Year: 2019

Automating agriculture is a complex proposition given the number and variety of tasks involved, but a number of robotics and autonomy companies are giving it their best shot. FarmWise seems to have impressed someone — it just raised $14.5 million to continue development of its autonomous weeding vehicle.

Currently in the prototype stage, these vehicles look like giant lumbering personnel carriers or the like, but are in fact precision instruments which scan the ground for invasive weeds among the crop and carefully pluck them out.

“Each day, one FarmWise robot can weed crops to feed a medium-sized city of approximately 400,000 inhabitants,” said FarmWise CEO Sebastien Boyer in a press release announcing the latest funding round. “We are now enhancing the scale and depth of our proprietary plant-detection technology to help growers with more of their processes and on more of their crops.”

Presumably the robot was developed and demonstrated with something of a specialty in one crop or another, more as a proof of concept than anything.

Well, it seems to have proved the concept. The new $14.5 million round, led by Calibrate Ventures, is likely due to the success of these early trials. This is far from an easy problem, so going from idea to nearly market-ready in under three years is pretty impressive. Farmers love tech — if it works. And tiny issues or error rates can lead to enormous problems with the vast monoculture fields that make up the majority of U.S. farms.

The company previously took in about $5.7 million in a seed round, following its debut on Alchemist Accelerator’s demo day back in 2017. Robots are expensive!

Hopefully the cash infusion will help propel FarmWise from prototype to commercialization, though it’s hard to imagine they could build more than a handful of the machines with that kind of money. Perhaps they’ll line up a couple big orders and build on that future revenue.

Meanwhile they’ll continue to develop the AI that powers the chunky, endearing vehicles.

“Looking ahead, our robots will increasingly act as specialized doctors for crops, monitoring individual health and adjusting targeted interventions according to a crop’s individual needs,” said Boyer. So not only will these lumbering platforms delicately remove weeds, but they’ll inspect for aphids and fungus and apply the necessary remedies.

With that kind of inspection they can make a data play later — what farmer wouldn’t want to be able to digitally inspect every plant in their fields?

GoCardless, the London fintech that aims to become the one-stop shop globally for businesses that want to let customers pay via recurring bank payments, has launched a U.S. debit solution.

The company has also opened an office across the pond in San Francisco’s financial district, headed up by Andrew Gilboy, General Manager, North America, who was previously the company’s Chief Revenue Officer.

Specifically, GoCardless’ new U.S. product supports debit payments on the ACH (Automated Clearing House) network. This means that businesses can use the GoCardless platform to offer U.S. consumers the option to pay by recurring bank payments, as an alternative to a credit card, for example. Likewise, companies can use GoCardless for debit payments for B2B transactions, such as relating to SaaS subscriptions, invoices or instalments.

It is the B2B use case where GoCardless thinks there is the biggest opportunity for recurring payments, since, unlike in the U.K., for example, the biggest competitor would be writing cheques. That’s costly and slow by 2019 standards and doesn’t provide anything like the visibility that direct debits and ACH affords.

“By using the ACH debit network on the GoCardless platform, merchants can pull payments directly from their customers’ bank accounts, at a lower cost than credit cards and without the overhead and burden of cash and cheques,” says the U.K.-headquartered company.

GoCardless adds that businesses using the GoCardless ACH debit solution gain increased visibility over payment flow via a “fully automated” collection system. This includes things like due dates, and whether or not a payment was successful or failed and why.

The addition of ACH debit means that GoCardless’ global debit network now covers over 30 countries accessible through a single API and platform.

Meanwhile, the 2011-founded company is no stranger to the West coast of America. In its formative years, the U.K. startup went through Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator where it initially struggled to find product-market fit before successfully pivoting to recurring payments.

If you happen to bump into GoCardless CEO Hiroki Takeuchi, ask him about the time he and his co-founders stayed up all night working the phones in a bid to win the startup’s first U.K. customers, lest they have nothing to show at YC Demo Day.

Now backed by the likes of Google Ventures, Salesforce, and Accel, amongst others, the company has come a long way since then.

