Year: 2018

In the five years since its product was showcased onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt New York’s hackathon, Plaid has emerged as one of the most critical contributors to financial technology’s evolution — and one of the most under the radar.

That is, until now. The company is today announcing a $250 million Series C investment led by famed venture capitalist and the author of the Internet Trends report Mary Meeker, who will join its board of directors as part of the deal. The funds were raised at a valuation of $2.65 billion, according to sources close to the company. Capital from Meeker’s investment came from Kleiner Perkins’ growth fund — where Meeker has been a partner since 2010 — not from the reported billion-dollar-plus solo fund she’s in the process of raising.

New investors Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures also participated, as did existing investors Goldman Sachs, NEA and Spark Capital. The financing brings Plaid’s total raised to $310 million and provides a major boost to its valuation, which was just over $200 million with its 2016 Series B.

Making money easier for everyone

Plaid builds infrastructure that allows a consumer to interact with their bank account on the web through a number of third-party applications, like Venmo, Robinhood, Coinbase, Acorns and LendingClub. The San Francisco-based startup has integrated with 10,000 banks in the U.S. and Canada and says 25 percent of people living in those countries with bank accounts have linked with Plaid through at least one of the hundreds of apps that leverage Plaid’s application program interfaces (APIs) — an increase from 13 percent last year.

The platform allows companies to create financial services applications without having to hire their own team of engineers to build out a tool that connects apps to its users’ bank accounts, something Plaid’s founders themselves lacked when they set out to build a fintech startup years ago. Plaid was founded by a pair of former Bain consultants, William Hockey and Zach Perret, the chief technology officer and chief executive officer, respectively, in 2012.

“We were always really infatuated with the concept of financial services,” Hockey told TechCrunch. “We thought it had so much power to impact and improve people’s lives but at the time it really wasn’t … We quickly realized building financial services was almost impossible to do because there wasn’t the tooling or the infrastructure, so we turned around and started building that infrastructure.”

Plaid closed a $44 million Series B in mid-2016 and has since seen its valuation increase more than tenfold. On top of that, it doubled its customer base this year, launched in Canada — its first market outside the U.S. — opened its third office, expanded its overall headcount to 175 employees and debuted a digital mortgage product called Assets.

Hockey and Perret say the new funding will be used to continue expanding the team in San Francisco, Salt Lake City and New York. Plaid, given how essential its tools are to any technology companies that deals with payments in any fashion, which these days is the vast majority of businesses, is a company to watch going into 2019.

“When we think about our long-term goals, we want to make money easier for everyone,” Perret told TechCrunch. “We want everyone to lives these simple, straightforward digitally enabled financial lives and for us, that means supporting these tech innovators in the space and these large incumbents. We want to be able to help them create great consumer financial experiences so consumers can live simpler financial lives.”

First it was the notch, now the hole-punch has emerged as the latest tech for concealing selfie cameras whilst keeping our smartphones as free of bezel as possible to maximize the screen space.

This week, Samsung and Huawei both unveiled new phones that dispense with the iconic ‘notch’ — pioneered by Apple but popularized by everyone — in favor of positioning the front-facing camera in a small “Infinity-O” hole located on the top left side of the screen.

Dubbed hole-punch, the approach is part of Samsung’s new Galaxy A8s and Huawei’s View 20, which were unveiled hours apart on Tuesday. Huawei was first by just hours, although Samsung has been pretty public with its intention to explore a number notch alternatives including the hole-punch, which makes sense given that it has persistently mocked Apple for the feature.

Don’t expect to see any hole-punches just yet though.

The Samsung A8s is just for China right now while the View 20 isn’t being fully unveiled until December 26 in China and, for global audiences, January 22 in Paris. We also don’t have a price for either, but they do represent a new trend that could become widely-adopted across phones from other OEMs in 2019.

That’s certainly Samsung’s plan. The Korea firm is rolling the hole-punch out on the A8s, but it has plans to expand its adoption into other devices and series. The A8s itself is pretty mid-range, but that makes it an ideal candidate to test the potential appeal of a more subtle selfie camera since Samsung’s market share has fallen in China where local rivals have pushed it hard. It starts there, but it could yet be adopted in higher-end devices with global availability.

