Year: 2019

Uber will acquire Cornershop, a grocery delivery startup that began life serving the Latin American market and recently shifted to offer service in Toronto, its first North American city. Uber announced on Friday that it expects that its acquisition of a majority ownership stake in Cornershop in early 2020, once it receives all the necessary regulatory sign-off.

Cornershop was founded in 2015 by Oskar Hjertonsson, Daniel Undurraga and Juan Pablo, and it’s headquartered in Chile. The company will continue to operate under that leadership in its current form for now, Uber says, and will report to a board that counts Uber leadership in the majority of its overall makeup.

Over the course of four rounds of funding, Cornershop raised $31.7 million, from investors including Accel, Jackson Square Ventures and others. The on-demand grocery company was supposed to be acquired by Walmart in a deal valued at $225 million announced in September, but that deal ultimately fell apart in June when Mexican anti-trust regulators blocked it from going through.

Meanwhile, Walmart has continued to work with Cornershop, expanding its service offerings in Toronto with the startup as recently as yesterday. Uber has previously experimented with grocery delivery, including in partnership with Walmart, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has said that grocery delivery is a natural place for the company to expand its business given the success of Uber Eats. It’ll face competition from entrenched players including Instacart and Postmates, but Uber Eats also faced competition from much more established players at its genesis, too.

The deal is also still subject to regulatory approval, as mentioned, and that’s exactly where the planned Walmart acquisition stumbled before for Cornershop, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on this one. Still, Uber’s not making any secret of its intentions with the grocery category, so that looks likely to take shape one way or another.

Accessory maker Nomad already offers a couple of excellent wireless chargers that work great with Apple and other Qi-compatible devices, but they’re introducing a new one that could be their most versatile yet. Using technology provided by partner Aira called ‘FreePower,’ the new Nomad Base Station Pro will be able to charge up to three devices at once placed in any orientation on its surface – cool both because of the three device simultaneous support, and the fact that you don’t have to make sure the gadget you’re charging is lined up exactly right on the charger, as is typically the case.

This is pretty similar to what Apple’s AirPower promised, before its unfortunate demise. The hardware similarly makes use of a matrix of multiple charging coils, which interlink to offer charging capabilities across the surface of the Base Station Pro. Perhaps intentionally, Aira’s website URL is ‘airapower.com,’ one letter off from Apple’s shelved first-party accessory.

Nomad’s charger inherits the same aesthetics of the company’s existing chargers, which means you get a black soft leather surface for putting your devices on top of, and the surrounding frame is made of slate gray aluminum. The charger should look and feel very premium, if Nomad’s other Base Stations are any indication.

The Base Station Pro supports charging speeds of up to 5W each, which is not the max supported by the iPhone or other devices, but which will still work just fine for a top up or for overnight. And since it supports up to three devices at that speed, you could use it to charge say, two iPhones and AirPods with Apple’s wireless charging case all at once.

Nomad also includes a 27W USB-C charger with Power Delivery in the box with the Base Station Pro, and a USB-C cable to connect to the charger. This probably will be a fairly premium priced piece of hardware, but we’ll find out for sure when pre-ordes begin in November.

The one significant way this differs from what Apple was building, at least for Apple fans, is that it doesn’t provide charging for the Apple Watch. Nomad has a Base Station model that offers an integrated Apple Watch charger, but of course with that you’re not getting the ‘place anywhere’ overlapping coil design built for this new model.

Club Factory, a Chinese e-commerce platform that sells fashion and beauty items and electronics accessories, has raised $100 million in a new financing round as it looks to expand its footprints in India.

The new financing round — Series D — was led by Qiming Venture Partners Bertelsmann, IDG Capital, and” other Fortune 500 companies from the U.S. and Asia,” the five-year-old Hangzhou-headquartered startup said. Club Factory, which raised $100 million in its previous financing round early last year, has raised $220 million to date.

Club Factory has amassed over 70 million users on its platform, about 40 million of which live in India. The startup cited figures from app analytics firm App Annie to claim that Club Factory is now the third-largest e-commerce platform in India.

Club Factory does not charge local sellers any commission fee, which has helped it drive its marketplace. Number of sellers on its platform in India has grown by 10 times in last six months, the startup claimed. The startup, which has about 5,000 sellers in India, plans to double that figure by year-end.

“At the same time, we have also pioneered to strengthen the ‘store-within-platform’ concept in India’s e-commerce industry, allowing direct contact between buyers and sellers through our application,” said Vincent Lou, co-founder and chief executive of Club Factory.

He added, “We have changed the status of the Indian e-commerce industry that monopolized information of buyers and sellers, allowing SMEs to own their customers and run their business better. All this, combined with our strategy to reduce the transaction costs of buyers and sellers and allow more local players to enter the ecosystem, has worked very well for us in India.”