We face two major threats today: one to the health of our planet and the other to our own. The U.N. says the global population will hit 9.7 billion by 2050, meaning more people consuming more natural resources than at any point in human history. Consumption is already doubling every 10-12 years. Add to that the challenges of a warming planet. On the human health front, some 30% of young people under age 20 are obese, 31% of deaths are from cardiovascular disease, and cancer cases are growing at a rate twice as fast as the population.

Fortunately, biology and technology are creating fixes for the planet as well as for the human body. As they do so, they are poised to reinvent countless industries, giving rise to what I believe is a golden age for biology as technology. As Arvind Gupta, the founder of health-science accelerator IndieBio, argued in one recent Medium post, “the twin catastrophes of planetary and human health” will create a $100 trillion opportunity.

Before I tell you how, here is an extremely brief history of the field. Biology, of course, is the original technology. Our tinkering with life’s building blocks, and our ancestor’s manipulation of plants and herbs as medicines and their use of neem branches as toothpaste or the cultivation of plants like corn has been going on for millennia. It wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s that we saw the first flowering of today’s modern biotech industry.

In 1972, Robert A. Swanson helped launch the birth of biotech when he co-founded Genentech, which became a pioneer in the field of recombinant DNA technology. By creating novel DNA sequences in the lab, Genentech was able to synthesize human insulin for diabetics (1982), and create growth hormones for kids who suffered from a hormone deficiency (1985).

Among the other early leaders in the field was Applied Molecular Genetics (today known as Amgen). In 1989, it won approval for the first recombinant human erythropoietin drugs to treat anemia in people with chronic kidney failure, and later to treat anemia in HIV patients. Last year, the $23.75 billion company’s best-selling drugs were Neulasta, used to prevent infections in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, and Enbrel, to treat some autoimmune diseases.

Today, innovative researchers are building on those early technologies. Among the most promising is the discovery of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique. Using what they refer to as molecular scissors, scientists can use CRISPR to edit a living person’s DNA, deleting or repairing damaged sections. Because the changes are made at the genome, the DNA fix is hereditary, unlike previous fixes that affect only the individual patient. The technique promises to slow if not eradicate cancer. It could also prevent sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis, hemophilia and heart disease.

Notwithstanding the concern over creating designer babies (and the recent controversial creation of the first gene-edited babies in China), it promises to fortify our bodies for us, those of our kids and all succeeding generations. Co-founded by Jennifer Doudna, a leader in the CRISPR field, Mammoth Biosciences is on a mission to leverage the power of CRISPR to democratize disease detection by bringing accurate and affordable testing out of the laboratory and into the point-of-care.

Other technologies, like DNA sequencing, cell engineering and bioprinting, have led to the creation of animal-free protein products, bio fuels for jet engines, lightweight materials stronger than steel and even memory for computer storage. As a result, startups working in these fields are creating entirely new industries, disrupting others and bringing us into what I believe is a golden era of biology as technology.

One successful company is Beyond Meat, which bills itself as the future of protein. With its plant-based meat product, it is trying to address our global population’s need for protein while also tackling the cow problem (they consume land and water and destroy the ozone with their flatulence, not to mention some people think eating them is wrong). The company’s work promises to disrupt the $270 billion global meat industry.

The entrepreneurs at New Culture are also tackling the cow issue. They are using an engineered version of baker’s yeast to make cheese without milk. Unlike other vegan cheeses, made from soy or nuts, this one has been praised as tasting like the real thing.

Another area ripe for disruption is our home. The startup Lingrove is trying to lessen our reliance on trees, and the deforestation that comes with it, by creating wood products with flax fiber and bio-epoxy resin. With its Ekoa TP product, Lingrove is targeting the $80 billion interior market, with an eye toward using its products in the construction industry. Another player in this field is bioMASON. The making of concrete contributes massive amounts of carbon to the air. But this company has shown it can “grow” bricks and masonry from sand without using a traditional heating-blasting-process, by infusing the sand with microorganisms that initiates a process like the one that creates coral.

And then there’s transportation, the No. 1 global contributor of greenhouse gasses. Companies like Amyris are trying to do away with fossil fuels by turning genetically engineered yeast (i.e. sugar) into environmentally friendly gas and jet fuel.