As the View 20, Huawei has also been pretty global with its ambitions, except in the U.S. where it hasn’t managed to strike a carrier deal despite reports that it has been close before. The current crisis with its CFO — the daughter of the company’s founder who was arrested during a trip to Canada — is another stark reminder that Huawei’s business is unlikely to ever get a break in the U.S. market: so except the View 20 to be a model for Europe and Asia.

Samsung hasn’t said a tonne about the hole-punch design, but our sister publication Engadget — which attended the View 20’s early launch event in Hong Kong — said it was mounted below the display “like a diamond” to maintain the structure.

“This hole is not a traditional hole,” Huawei told Engadget.

Huawei will no doubt also talk up the fact that its hole is 4.5mm versus an apparent 6mm from Samsung.

Small details aside, one important upcoming trend from these new devices is the birth of the ‘mega’ megapixel smartphone camera.

The View 20 packs a whopping 48-megapixel lens for a rear camera which something that we’re going to see a lot more of in 2019. Xiaomi, for one, is preparing a January launch for a device that’ll have the 48-megapixels, according to a message on Sina Weibo from company co-founder Bin Lin. There’s no word on what camera enclosure that device will have, though.

There is no shortage of up-and-comers jostling for a spot in China’s massive ecommerce industry, and oftentimes they pick a niche market and present a novel business model different from the establishment of Alibaba or JD.com .

Chinese social ecommerce app Fresh Buddy announced on Tuesday that it has raised $100 million in a series B funding round led by Genesis Capital, a growth-stage fund founded by two former Tencent executives. SIG China, DCM Ventures and Vision Plus Capital also participated in the round with China Renaissance serving as the exclusive financial advisor.

The new financial injection came just months after Fresh Buddy, or Meiri Yitao in Chinese, made its debut in April and raised $30 million from a series A round led by DCM Ventures in July. Fresh Buddy plans to spend the proceeds to strengthen its supply chain and logistics center.

The company is a project incubated by Miss Fresh (branded as Meiri Youxian in China), a Tencent-backed service that are used by 50 percent of China’s online fresh produce shoppers as of June, according to research firm Trustdata. Zeng Bin, founder and president of Miss Fresh, owns 40.79 percent shares in Fresh Buddy while Miss Fresh has an 11.8 percent stake in the new app, according to enterprise registration information that’s publicly available.

Like its parent, Fresh Buddy sells and delivers vegetables and fruits, but it comes with a twist. While Miss Fresh goes after consumers in China’s megacities, the new project lures small-town consumers with a multilevel revenue-sharing scheme: Users get cash rewards when they get other people to use the app.

A social media account on Weibo marketed at Fresh Buddy’s money-grubbing users claim it’s normal for an average “recruiter” to earn 10,000 yuan, or $145, a month. Someone that’s reached the “advisor-level” can pocket no less than 1,000 yuan a day and a senior “advisor” can make more than 10,000 a day.

Fresh Buddy has utilized the social reach of Tencent’s billion-user messenger WeChat where shoppers can discuss potential purchases and recruit others. Other ecommerce apps that have taken off on WeChat include group-buying site Pinduoduo, which scored one of the biggest US IPOs by a Chinese firm this year. Alibaba has also toyed with a few social ecommerce ideas, but the giant lacks a networking app that matches the size of WeChat, which has long blocked Alibaba’s range of products.

On the supply end, Fresh Buddy says it sources directly from farms, bypassing layers of distribution to cut costs.

The app grew 70 percent month-over-month to reach 30 million unique mobile installs in October, according to market research firm iResearch.

Cash rewards have been proven effective in acquiring users in China. Yunji Weidian, which also has a revenue-splitting program to incentivize users but covers a wider range of products, is reportedly targeting an initial public offering in the US that could value the company between $7 billion to $10 billion. Qutoutiao, the NASDAQ-listed rival to TikTok’s sibling news distributor Jinri Toutiao, also has a similar scheme that lets users earn money by reading content and bringing in new users.

French VC firm Hardware Club just announced the final closing of its first fund. The firm will invest $50 million in total in hardware startups (as the name suggests).

Hardware Club first started as a community of hardware startups sharing knowledge, tips and contacts in the hardware community. If you’re launching a hardware product, chances are many companies before you had the same supply chain struggles.

