Month: September 2020

Google today is introducing a new feature for Android phones that will help legitimate businesses reach their customers by phone by having their brand name and reason for calling properly identified. The feature, known as “Verified Calls,” will display the caller’s name, their logo, a reason why they’re calling, and a verification symbol that will indicate the call has been verified by Google.

The feature arrives at a time when spam calls are on the rise. U.S. consumers received 61.4 billion spam calls in 2019, according to a recent report from RoboKiller, representing a 28% increase from the prior year. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission also says that unwanted calls, are its top consumer complaint.

Google’s new system gives legitimate businesses a way to share their information with consumers along with their reason for calling on the incoming call screen. This, however, only works with those participating businesses who have chosen to sign up with one of Google’s partners in order to have their calls verified.

According to Google’s website for the service, businesses can get started with Verified Calls by working with a partner such as Neustar, JustCall, Telecall, Zenvia, Prestus, Aspect, Five9, Vonage, Bandwidth, IMImobile, Kaleyra, Quiubas Mobile, or Datora.

Once set up, a business will send Google’s Verified Calls server its number, the customer’s phone number, and the call reason, like “scheduling your internet installation,” or “your food delivery,” for example. Google then sends this information to the Android device’s Google Phone app. The device compares the incoming call information with the information Google received from the business and, if there’s a match, the Phone app displays the call as “Verified.” Google says the customer phone number and call reason is deleted within minutes of verification to protect consumer privacy.

The feature is enabled by default in the Google Phone app for Android devices, which comes pre-loaded on many Android phones and will be available for download for more Android devices later this week.

Google says it piloted tested the new feature for a few months before going live and found that verification did increase the chances of someone answering a call. It did not share the specific results.

Image Credits: Google

However, Google’s existing Verified SMS system for text messages has been adopted by a number of brands, including 1-800-Flowers, Banco Bradesco, Kayak, Payback, and SoFi, for example. Google claims a study in the U.S. and Brazil found that Verified SMS increased customer trust in brands, and improved metrics like likelihood to purchase, brand satisfaction, and likelihood to recommend.

Verified Calls is launching first in the the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Spain and India, with more countries to follow.

Google already offers a way for consumers to fight incoming spam with its Google Assistant feature, Call Screen. This feature allows the Google Assistant to answer the call on the user’s behalf, then ask them who’s calling and why. A transcript is sent to the phone’s owner, who can then choose to send a suggested response, pick up, or hang up.

But Call Screen works automatically in English in the U.S., and can be used manually in Canada, according to Google’s Help documentation. Verified Calls, meanwhile, is offered in more countries worldwide and leverages industry partnerships to work, instead of A.I., making it a broader solution.

We’re just days away from Disrupt 2020, a tech summit of (literally) global proportions. It’s our biggest Disrupt ever, stretching over five days — September 14-18. We’ve packed the conference agenda with experts, insight, trends, tools and connections designed to help early-stage startups meet their potential.

We know many startup budgets are under duress, and we want to make Disrupt accessible to as many people as possible. Today we’re announcing the upgraded Digital Pass starting at just $45. Don’t wait to pull the trigger on this deal, because once the event starts on September 14, the price goes up to $75. Buy the new Digital Pass right now.

Let’s look at what you can do with your upgraded Disrupt Digital Pass.

You’ll have access to all the programming on the Disrupt Stage. Tune in and learn from the some of the best and brightest tech and investment minds in the world. Folks like Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha, Jennifer Holmgren, sustainability expert and CEO of LanzaTech, and Jennifer A. Doudna, biochemist and co-inventor of CRISPR.

And by the way, the Startup Battlefield, our epic pitch competition that’s launched more than 900 companies, takes place on the Disrupt Stage. Sweet!

You’ll also be able to tune in to all the Breakout Sessions throughout the event. Here’s just one example. Be sure to see Disrupt agenda for all the Breakout Session programming.