And that’s not all. There are many more biology as technology stories, with innovative companies doing things like turning mushrooms into leather (MycoWorks), molecules into whiskey (Endless West) and bacteria into silk (Bolt Threads). Biology might even reinvent information technology. Scientists have shown how a few grams of DNA can store as much information as an entire data center (Microsoft is working on this). Another company is building computers from neurons (Airbus is a partner).

There’s no telling where this golden age of biology as technology will lead, how many products it will come up with and how many industries it will end up disrupting, or creating. But it seems destined to reinvent trillion-dollar industries and create a healthier planet where we can live longer, healthier lives.

Disclosure: Genentech and Amgen are Mayfield investments from the 1970s and 1980s. Mammoth Biosciences is a current investment.

Clark, the tutor management business-in-a-box service, has been acquired by the New York-based education startup Noodle for an undisclosed amount, TechCrunch has learned.

Founded by John Katzman, the serial entrepreneur behind education technology giants including The Princeton Review and 2U, Noodle offers education search services to help people apply to the right programs that meet their needs.

Megan O’Connor, the co-founder and chief executive of Clark, actually met Katzman two weeks after she launched the company, which is backed by investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Winklevoss Capital, Rethink Education, Flat World Partners and Human Ventures (where O’Connor worked as the chief growth officer).

It’s not a stretch to call Katzman the godfather of tutoring, and, from the beginning, the seasoned executive took an interest in what Clark was doing, according to O’Connor.

With the acquisition, Clark’s shareholders will receive an equity stake in Noodle and O’Connor and her co-founder, Sam Gimbel, will take roles within Noodle to build out a tutoring service within the company, O’Connor says.

Going forward, Gimbel and O’Connor will build up the tutoring component of Noodle’s business as a complement to the company’s higher education and elementary and secondary school divisions.

One of the core components of the new tutoring platform within Noodle will be a focus on the individualization and personalization of tutoring sessions, buoyed by a community of tutors who share information on the most effective teaching strategies for different kinds of students.

What the tutoring practice won’t do, O’Connor says, is teach to a standardized curriculum. “If we can give them the software of shared services, then they can be more hands-on with the student,” O’Connor says.

Lyft is facing another lawsuit pertaining to its handling of alleged sexual assaults at the hands of drivers on its platform. In a suit filed today in the San Franciso Superior Court, Alison Turkos accuses Lyft of eleven counts, including general negligence, vicarious liability for assault with a deadly weapon, sexual assault, and sexual battery, and breach of contract.

The lawsuit describes how the plaintiff’s Lyft driver allegedly kidnapped her at gunpoint and took her across state lines, where the driver and other men took turns raping her, the lawsuits states.

“Alison remembers the men cheering and high fiving each other as they continued to rape her,” the lawsuit alleges. “Their attack was so brutal that the next day Alison experienced severe vaginal pain and bleeding. Her body was so exhausted from the attack and resulting trauma that Alison could not even leave her bed or raise her arms.”

When the plaintiff reported it to Lyft, the lawsuit alleges Lyft simply apologized for “inconvenience” and gave her a partial refund for the ride. The plaintiff says she reported the crime to the police, who performed a rape kit that found evidence of semen from at least two men on the clothing she wore that night.

The New York Police Department then transferred the case to the FBI, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit states the FBI is now investigating the incident as a human trafficking case. However, Lyft “has been wholly uncooperative” throughout the NYPD and FBI’s investigation, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit seeks special damages, including economic restitution to cover past and future hospital expenses, as well as expenses relating to her profession and loss of earning capacity.

“By failing to take reasonable steps to confront the problem of multiple rapes and sexual assaults of LYFT passengers by LYFT drivers, LYFT has acted in conscious disregard of the safety of its passengers,” the lawsuit alleges.

This suit comes just weeks after fourteen women filed suit against Lyft alleging the company has not addressed complaints pertaining to sexual assault. Both suits recommended Lyft adopt new policies, such as the addition of a surveillance camera to the app that can record audio and video of all rides.

Meanwhile, Lyft recently announced new safety features, including trip check-ins if a ride seems to be taking longer than it should and in-app 911 calling.

“We’re committed to playing a significant role in connecting our communities with transportation, and we understand the responsibilities that come along with that,” Lyft co-founder and President John Zimmer wrote in a blog post. “We’ve known since the beginning that as part of our mission, we must heavily invest in safety. We continue to welcome accountability and partnership to best protect our rider and driver community.”