The club itself has negotiated partnerships with well-known manufacturers and distributors, such as Foxconn, Amazon and Honda. Right now, there are 470 startups in the club from 39 countries, as well as 150 partners.

And Hardware Club then invests in the most promising startups that are part of the club. Let’s hope that startups get enough perks from the community because investing in some companies but not all of them creates a signaling issue.

After the first closing of $28 million, Hardware Club already invested in multiple companies, such as Cowboy Bike, Alcatraz AI, Automata and Left Hand Robotics. Overall, Hardware Club invested in 28 startups and expects to realize an exit very soon. The firm also plans to invest in another 20 startups with this fund, ideally in a seed or Series A round.

French startup Molotov is slowly becoming the leading platform to stream TV in France. With a single account, you can watch TV on your phone, tablet, computer and set-top box. The company is about to release a VR app that lets you watch TV using a virtual reality headset — but there’s a twist.

The new service is called Molotov Together and is an interesting experience in many ways. I tried an early version of the service a couple of weeks ago.

At first, I was quite reluctant about the idea of watching TV in a VR headset. I’m not a fan of VR in general, and many VR headsets already let you watch videos in in virtual reality.

In many cases, you end up with a YouTube player in a web browser projected on a virtual wall in a virtual room. But Molotov is aware of that and knows that watching a video is still better on an actual TV.

When Molotov co-founder and CEO Jean-David Blanc started pitching me the idea of Molotov Together, he first talked about live TV.

In the era of Netflix shows and huge iTunes libraries, it’s hard to remember that watching TV used to mean watching something live, sharing a moment together. You can still experience this with football matches, election nights and other important events.

And in those cases, the side conversations and jokes can be as important as the content itself.

TV for long-distance besties

Molotov has created a virtual reality coffee shop called Molotov Café. With Molotov Together, you can invite one or two friends to watch TV with you in the café. You all sit in comfortable virtual reality armchairs and can see each other.

Each person can control the TV channel they want to watch and access all Molotov content — in that experience, you don’t share a TV, everyone has its own TV. But Molotov Together truly shines when you’re all watching the same channel.

After that, you can watch the same content and talk together using voice chat. You don’t have to press any button, you can just casually sit back and watch something together.

I tried Molotov Together with Jean-David Blanc and I didn’t expect it to work so well. At first, entering the virtual coffee shop is a bit odd because it’s a significant context change. But once you start chatting with the other person and comment on what you see, it feels like you’re sitting next to each other.

Long-distance friends and couples sometimes watch the same movie with Skype or FaceTime running on a device. Molotov wants to perfect this concept and people in this situation will love the service. Similarly, there’s a reason why people watch reaction videos to popular TV shows. Hearing jokes and comments on your favorite show is a good way to enhance your favorite content.

Mind tricks

A product like Molotov Together doesn’t work well if the team behind it isn’t paying attention to small details. I tried Molotov Together with an Oculus Go but the app should eventually work with all major VR headsets.

Molotov Together is a multiplayer experience. Just like a video game, you need to see the same thing at the same time. If your favorite team scores a goal and your feed is five seconds behind, it’s not going to cut it. That’s why Molotov made sure that two persons stream from the same content delivery network so that the video feeds are perfectly in sync.

While you can control the volume of your virtual TV, the voices of your friends are also spatialized. Even if both of your friends have a similar sounding voice, you know who is talking without even looking.

From the coffee shop to your living room

Molotov Together will be released in February 2019. Any Molotov user will be able to access the service if they have a compatible VR headset.

The company wants to release new features after that. In particular, Molotov will let you invite people to your own virtual living room and watch your TV. This time, the host controls the TV and can stream premium content — other people can watch premium content even if they are not subscribers. It’s going to be interesting to see the reaction of French regulators.

Molotov currently has around 7 million users in France. Every day, 1.2 million users watch something on Molotov. They stream a total of 1.1 million hours of content. As you can see, those Molotov sessions can be quite long.

With this new product, Molotov proves that it’s a technology company that competes with content companies. Molotov Together won’t change the face of the company. But the startup is still experimenting with new ways to watch TV. And that might be enough to give it an edge over its competitors.

At 9:30 AM local time, we kick off TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa, where 15 companies will take the stage, along with panels from industry investors, Main One, and speakers from Facebook (our partner on the event through the FB Start program).