Twitter has returned to the Mac with the debut of a new Catalyst-powered app for mac OS Catalina, launched on Thursday. The company in June had been among the first to announce its plans to take advantage Mac Catalyst — Apple’s new toolset for bringing iPad apps to the Mac desktop — following Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, where Catalyst had been officially introduced.

The idea with Catalyst is to make it easier for iOS developers to create software for the Mac ecosystem, by allowing them to leverage their existing iOS project and source code, then layer on native Mac features, and convert touch controls to the keyboard and mouse.

Twitter had been one of the more highly-anticipated Catalyst apps to arrive, not only because of how it was created, but also because Twitter had decided to kill off its Mac desktop client last year, telling desktop users to just use its website instead.

That left users who prefered a native Mac experience to turn to third-party apps like TweetDeck, Twitterific 5, or Tweetbot 3. The former is designed more for those who work in social media or are heavy consumers or power users. The latter two, while great alternatives to an official client, are paid applications with a lot more bells and whistles than some require.

Twitter’s new Catalyst app is free and offers a consistent experience with the rest of the Twitter platform apps. The interface is familiar thanks to the code base sharing, and there’s even a dark mode option available. However, its timeline doesn’t refresh in real-time — which has surfaced as one of users’ common complaints about the new app.

Others pointed out that the full-screen experience is lacking and that the double toolbar seemed like a poor fit.  Plus, there are other odd differences between the desktop client and web app.

That said, the general sentiment is one where people are glad to have an official app back on the desktop. And it’s possible some of the other complaints will be addressed in time.

The app only works on macOS Catalina, which not everyone has installed just yet. It’s a free download from the Mac App Store here. 

Apester, which helps digital publishers add interactivity to their content, is rolling out a new format called the Story Strip.

CEO and co-founder Moti Cohem told me that the Story Strip is modeled on the Story format popularized by Snapchat and Instagram — a format that he praised for being one of the few content types that’s truly “tailored to the mobile experience,” offering a fast, interactive experience for readers.

Cohen said that by bringing the format out of “the social walled gardens” and allowing publishers to embed Story Strips into their articles, Apester is “paving the way for media companies to capture a new audience, a young audience.”

You can see a Story Strip for yourself on TV Insider, a pop culture and entertainment website NTVB Media. It appears in articles as a carousel of related stories, allowing readers to select the story that interests them and then quickly swipe through slides summarizing the story highlights.

Cohen said a Story Strip can be created by a publisher’s editorial team, or Apester can automatically generate them based on an article. And since they can also include ads, this creates new monetization opportunities for publishers. In fact, Apester says TV Insider has seen its daily revenue double since the two companies started working together.

As for how these kinds of content widgets might fit in as publishers explore subscriptions and other business models beyond advertising, Cohen argued that even as business models change, “the blend is what’s going to be important.”

And by allowing publishers to engage with users and collect data about their behavior, he said, “Apester is going to allow you to monetize all of [your audiences] differently … You can use the engagement that’s happening and understand why it’s happening in order to drive the right action.”

Toyota is doubling down on its prediction that the key to building a compelling car of the future will be creating a true connection between car and driver (or passenger, depending on whether or now you’re using autonomous mode). The car maker’s new LQ concept is an evolution fo the Concept-i vehicle it unveiled at CES in 2017, complete with its onboard ‘Yui’ virtual assistant.

The LQ inherits some of the same design lines and themes as the Concept-i, but working with its R&D arm the Toyota Research Institute, the LQ gains even more advanced autonomous driving capabilities, and an updated Yui that’s more responsive to the driver in terms of learning and adapting to their behavior and preferences.

Yui interacts with the driver using a voice interface, as well as illumination, air condition control and even by emitting fragrances, in order to optimize their mood, strengthen that bond between car and human, and even ensure their continued alertness in cases where the driver might need to take over from the onboard autonomous driving features of the LQ.

Speaking of autonomy, the LQ is designed with SAE Level 4 self-driving features on board, which means that it should be able to handle driving tasks completely without the interference of the person behind the wheel. It also boasts “Automated Valet” tech built in partnership with Panasonic for traveling on its own between parking spaces and pick-up/drop-off points, which Toyota says helps when working with drivers that need extra assistance and accessibility.

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Toyota still recognizes the need for the driver to be present when it makes sense, however, and so the LQ incorporates a newly designed seating system that can inflate air bladders embedded in the seat to put the driver in a more upright pose, and to blast them with cold air when attentiveness is key. When it’s not, however, the air bladders mimic a slow breathing rhythm, inflating and elating gradually to promote a relaxed breathing patter for the driver, too.

