the most substantial departure from the classic Airstream. It’s built from fiberglass and for a good reason. Airstream did not start the development of the Nest. The company bought Nest Caravan in 2016, apparently in a bid to bring to the market a new, lower cost product line from Airstream.

Airstream says the Nest has a lot of the same character found in the Classic trailers but at a lower cost. It sleeps up to two people and has a floor plan similar to Airstream’s base Sport model. But it’s lighter and is loaded with more modern conveniences.

It’s clear Airstream is attempting to reinvent itself while staying true to what made the company an icon. It’s a fine line many companies often walk. Stay in the past too long, and upstarts surpass the incumbent. Change too quickly and alienate current buyers. As long as Airstream keeps the innovations inside the silver bullet, the company should be just fine.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week TechCrunch’s Matthew Lynley and Crunchbase News’s Alex Wilhelm were joined by Jyoti Bansal, the founder of AppDynamics and a partner at Unusual Ventures, among other startup work.

Our own Connie Loizos was off this week.

This episode was effectively a news grab-bag. There’s a little of everything: public company drama, big rounds, acquisitions, and more.

Up top: Apple’s broaching of the $1 trillion barrier, which some people called early and some people called late. It depends on how you were counting. But the venerable consumer electronics giant did indeed manage to hoist its market cap over the trillion dollar mark, making it the first American company to do so.

But as we all wind up agreeing, it’s just a round number.

Moving along Sonos’s IPO had a good first day but only after a disappointing pricing run. Or as Lynley explains on the show, the firm had to price under its target range to go out, but then closed above that target range by the end of its first day’s trading. This is more evidence that pricing an IPO is an occult art of sorts. (More here on the company’s numbers.)

Scooting along, Duo Security is exiting to Cisco for $2.35 billion. This deal came at quite literally the perfect moment as the company our guest founded sold to Cisco for $3.7 billion last year. Why? Recurring revenue, which is seeing its value rise.

And finally, Brandless, which picked up a massive $240 million round led by the ever-hungry SoftBank Vision Fund. A deal to which I had a question: Why?

All that and we even managed to tell a joke and mangle a segue. More next week!

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on TechNode, an editorial partner of TechCrunch based in China.

Reports of trade tensions between China and the US in the past few months have been hard to ignore. In early July, the US imposed $34 billion on Chinese goods, prompting the Shenzhen Component Index, dominated by technology and consumer product stocks, to fall to its lowest point since 2014, igniting fears among investors.

“The U.S. tariffs, coupled with a falling yuan, will significantly increase the cost for many Chinese technology companies that rely on imported raw materials, such as semiconductors, integrated circuits, and electric components,” Zhang Xia, an analyst for China Merchants Bank Securities, told the South China Morning Post.

Additionally, the U.S. commerce department announced yesterday it will place an embargo on 44 Chinese companies—including the world’s largest surveillance equipment manufacturer Hikvision—for “acting contrary to the national interests or foreign policy of the United States.” The move caused the companies’ share prices to fall by nearly six percent.

However, the focus has shifted to more than just the trade war. And a number of big Chinese tech companies have seen their share prices plummet for other reasons.

Pinduoduo, China’s latest e-commerce giant to list on the Nasdaq, found that an initial public offering (IPO) is not a panacea. Conversely, its listing has drawn attention to the company’s counterfeit products. And investors are not happy.

Tencent’s shares have nosedived by over 25 percent since its peak in January, erasing $143 billion in market value over the past seven months.

Search giant Baidu also hasn’t been immune. The company’s stock price dropped by nearly 8 percent this week following news that Google plans to re-enter the Chinese market.

Government crackdowns

While IPOs are usually a cause for celebration, Pinduoduo has proven this past week they can also be bad for business. The company—which has integrated e-commerce and social media—caters to low-income consumers living outside first and second-tier cities. It has been plagued by accusations of facilitating the sale of counterfeit low-quality goods.

Just days after going public, its share price tumbled by 16 percent, falling below its offer price of $19. The drop was, in part, initiated by requests made by television maker Skyworth to remove counterfeit listings of its products from the e-commerce firm’s marketplace.

The company announced (in Chinese) this week that it had removed 10.7 million listings of problematic goods. However, this did little to assuage concerns from investors and regulators after the latter launched an inquiry into Pinduoduo’s product listings. Its stock price dropped to 30 percent below its closing price on its first day of trading, wiping out over $9 billion in value.

This is unlikely to be helped by the fact that seven U.S. law firms have launched investigations into the company on behalf of its investors. The statement issued by the firms shows that investors suffered financial losses after Chinese regulators began looking into the company’s dealings. The company met today with regulators and agreed to improve its products’ vetting procedures.