If you can’t be here with us in Lagos, Nigeria, we’ve got you covered. Check back on TechCrunch later today, to watch videos of the pitches, panelsand the competition winner.

TechCrunch is back in Sub-Saharan Africa for the second time. Last year, we held our first ever Startup Battlefield in Nairobi, Kenya. African startups impressed us with their innovative solutions and effective business models, so we had to come back and find even more impressive companies from across the continent. TechCrunch reviews several hundred startups from across the region, selecting the top 15 companies to compete on stage for a $25,000 equity-free grand prize, a trip for two to TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019, and the coveted title of “Africa’s Favorite Startup.”

Founders have spent the past several weeks receiving intensive coaching from the TechCrunch team, refining their pitches, business models, and honing their presentation skills. For each of the three semi-final rounds, teams will pitch for six minutes, with a live demo, followed by a rigorous Q&A with our panel of expert judges. After judge deliberations, only five companies will make it to the Startup Battlefield Finals. Teams will compete with the same pitch but a more intensive Q&A with new judges.

So, who are the top 15 companies? These companies are breaking barriers in a variety of industries. Let’s take a look:

Stay tuned for videos on TechCrunch.com after the event.

Session 1: 9:35am – 10:40am

Apollo Agriculture: Leverages advances in machine learning, remote imaging via satellite, and mobile money to deliver input finance and agronomic advice to smallholder farmers with radical efficiency and scalability.

Sud-pay: Developed an integrated, multi-support, multi-service, and multi-operator digital tax collection platform that connects merchants to financial institutions.

LabTech,: UriSAF by LabTECH is a urine testing hardware and software solution designed to speed up the diagnosis of Uterine Tract Infections (UTIs).

Complete Farmer: A “crowdfarming” platform that enables users to invest in sustainable farms and monitor farming activities without discarding their daily routine using data driven cultivation protocols and IoT enabled precision farming.

Bettr: A virtual banking experience powered by the smartphone and your data.

Session 2: 11:40am – 12:40pm

FoodHubs: Uses mobile solar powered cold carts and cold rooms to help smallholders farmers store their produce, so as to avoid post harvest losses.

Honey Flow Africa: Optimizes beekeeping operations by digitizing and bringing the power of IoT to the bee keeping process to improve honey production, processing and predictability.

AgriPredict: Provide farmers with tools that equip them with information that will improve predicting disease, pest infestations, and extreme weather conditions

MAX: Transforms moto-taxi mobility in Africa using mobile apps, inclusive data-driven asset-finance, and a comprehensive driver on-boarding program that uses machine learning and psychometric tests to profile drivers and create credit scores for them. MAX enables financial inclusion for drivers, prioritizes safety, and uses IoT technology to track all drivers in real-time.

CodeLn: An end-to-end technical recruitment platform that automates the entire recruitment process, making it fast and easy for companies to find and test Software Developers and reduce the risk of bad hires.

Session 3: 1:40pm – 2:40pm

Bankly: An innovative financial product focused on reaching the unbanked in Africa, in a “Recharge to Save” model. Bankly developed a cash-digitization payment and savings products, in which users pay using Bankly vouchers.

Powerstove Energy: The world’s first clean cookstove with built-in self-powered IoT System for real time monitoring. Its 100 percent smokeless biomass cookstove cooks food times faster and burns 70 times less of processed proprietary water-resistant Goodlife Biomass Pellets produced from forest and agricultural waste.

M-SCAN: Develops portable mobile ultrasound devices (Ultrasonic probes) that are laptop, tablet and mobile phone compatible.

Pineapple: A fully decentralized insurer. With Pineapple, members pay premiums into their own wallets rather than a central pot. When claims occur, they are distributed to all wallets in the community, which collectively help pay for the claim.

Trend Solar: Assimilated a 4G Android Smartphone and Solar Home System to provide affordable access to energy, internet, and mobile in an all-in-one solution that seeks to address the needs of 640 million+ people currently living off-grid in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Startup Battlefield Finals: 3:40pm – 4:55pm

_________________________________________________

9:30 am – 9:35 am: Welcome Remarks from Brian Heater (TechCrunch)

9:35 am – 10:40 am: Startup Battlefield – Session 1

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back in Africa! Watch as entrepreneurs from around the region pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup. The first preliminary round of five contestants.