Color-coded interior lights also help Yui communicate with the driver and any passengers – floor-mounted lights can change color to indicate which party the car’s AI-powered assistant is addressing, for instance, and exterior lights, including a programmable pattern projector installed in the headlights, can visually ‘talk’ to people outside the car. All the dash-mounted displays on the LQ are OLED, for better visibility and power consumption, and there’s an emission scrubbing system that works as the vehicle propels itself for a new level of interior air quality cleanliness.

Of course, this is a concept car, so many of these technologies are a blend of theory and practice at this stage. But Toyota seems intent on a vision of the automotive future where your car is both functional and friendly, and I’m here for it.

Digital media holding company IAC has taken the next step toward spinning off Match Group, with a proposal outlining what that process would look like.

Match Group (which owns Tinder, PlentOfFish, OkCupid, Hinge and of course Match itself) is already a publicly-traded company, but IAC remains the majority owner. With the spinoff, IAC says it should distribute its Match Group shares to IAC stockholders, “resulting in two independent public companies.”

“Today IAC proposed an important first step in the separation of Match Group from IAC,” said IAC CEO Joey Levin in a statement. “IAC is confident that the proposal communicated to the Match Group special committee provides strong footing for Match Group to begin its journey as a thriving, independent company.”

Under the proposal (which IAC says still needs to be approved by its board of directors, as well as the aforementioned special committee, as well as stockholders), Match Group’s dual-class stock structure would  be eliminated, creating a single class of stock.

The company said in August that it was exploring spinoffs of both Match Group and ANGI Homeserivces.

In his statement today, Levin said, “As it relates to evaluating our ownership stake in ANGI Homeservices, we don’t currently expect to turn our attention to the question of a spin-off until a Match Group transaction has been completed.”

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

We have a special episode this week. Instead of our regular lineup, we got Alex on the phone with an IPO expert to dig into the year’s IPO cycle both at home and abroad. Helping with the effort was James Clark, the Head of Tech and Lifesciences, Primary Markets at the London Stock Exchange.

That means we had IPO fans from both the US and across the pond to kick into what has happened thus far in 2019, and what’s coming around both in Q4 and in 2020.

We touched on a few topics, including the declining popularity of startups that don’t make money, the strength of software companies’ debuts (Datadog, CrowdStrike, for example), and a little bit on direct listings (they have a different name in the UK, it turns out).

We’re now into the fourth quarter of 2020, and some companies have done better than expected (Beyond Meat), while others have done worse (Uber and Lyft). It’s been fun, and, fingers crossed, we won’t run short of more fodder in the coming months!

There remains a problem with the race to create a quantum computer, which is that experiments in this area can be extremely error-prone. Rahko is a new UK startup that thinks is can address this problem with what’s known as ‘Quantum machine learning’.

It’s now raised a £1.3M ($1.6M) in a seed round led by Balderton Capital, a rare move for a VC which normally only comes in at a Series A level. Joining the round is AI Seed and angel investors Charles Songhurst (former Microsoft Head of Corporate Strategy), Tom McInerney (Founder, TGM Ventures), John Spindler (CEO, Capital Enterprise) and James Field (CEO, LabGenius).

Rahko says it is building ‘quantum discovery’ capabilities for chemical simulation, which could enable groundbreaking advances in batteries, chemicals, advanced materials and drugs. It was started by cofounders Leonard Wossnig, Edward Grant, Miriam Cha and Ian Horobin.

Leo and Ed were longtime collaborators through their PhDs at University College London. They had been working on research in quantum machine learning (QML) with now lead developers Shuxiang Cao and Hongxiang Chen for several years and had been consolidating all their research into a QML platform.

They say the QML platform attracted serious attention from a tech giant and overtures were made. Leo and Ed made the decision not to give away control of the sum of their work, and decided instead to launch a business to commercialize it.

Chemical simulation is a vital capability for research that has not advanced significantly in recent years due to the limited computational power of classical computer. Rahko claims it has an arsenal of tools that may make quantum computers accessible and commercially usable at an accelerated pace, often through the use of hybrid approaches with classical computers.

Leo Wossnig, CEO, said: “Most people find quantum computers mysterious and wonder if they are going to save or break the world as we know it. In reality, quantum computing is going to unlock radical advances in areas of research and technology in which we have found ourselves stuck for some time now. Our team is excited to get together every day to work on problems that would have been impossible to solve only a couple of years ago. We are delighted to welcome on board this unique group of investors who truly share our excitement.” Earlier this year, Wossnig was the recipient of the prestigious 2019 Google Fellowship in Quantum Computing, for his achievement in computer science.

Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen, General Partner at Balderton Capital, said: “Rahko is one of the top teams in the world working on a complex space at the very edge of science and computing. The application of discoveries within quantum has already been profound and impacted our fundamental understanding of the world around us. The pace and rate of change in this field over the past few years has been astonishing, and we feel incredibly lucky to be supporting this exceptional team as they continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”

Rahko is one of several startups originating from UCL’s Computer Science programme, supported by Conception X, a venture builder for deep tech startups. It works in partnership with several of the world’s largest quantum hardware manufacturers, leading academic teams and national laboratories.

Wossnig added: “Quantum software is a relatively new field. It is growing very quickly but at this stage the field is small enough for us to know all of the best teams out there and be working with many of them. IBM and Microsoft, for instance, have large software teams but we are partners with both of them.”

The entire quantum computing industry is relying on quantum hardware maturing to a scale that will allow powerful, commercially valuable applications. It’s estimated this will be in 3-5 years. Until this happens it is a little premature to say definitively who is leading the race.

Satellite imagery holds a wealth of information that could be useful for industries, science and humanitarian causes, but one big and persistent challenge with it has been a lack of effective ways to tap that disparate data for specific ends.

That’s created a demand for better analytics, and now, one of the startups that has been building solutions to do just that is announcing a round of funding as it gears up for expansion. Descartes Labs, a geospatial imagery analytics startup out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is today announcing that it has closed a $20 million round of funding, money that CEO and founder Mark Johnson described to me as a bridge round ahead of the startup closing and announcing a larger growth round.

The funding is being led by Union Grove Venture Partners, with Ajax Strategies, Crosslink Capital, and March Capital Partners (which led its previous round) also participating. It brings the total raised by Descartes to $60 million, and while Johnson said the startup would not be disclosing its valuation, PitchBook notes that it is $220 million ($200 million pre-money in this round).

As a point of comparison, another startup in the area of geospatial analytics, Orbital Insight, is reportedly now raising money at a $430 million valuation (that data is from January of this year, and we’ve contacted the company to see if it ever closed).

Santa Fe — a city popular with retirees that counts tourism as its biggest industry — is an unlikely place to find a tech startup. Descartes Labs’ presence there is a result of that fact that it is a spinoff from the Los Alamos National Laboratory near the city. Johnson — who had lived in San Francisco before coming to Santa Fe to help create Descartes (his previous experience building Zite for media, he said, led the Los Alamos scientists to first conceive of the Descartes IP as the basis of a kind of search engine) — admitted that he never thought the company would stay headquartered there beyond a short initial phase of growth of six months.

However, it turned out that the trends around more distributed workforces (and cloud computing to enable that), engineers looking for employment alternatives to living in pricey San Francisco, plus the heated competition for talent you get in the Valley all came together in a perfect storm that helped Descartes Labs establish and thrive on its home turf.

Descartes — named after the seminal philosopher/mathematician Rene Descartes — describes itself as a “data refinery”, by which it means it injests a lot of imagery and unstructured data related to the earth that is picked up primarily by satellites but also other sensors (Johnson notes that its sources include data from publicly available satellites; data from NASA and the European space agency, and data from the companies themselves); applies AI-based techniques including computer vision analysis and machine learning to make sense of the sometimes-grainy imagery; and distills and orders it to create insights into what is going on down below, and how that is likely to evolve.

This includes not just what is happening on the surface of the earth, but also in the air above it: Descartes Labs has worked on projects to detect levels of methane gas in oil fields, the spread of wildfires, and how crops might grow in a particular area, and the impact of weather patterns on it all.

It has produced work for a range of clients that have included governments (the methane detection was commissioned as part of New Mexico’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions), energy giants and industrial agribusiness, and traders.

“The idea is to help them take advantage of all the new data going online,” Johnson said, noting that this can help, for example, bankers forecast how much a commodity will trade for, or the effect of a change in soil composition on a crop.

The fact that Descartes’ work has brushed with the energy industry gives an interesting twist to the use of the word “refinery”. But in case you were wondering, Johnson said that the company goes through a process of vetting potential customers to determine if the data they are providing is for a positive end, or not.

“We have a deep belief that we can help them become more efficient,” he said. “Those looking at earth data are doing so because they care about the planet and are working to try to become more sustainable.”

Looking ahead, the company is building what it describes as a “digital twin” of the earth, the idea being that in doing so it can better model the imagery that it injests and link up data from different regions more seamlessly (since, after all, a climatic event in one part of the world inevitably impacts another). Notably, “digital twinning” is a common concept that we see applied in other AI-based enterprises to better predict activity: this is the approach that, for example, Forward Networks takes when building models of an enterprise’s network to determine how apps will behave and identify the reasons behind an outage.

In addition to the funding round, Descartes named Phil Fraher its new CFO, and is announcing Veery Maxwell, Director for Energy Innovation and Patrick Cairns, who co-founded UGVP, as new board observers.