However, it’s not only e-commerce platforms that have been affected. Video streaming service Bilibili has seen its stock price drop by almost 21 percent since July 20. The decline comes amid renewed efforts led by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) to crack down on what it deems to be “vulgar” or “inappropriate” content.

The company has subsequently had its app removed from app stores in the country for one month. Nasdaq-listed Bilibili responded by saying it is “in deep self-review and reflection.”

Rumored competition

Baidu, which runs China’s biggest search engine, found that even unconfirmed competition can cause stocks to tumble. In a move which could mark its re-entry into the Chinese market, news broke this week that Google has plans to launch an Android app that could provide filtered results to users in China.

Baidu currently commands nearly 70 percent of China’s search market. Google shut down its search engine in China in 2010 over censorship concerns, giving up access to a vast market. China’s online population now exceeds 770 million, double the entire populace of the U.S. and more than that of Europe.

Baidu’s income is still highly dependant on ad revenue, which increased by 25 percent in the second quarter. Google’s return is clearly seen as a threat, causing Baidu’s stock price to fall from $247.18 on July 31 to $226.83 on August 2. This marks the most significant fall since the company announced the departure of its chief operating officer Lu Qi in May.

Steady decline

Nonetheless, all these losses seem insignificant in comparison to Tencent’s. The company saw its stock price increase by 114 percent in 2017, reaching a record high in January 2018. However, since then, the price has dropped by nearly $130 per share, eviscerating a considerable portion of its market value. In July alone, its stock price fell by 9.9 percent. The company’s devaluation tops Facebook’s $130 billion rout following its earnings call last month.

In April, the company lost over $20 billion in value after South African investment and media firm Naspers — an early and loyal backer — announced it was trimming its stake by two percent. Additionally, Martin Lau, the company’s president, sold one million of his shares in the company. This, added to the Naspers sale and warnings of margin pressure, led to a loss of $51 billion in market value.

“Investors are increasingly pricing in lower expectations for Tencent’s interim results,” Linus Yip, a strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg.

Yip expects the downward trend to continue, and not just for Tencent. “Overall, tech companies are facing a similar problem. They have been enjoying fast profit growth in the past few years, so it will be difficult for them to maintain similar growth in the future as the competition grows and some segments are saturated,” he said.

Teamleader, the SaaS platform that helps SMEs operate in a more digitally savvy way, has closed $22 million in Series C funding. The round was led by London-based Keen Venture Partners, with participation from PMV and existing investors Fortino Capital and Sage Capital.

Claiming to serve nearly 10,000 customers in 6 countries — comprised mostly of small and medium-sized enterprises — Belgium-headquartered Teamleader offers a SaaS-based platform to enable SMEs to digitise their business processes. This includes CRM and sales, project management, time tracking, and invoicing.

A more recent aspect — and where Teamleader sees future growth — is the Teamleader Marketplace, which allows customers to integrate their favourite local SaaS tools with Teamleader. This is on track to support 1,000 integrations, with a heavy emphasis on localisation.

“We even created a $1 million fund for developers across Europe to create integrations with Teamleader, a pretty wild idea that’s working great,” Teamleader co-founder and CEO Jeroen De Wit tells me.

“What’s great about the marketplace is that it also allows European SaaS players to piggyback on our growth — like the Belgian startup Cumul.io which is now finding customers in Spain through our marketplace. This perfectly fits our vision”.

More broadly, De Wit says SMEs are no longer afraid of digitization, and are using more and more business software to their advantage. “These tools need to work side by side as one, in integrated systems, for SMEs to get maximum value out of them,” he adds.

Meanwhile, in addition to investing in the Teamleader Marketplace, Teamleader says it plans to use its Series C funding for continued international growth and to accelerate its product roadmap. This will include doubling-down on what it calls a “multi-local approach” and fine-tuning the Teamleader product for country-specific needs. How very European.

Peloton today announced its Series F funding of $550 million. That brings the total amount raised, according to CrunchBase, to $994.7 million. According to the announcement, this round puts Peloton’s valuation at $4 billion — it was just last May the company hit unicorn status.
TCV led the round with other participation in the round from Tiger Global, True Ventures, Wellington Management, Fidelity, NBCUniversal, and Kleiner Perkin, along with new investors – BlackRock, Franklin and Winslow Capital.

“We are truly honored to partner with TCV and with Jay Hoag personally,” said John Foley, founder and CEO of Peloton, in a released statement. “TCV’s reputation, experience, and involvement in businesses like Netflix, Spotify and Facebook will be invaluable as we build Peloton into one of the most unique and influential global consumer product and media companies of our day.”

The company previously closed a $325 million Series E, which was reportedly used to fuel expansion into the retail market. The company expects to use the latest round of funding to continue growing that sector and grow international.

Earlier this year, Peloton announced its second product, a connected treadmill, which the company still says will launch to consumers this call. The company also introduced a new membership product and opened several retail locations.