10:40 am – 11:05 am: Expats, Repats and Africans with Kwame Acheampong (Mall for Africa), Eleni Gabre-Madhin (blueMoon) and Lexi Novitske (Singularity Investments)

Africa’s tech sector is reshaping the movement of people, investment, and talent between the continent and the world. But what are the pros and cons of repatriates returning to launch companies, expats choosing Africa’s tech scene over others, and VCs deploying greater capital to region?

11:05 am – 11:20 am: Break

11:20 am – 11:40 am: Keynote by Konstantinos Papamiltiadis (Facebook)

Facebook’s Director of Platform Partnerships discusses the Facebook developer ecosystem. Sponsored by Facebook.

11:40 am – 12:40 pm: Startup Battlefield – Session 2

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back in Africa! Watch as entrepreneurs from around the region pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup. The second preliminary round of five contestants.

12:40 pm – 1:40 pm: Break

1:00 pm – 1:45 pm: SPONSORED SESSION: Transforming the Agriculture Value Chain with AI, Blockchain, IoT and Weather Data by IBM (Workshop Room)

Transforming the agriculture value chain is a top priority for African governments and the private sector. Unfortunately, a plethora of challenges plague the agriculture value chain ranging from cultivation to retail. In addition, the value chain is highly fragmented with limited visibility and ineffective coordination across the various parties, participants and value added partners. IBM Research – Africa and Hello Tractor will present their solution to address this challenge.

1:40 pm – 2:40 pm: Startup Battlefield – Session 3

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back in Africa! Watch as entrepreneurs from around the region pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup. The third preliminary round of five contestants.

2:40 pm – 3:00 pm: Fireside Chat with Funke Opeke (Main One)

Dubbed the person responsible for powering broadband across all of West Africa, Funke Opeke has become one of the most well-known people in the African tech community. MainOne, a telecoms company Opeke leads as CEO, is responsible for driving internet use across West Africa by investing in digital infrastructures. In this fireside chat, we will what’s next and how to equip entrepreneurs with the necessary resources to build scalable businesses.

3:00 pm – 3:25 pm: Investing in African Startups with Kola Aina (Ventures Platform) and Omobola Johnson (TLcom Capital)

Discussing the unique landscape of the African startup ecosystem and what can be learned from Silicon Valley’s approach to venture capital.

3:00 pm – 3:45 am: SPONSORED SESSION: A Perspective on Innovation In Africa – by Microsoft (Workshop Room)

Enabling the technology startup ecosystem in Africa is a priority of Microsoft’s. We are working to building the necessary infrastructure, partnerships and programs to support tech innovators from all across Africa. We believe in empowering everyone on the planet to do more – Microsoft will do an overview of how your startup can leverage the investments we have in place for startups.

3:25 pm – 3:40 pm: Break

3:40 pm – 4:55 pm: Startup Battlefield Final

The final round. One of these five finalists will be the winner of Startup Battlefield.

4:55 pm – 5:15 pm: Building at Scale (Facebook)

Taking an Idea and Delivering Cross Border Success with Emeka Afigbo (Facebook), Kofi Dadzie (Rancard) – Sponsored by Facebook

5:15 pm – 5:40 pm: Blockchain’s Potential in Africa with Olugbenga Agboola (Flutterwave), Omolara Awoyemi (SureGroup) and Nichole Yembra (Greenhouse Capital) and Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi (SureRemit)

As crypto fever gripped many leading economies in 2018, Africa was shaping its own blockchain narrative—one more grounded in utility than speculation. Over the last year, the continent saw several ICOs and token launches. And use cases for blockchain in Africa are emerging to solve problems and unlock potential in agriculture, solar-energy, health-care, government and beyond.

5:40 pm – 6:00 pm: Startup Battlefield Closing Awards Ceremony

Watch the announcement of the Startup Battlefield winner.

6:30 pm – 8:00 pm: Startup Battlefield Africa After Party sponsored by Mall for Africa. All attendees are invited to join TechCrunch for the official Startup Battlefield Africa After Party.

Apple has filed an appeal to overturn a court decision that could ban iPhone sales in China, the company said on Monday, adding that all of its models remain available in its third-largest market.