It’s no coincidence that Lyft announced these safety features in light of the lawsuit on behalf of those fourteen women. The company had previously taken some steps to address safety, but at a much slower pace than competitor Uber, which has also faced a number of sexual assault and abuse lawsuits. Between 2014-2018, CNN found 103 Uber drivers who had been accused of sexual assault or abuse of passengers.

Over the years, both companies have taken steps to ramp up their respective safety procedures. In April, Uber launched a campus safety initiative while Lyft implemented continuous background checks and enhanced its identity verification process for drivers. Uber, however, implemented continuous background checks about a full year before Lyft, and added an in-app 911 calling feature more than a year before Lyft.

“We don’t take lightly any instances where someone’s safety is compromised, especially in the rideshare industry, including the allegations of assault in the news last week,” Zimmer said earlier this month in that same blog post. “The reality is that certain populations carry a disproportionate burden simply trying to get to work or back home after a night out — in the U.S., one in six women will face some form of sexual violence in their lives. The onus is on all of us to learn from any incident, whether it occurs on our platform or not, and then work to help prevent them.”

TechCrunch is awaiting comment from Lyft regarding this lawsuit. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

GoDaddy’s website-building product GoCentral is getting an upgrade today — and along with new features, there’s a new name: Websites+Marketing.

As you can probably guess, Websites+Marketing isn’t just a website builder. After all, as Senior Director of Product Management Heidi Gibson put it, a small business website is now part of a “a whole ecosystem that comprises your online presence.”

These are issues that Gibson said she’s experienced directly, as the chef/owner/”Commander in Cheese” at The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen in San Francisco.

“Our typical customer, our target customer is not just a small business — they’ve got one to five employees … they don’t know what they’re supposed to do, they don’t know what’s effective,” she added. Complicating matters is the fact that “where you need to be will not be the same answer for every kind of business.”

So GoDaddy Websites+Marketing — which Gibson described as “an evolution of GoCentral” — includes tools to manage email marketing and search engine optimization, and it syncs up with Facebook, Yelp, Instagram and Google My Business, so that it’s easy to read the latest reviews and comments, respond and post other updates directly from your Websites+Marketing dashboard.

It also includes a new feature called GoDaddy Insight, which relies on anonymized data — aggregated from all the businesses using GoDaddy and GoCentral — to provide entrepreneurs with a score on how their online presence and marketing compares to similar businesses, as well as an action plan recommending the next steps for improvement.

The website-builder looks pretty slick, too. Gibson acknowledged that some of the features will look pretty similar to anyone who’s used a competing product, but she said even here, GoDaddy has taken steps to make things easier.

For example, the Site Makeover feature allows businesses to get a quick view of how their content might look laid out on each of the 20-plus website templates, rather than making them click through each one. And thanks to GoDaddy’s recent acquisition of Sellbrite, businesses also can manage their product listings across online marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart and eBay.

GoDaddy Websites+Marketing is available in four pricing tiers, ranging from $10 to $25 per month.

A real check to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s control is finally coming in the form of a 11- to 40-member Oversight Board that will review appeals to its policy decisions like content takedowns and make recommendations for changes. Today Facebook released the charter establishing the theoretically independent Oversight Board, with Zuckerberg explaining that when it takes a stance, “The board’s decision will be binding, even if I or anyone at Facebook disagrees with it.”

Slated to be staffed up with members this year who will be paid by a Facebook established trust (the biggest update to its January draft charter), the Oversight Board will begin judging cases in the first half of 2020. Given Zuckerberg’s overwhelming voting control of the company, and the fact that its board of directors contains many loyalists like COO Sheryl Sandberg and investor Peter Thiel who he’s made very rich, the Oversight Board could ensure the CEO doesn’t always have the final say in how Facebook works.

But in some ways, the committee could serve to shield Zuckerberg and Facebook from scrutiny and regulation much to their advantage. The Oversight Board could remove total culpability for policy blunders around censorship or political bias from Facebook’s executives. It also might serve as a talking point towards the FTC and other regulators investigating it for potential anti-trust violations and other malpractice, as the company could claim the Oversight Board means it’s not completely free to pursue profit over what’s fair for society.