The American giant is locked in a legal battle in the world’s biggest smartphone market. On Monday, Qualcomm announced that a court in Fujian Province has granted a preliminary injunction banning the import and sales of old iPhone models in China because they violated two patents owned by the American chipmaker.

The patents in question relate to features enabling consumers to edit photos and manage apps on smartphone touchscreens, according to Qualcomm.

“Apple continues to benefit from our intellectual property while refusing to compensate us. These Court orders are further confirmation of the strength of Qualcomm’s vast patent portfolio,” said Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm, in a statement.

Apple fought back in a statement calling Qualcomm’s effort to ban its products “another desperate move by a company whose illegal practices are under investigation by regulators around the world.” It also claimed that Qualcomm is asserting three patents they had never raised before, including one which has already been invalidated.

It is unclear at this point what final effects the court injunction will have on Apple’s sales in China.

The case is part of an ongoing global patent dispute between Qualcomm and Apple, which saw the former seek to block the manufacturing and sale of iPhones in China over patent issues pertaining to payments last year.

Qualcomm shares were up 3 percent on Monday. Apple opened down more than 2 percent before closing up 0.7 percent. Citi lowered its Apple price target to $200 a share from $240 a share, saying in a note to investors that while it does not expect China to ban or impose additional tariffs on Apple, “should this occur Apple has material exposure to China.”

The Apple case comes as the tech giant faces intensifying competition in China, which represented 18 percent of its total sales from the third quarter. The American company’s market share in China shrunk from 7.2 percent to 6.7 percent year-over-year in the second quarter as local competitors Huawei and Oppo gained more ground, according to market research firm IDC.

The annual drop is due to Apple’s high prices, IDC suggests, but its name “is still very strong in China” and “the company will fare well should it release slightly cheaper options later in the year.”

Walmart is continuing its strategy of revamping its businesses in Asia after the U.S. retail giant opened its first e-commerce store in Japan, where it is working with local retail giant Rakuten.

The companies first announced a collaboration in January when they agreed to team up on the launch of an online grocery service in Japan and the sale of e-readers, audiobooks and e-books from Rakuten-owned Kobo in the U.S. That e-grocery service — Rakuten Seiyu Netsuper — rolled out in October, and now the duo have launched the Walmart Rakuten Ichiba Store to help Walmart grab a slice of Japan’s e-commerce market, which is estimated to be worth 16.5 trillion yen ($148 billion) per year.

The store, which sits on Rakuten Ichiba — Japan’s largest e-commerce store — will cover 1,200 “U.S. branded” products that include clothing, outdoor items and kids toys. Walmart will fulfill orders in the U.S. and they will be sent by air to Japan where Rakuten will use its e-commerce smarts to deliver them. There’s no word on how long the process will take, but it will include shipping cost, duties and taxes in the final price.

The move is an interesting one for Walmart, which has struggled in Japan for some time.

Earlier this year, the company was forced to deny rumors that it was in the process of offloading its Seiyu GK unit, a business it acquired in full in 2007 which operates its Japan-based supermarkets. A sale may not be happening (yet) but Walmart has shuttered some 100 Seiyu stores, according to CNBC, which shows that it isn’t performing as expected in the country.

Partnering with Rakuten, the $10 billion e-commerce giant that also covers financial services, travel, mobile and more, is a smart way to take a bite out of Japan’s online market with risk or exposure. Though it does have its limits. Amazon, Walmart’s big domestic rival, is taking on Rakuten directly, by contrast, and seeing some success albeit at a high cost of investment.

The partnership approach isn’t new for Walmart in Asia.

The partner of choice in China is JD.com, second to Alibaba, which acquired Walmart’s floundering Yihaodian marketplace in 2016. As part of that deal, Walmart became a retailer inside Yihaodian thus leveraging JD’s platform and logistics know-how to generate sales in China.

That relationship was deepened this year when Walmart co-led a $500 million in a grocery delivery service that’s part-owned by JD– yep right, another case of online grocery in tandem with e-commerce.

Elsewhere, Walmart decided to enter India this year when it scooped up local Amazon rival Flipkart for $16 billion, a record deal for the U.S. firm.

Less than a week before a Uber self-driving SUV prototype struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona last March, a manager sent executives an email cautioning that its autonomous vehicle unit needed to “work on establishing a culture rooted in safety,” reports The Information.