Finally, there remain serious concerns about how the Oversight Board is selected and the wiggle room the charter provides Facebook. Most glaringly, Facebook itself will choose the initial members and then work with them to select the rest of the board, and thereby could avoid adding overly incendiary figures. And it maintains that “Facebook will support the board to the extent that requests are technically and operationally feasible and consistent with a reasonable allocation of Facebook’s resources”, giving it the right to decide if it should apply the precedent of Oversight Board verdicts to similar cases or broadly implement its policy guidance.

How The Oversight Board Works

When a user disagrees with how Facebook enforces its policies, and with the result of an appeal to Facebook’s internal moderation team, they can request an appeal to the oversight board. Examples of potential cases include someone disagreeing with Facebook’s refusal to deem a piece of content as unacceptable hate speech or bullying, its choice to designate a Page as promoting terrorism and remove it, or the company’s decision to leave problematic content such as nudity up because its newsworthy. Facebook can also directly ask the Oversight Board to review policy decisions or specific cases, especially urgent ones with real-world consequences.

After Zuckerberg initially laid out a blueprint for the Oversight Board a year ago, Facebook assigned a 100-person team to build out the plan for the board. It held 6 workshops and 22 round-tables plus case review simulations with 650 people from 88 countries.

The board will include a minimum of 11 members but Facebook is aiming for 40. They’ll serve three year terms and a maximum of three terms each as a part-time job, with appointments staggered so there isn’t a full change-over at any time. Facebook is looking for members with a broad range of knowledge, competencies, and expertise who lack conflicts of interest. They’re meant to be “experienced at deliberating thoughtfully and collegially”, “skilled at making and explaining decisions based on a set of policies”, “well-versed on matters relating to digital content and governance”, and “independent and impartial”. 

Facebook will appoint a set of trustees that will work with it to select initial co-chairs for the board, who will then assist with sourcing, vetting, interviewing, and orienting new members. The goal is “broad diversity of geographic, gender, political, social and religious representation”. The trust, funded by Facebook with an as yet undecided amount of capital, will set members’ compensation rate in the near future and oversee term renewals.

Inevitable Calls Of Biased Board Members

My biggest worry here is how Facebook will handle the fact that it’s trying to represent an extraordinarily vast set of global policy perspectives…broader than any one country’s laws. What’s taboo or even illegal in one nation may be common or lauded in another. Facebook may see endless challenges from different segments of the public regarding the previous public statements by board members.

What Facebook’s own staff in California might see as an uncontroversial view point could trigger calls for removal from the board elsewhere. We’ve seen how common “cancelled” culture has become when the public digs up problematic content from celebrities or politicians, and that’s just based on what flies in the United States.

For example, Republican Senators just bullied Facebook into removing a fact-check that found the statement “abortion is never medically necessary” to be false, allowing that view point to spread uninhibited on the social network. I personally wouldn’t want someone with that view point on the Oversight Board, but others might feel the opposite. And what happens when politicians start demanding more conservative representation on the Oversight Board the same way they’ve badgered Facebook for supposedly censoring them despite evidence to the contrary?

BARCELONA, SPAIN – FEBRUARY 21: Founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerber gives his speach during the presentation of the new Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 edge on February 21, 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. The annual Mobile World Congress will start tomorrow February 22 hosting some of the world’s largst communication companies, with many unveiling their last phones and gadgets. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

What Cases Get Reviewed

The board will choose which cases to review based on their significance and difficulty. They’re looking for issues that are severe, large-scale and important for public discourse, while raising difficult questions about Facebook’s policy or enforcement that is disputed, uncertain, or represents tension or trade-offs between Facebook’s recently codified values of authenticity, safety, privacy, and dignity. The board will then create a sub-panel of five members to review a specific case.

The board will be able to question that request that Facebook provide information necessary to rule on the case with a mind to not violating user privacy. They’ll interpret Facebook’s Community Standards and policies and then decide whether Facebook should remove or restore a piece of content and whether it should change how that content was designated. Verdicts are meant to have consensus but will be approved by majority when necessary.

How Decisions Get Made

Once a panel makes a draft decision, it’s circulated to the full board who can recommend a new panel review it if a majority take issue with the verdict. Once they’ve gone through a privacy review to protect the identities of those involved with the case, the decisions will be made public within two weeks and affected users will be notifed. Those decisions will be archived in a database, and are meant to act as precedent for future decisions. The idea is that the decisions of the board will be binding and implemented by Facebook as long as they don’t require it to violate the law.

But Will Facebook Really Implement Them?

The biggest concern with the charter is that it still provides Facebook some leeway about how to implement the board’s decisions. Critically, it only has to apply the decision to the specific case reviewed, and it’s at the company’s discretion to turn that into blanket policy.

“In instances where Facebook identifies that identical content with parallel context — which the board has already decided upon — remains on Facebook, it will take action by analyzing whether it is technically and operationally feasible to apply the board’s decision to that content as well. When a decision includes policy guidance or a policy advisory opinion, Facebook will take further action by analyzing the operational procedures required to implement the guidance, considering it in the formal policy development process of Facebook . . . Facebook will support the board to the extent that requests are technically and operationally feasible and consistent with a reasonable allocation of Facebook’s resources.“

Because of these sections I’ve bolded, Facebook has the ability to decide it would be operationally infeasible to do what the board decided in every situation, merely take the guidance into account for future policy-making, and choose whether implementation is a reasonable allocation of capital and staff. This provides a sizable grey area.

If Facebook chooses that the board’s decision could materially reduce sharing even if it protected users, it might considering that operationally infeasible. If it would cost too much to moderate content in the way the board recommends, it could deem that unreasonable resource allocation. And if the policy guidance doesn’t mesh with its other ojbectives, it only has to “consider” the board’s wishes.

This section is where advocates and critics should focus. These exemptions to implementation need to be made less vague if the structure is truly going to hold Facebook accountable. If Facebook just declines to broadly change its policy to fit the board’s recommendation, all the board can do is make binding decisions on specific cases.

Facebook director of governance Brent Harris explained on a call with reporters that “If the board doesn’t feel like we’ve handled it right, they’ll keep taking cases and overturn us.” But again the board’s power is focused on a case-by-case basis. Facebook still controls the wide-reaching changes to policy.

If you want to learn more about solutions to Facebook’s concentration of power, check out my talk at SXSW 2020 with Facebook’s co-founder Chris Hughes who has called for the company to be broken up.

Amazon-owned Twitch has made a small but strategic acquisition designed to improve its search capabilities and better direct viewers to exactly the right content. The company is acquiring IGDB, the Internet Games Database (no relation to Amazon’s IMDb), a website dedicated to combining all the relevant information about games into a comprehensive resource for gamers everywhere. As a result of the acquisition, IGDB’s database will now feed into Twitch’s search and discovery feature set. However, the IGDB website itself will not be shut down.

Founded in 2015 by Christian Frithiof and a small team based in Gothenburg, Sweden, IGDB sources its gaming content both through community contributions and automation.

The site includes useful information for every game, like the genre, platforms supported, description, member and critic ratings and reviews, storyline, game modes, publisher, release dates, characters, and more. You could also find less common details like how long it would take to play the game in question, or the player perspectives the game offered, among other things.

And similar to IMDb’s mission of organizing everything associated with the entertainment industry, IGDB allowed voice talent to claim their profile on its site, in addition to listing the full credits associated with a given title.

To generate revenue, IGDB provided a developer API that’s been free to use for smaller shops or $99 per month for up to 50K requests. Interested partners, (e.g. ASUS), could reach out to request special pricing. To date, IGDB was working with several thousand API users, we understand. 

Twitch confirmed the acquisition to TechCrunch in a statement.

“Millions of people come to Twitch every day to find and connect with their favorite streamers and communities, and we want to make it easier for people to find what they’re looking for,” a spokesperson said. “IGDB has developed a comprehensive gaming database, and we’re excited to bring them on to help us more quickly improve and scale search and discovery on Twitch.”

Deal terms were not disclosed, but it was likely a small deal, from a financial standpoint. IGDB is only a 10-person team and had raised just $1.5 million to date, according to data from Crunchbase.

From a strategic standpoint, however, the acquisition is much more impactful.

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear has spoken publicly about the issues surrounding Twitch’s search functionality and how it needs to improve on that front.