Robbie Miller, then a manager in the unit’s testing operations, was preparing to leave the company when he warned that “cars are routinely in accidents resulting in damage” and backup drivers, who sit behind the wheel in self-driving cars for safety reasons, weren’t properly trained or fired even if they made repeated mistakes.

In his March 13 email, Miller wrote that “the cars are routinely in accidents resulting in damage. This is usually the result of poor behavior of the operator or the AV technology. A car was damaged nearly every other day in February. We shouldn’t be hitting things every 15,000 miles. Repeated infractions for poor driving rarely results in termination. Several of the drivers appear to not have been properly vetted or trained.” Miller, who previously held positions in self-driving programs at Google and Otto, also gave a comprehensive list of suggestions he believed would reduce the likelihood of accidents.

Five days later, on March 18, the Tempe collision occurred, resulting in the death of 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who was crossing a street when she was hit by the SUV. Uber immediately halted testing of its autonomous cars on public roads and reached a settlement with Herzberg’s family two weeks later. It was later revealed in a police report that the car’s backup safety driver was watching videos on her phone when the crash occurred. The incident also raised serious questions about the safety of Uber’s self-driving technology system.

Uber resumed testing of its self-driving cars in July, but in manual mode and with new safety standards in place. Before the crash, Uber had planned to launch a limited self-driving taxi service in the suburbs of Phoenix that would let users hail autonomous cars without backup drivers. Alphabet’s Waymo, one of Uber’s main rivals in the autonomous vehicle space, launched a self-driving taxi service there last week, but with backup drivers.

The email, obtained and published by The Information, was sent to Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber’s autonomous vehicle unit and John Thomason, vice president of software, as well as five other executives and lawyers.

It details several safety incidents that had occurred in the months before the fatal collision in Arizona, including one in which a prototype swerved off the road and drove on the sidewalk for several meters. Miller described delays in reviewing incident logs and wrote “This is not how we should be operating.”

During that period, Uber continued to test hundreds of self-driving vehicles on the streets of San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, before the program was brought to a temporary halt by the fatal accident in Tempe.

Miller’s suggestions included reducing the size of Uber’s fleet of autonomous vehicles by 85% so the software quality team could better review safety incidents, have more than one backup driver in each prototype (Uber had previously used two backup drivers per vehicle), and allow individual employees, including engineers or operation managers, to shut down testing if they believed there were potential safety issues.

“The cars are collecting more than enough data for the engineers to be aware of and solve the issues they encounter. Reducing the fleet size dramatically would not change that nor would it slow down the current rate of progress,” Miller wrote. “It would significantly reduce ATG’s likelihood of being involved in an accident. This sentiment is echoed widely throughout ATG.”

The Information report says that Miller’s assertions were supported by interviews with five current and 15 former Uber employees. While Meyhofer and the other executives who were sent the email did not respond to it, Miller was told by his supervisor that the team would discuss it. The Information’s sources also said his suggestions were discussed during the internal safety review that followed the Tempe accident.

TechCrunch has contacted Uber for comment.

China and the United States have been slapping each other with massive tariffs and more may come if the trade war continues to escalate, prompting some companies to move manufacturing out of China. One of the latest is GoPro, which announced it will move production of most U.S.-bound cameras out of China by summer 2019.

Cameras bound for other countries will continue to be produced in China. GoPro’s announcement isn’t a surprise, as its chief executive officer Nick Woodman told CNN in August that it would be “prudent” for the company to consider moving manufacturing out of China to lower costs or cope with potential tariffs.

GoPro hasn’t specified where production of U.S.-bound cameras will go, but Asian countries that have been considered as alternatives by other tech companies in the wake of the U.S.-China trade war include Vietnam, Thailand, and Taiwan.

In a statement, GoPro chief financial officer Brian McGee said “Today’s geopolitical environment requires agility, and we’re proactively addressing tariff concerns by moving most of our U.S.-bound camera production out of China. We believe this diversified approach to production can benefit our business regardless of tariff implications.

He added that even though GoPro’s manufacturing partner provides facilities, GoPro owns its production equipment, so the company “expect[s] to make this move at a relatively low cost.”

TechCrunch has contacted GoPro for more information about the move and possible destinations.