“We want every place on Twitch to help you get discovered. Today, nearly one in three people who come to Twitch use Search to find what they’re looking for. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that our search function hasn’t always been the best experience,” Shear had said earlier this year, speaking at TwitchCon Berlin.”One wrong letter and your search results may come back empty, or direct you to a very different streamer than the one you were looking for. So we’re going to fix search so it actually works,” he promised.

In recent weeks, there were hints that something was going on at IGDB.

In a blog post dated August 19, 2019, IGDB announced it was starting a “large scale migration of our backend, database, and hosting” and said that the service was “about to undergo some changes, some temporary and others more permanent.” As a part of its changes, it shut off the ability for users to sign-up or update their profiles, and it shut down its pulse news, feed, and recommendations features.

Now a part of Twitch, IGDB will merge its free and premium APIs into one free tier, will clean up other features, and migrate infrastructure. Its IGDB website will continue to remain online.

“Our mission has always been to build the most comprehensive gaming database in the world. Such a monumental undertaking can be quite challenging when you are a small startup team,” reads an IGDB blog post. “By joining Twitch, we will be able to tap into their experience, resources, and skills, which will enable us to accelerate our progress and deliver the version of IGDB we all always dreamed about. Not only that, our companies share the same culture, core values, and passion for gaming– making this the perfect fit,” the post said.

It was common industry knowledge Twitch previously used competing data provider Giantbomb. As is often the case, the company may have been in discussions with IGDB about making switch which led to the acquisition. (The company declined to say how it can about.) What had made IGDB different from other API providers, like Mobygames, is that it allowed its API to be used commercially, including by competing projects, and it allowed caching and storing data on local databases.

The entire 10-person team from IGDB will remain based in Sweden, but will report into Twitch through its Viewer Experience organization.

Colorcon, a 58-year-old company that develops, supplies, and supports specialty products for the pharmaceutical industry — think food colorants, nutritional coatings, the film on time-release medications — is getting into the business of funding startups.

It isn’t bringing aboard any traditional venture investors or taping off a corner of its Harleysville, Pa., offices so a team of staffers can meet with startups. Colorcon knows what it doesn’t know, suggests its CEO, Martti Hedman. “We’re a team of 750 people, so we didn’t want to invest in our own VC team. We’re sort of too small for that, too inexperienced.”

Instead, Colorcon, which wants to plug $50 million into startups, has elected to outsource its venture operations to a low-flying but growing outfit in San Francisco called Touchdown Ventures that helps manage the corporate venture activities of a dozen companies already, including the multinational food company Kellogg’s, the media giant 21st Century Fox, and the adhesive manufacturing company Avery Dennison.

The idea is for Touchdown, which has 30 employees, to use its relationships with these other companies and with VCs — along with its own outbound efforts and sector analyses — to  bring to Colorcon deals it might want to fund. After that, Hedman, Colorcon CFO Dave Graeber, and Colorcon’s head of corporate development, Pankaj Rege, will decide which startups merit checks.

The initial amount it intends to commit: between $1.5 million and $3 million per startup, says Touchdown Ventures CEO David Horowitz, who will be heading up the effort for Colorcon.

It’s worth noting that unlike many companies that work with pharmaceutical giants, Colorcon isn’t looking to fund startups that are developing active ingredients or molecules. Instead, the fund will target investments across the manufacturing, supply chain, and delivery of pharmaceutical products and services.

As you might imagine, it’s also looking to invest in startups where it can add value, be it subject matter expertise or introductions to the many companies and labs with which it works around the world. Indeed, more than 70 percent of Colorcon’s sales comes outside of North America, including in China, India, South America, and, to a small but growing extent, Europe.

Is it a match made in heaven? We’ll see. But it’s certainly interesting to see companies like Colorcon with their industry expertise hitching their wagons to platforms like Touchdown, which has institutional know-how about VC.

Says Horowitz, “We have other heath care relationships. We know how to drum up deal flow. We have relationships with thousands of VCs and we speak at conferences and we do things that are specific to this industry.” That work now produces 5,000 “opportunities” per year, in terms of startup pitches, Horowitz adds.

If Colorcon is lucky, some of those startups — whether Colorcon acquires them or adopts their technology or merely learns from them —  will help keep the company in business for another 50 years.