Diversity as Disruption: Take action now to create a more diverse ecosystem – Recent events continue to demonstrate that change is not happening fast enough. How can we ensure the current social justice momentum is more than just talk? Guided by SVB’s recent research into the “4th wave of venture capital,” learn how three industry leaders are tackling the problem with real actions. By the close of the session, leave with tangible steps you can take today – whether as an individual or as a firm — to make a meaningful, move-the-needle impact in your organization.

Plus, you’ll have access to the expo where you’ll find hundreds of outstanding startups exhibiting in Digital Startup Alley, including the TC Top Picks. Peruse the expo and check out an incredible array of products and talent that spans the tech spectrum.

Your Digital Pass does NOT include networking with CrunchMatch, programming on the Extra Crunch Stage or the free subscription to Extra Crunch. A simple upgrade to the PRO pass unlocks access to these features and more opportunity to grow your business.

Don’t let a thin budget keep you from experiencing the extensive programming — packed with experts, insight and trends — on the Disrupt Stage. Get your upgraded Digital Pass for just $45 before September 13 at 11:59 p.m. (PT) — and $75 afterward.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Sennheiser has just released a new on-camera, directional microphone. The compact MKE 200 ($99.95) puts a lot of convenience and performance into a small, portable package – one that’s great for go-anywhere vlogging once that’s a reasonable option again, and one that provides a fantastic, but affordable upgrade for your at-home video conferencing setup in the meantime.

The basics

The MKE 200 is a super-cardioid microphone that mounts directly to a camera’s hot shoe sleeve. Unlike most on-camera shotgun mics, it’s a short, stubby affair that’s just under three inches long, rather than being a long tube. It’s light, and small, and it features both a built-in windscreen and shockmount for ultimate portability.

On the front of the MKE 200, you’ll find a threaded 3.5mm audio port that makes for secure connections to your camera’s mic input. In the box, Sennheiser has thoughtfully included both TRS and TRRS cables, which means it’ll work great with just about every DSLR, mirrorless camera or even smartphone out there on the market without the need for additional cables.

The MKE 200 draws all the power it needs from that single cable connection, meaning you won’t need to worry about batteries or recharging. It also includes a fuzzy windscreen sleeve, for minimizing wind noise when shooting outdoors, and a soft carrying pouch for transportation.

Design and performance

The design of the MKE 200 is simple, and in this case simple is very good. Its compact profile and sturdy construction means that it’s both lightweight, but also feels very durable. That, combined with its relatively low cost, means this is a great mic for throwing into a bag without much thought – perfect kit for hitting the road with a lightweight rig, or for topping even the lightest of cameras if you’re using a better camera than your built-in webcam for your at-home Zoom and video setup.

The single cable, battery-free nature of the MKE 200 also means you really don’t have to worry about anything else than fixing it on the cold shoe mount and plugging it in. Sennheiser has also done a good job of extending this simplicity to its performance – out of the box, it sounds pretty great on my Sony A6400, with the default audio settings on the camera.

As for the threaded 3.5mm stereo connector, it’s definitely not strictly necessary – but it’s the kind of quality detail that has earned Sennheiser its stellar reputation. The locking thread means you have one less point of failure to contend with – yes, the cable might still accidentally snag on something and pop out of the camera side, but it won’t budge from the mic.

Sennheiser’s included fuzzy windscreen is another useful addition. It’s sort of like a sock that goes over the entire mic body, and it does a good job of eliminating wind noise. This is something that you might see other mic makers offer as a sold-separate accessory, so it’s great to have it included in the sub-$100 price tag.

Bottom line

The Sennheiser MKE 200 is a great example of a company reading the room and delivering a product that’s perfectly suited to the needs of a broad category of its customers. At under $100, it’s a great and almost impulse-buy level addition to just about every amateur creator’s toolkit. It might not have the range or maximum audio quality of a more expensive dedicated on-camera shotgun mic, but it’s got plenty of power for any vlogging or close-range interview applications, and it’s particularly well-timed for launch since it makes the perfect companion to any compact mirrorless or DSLR camera you might be using as a webcam for your remote videoconferencing, education and event needs.

Last Thursday and Friday’s public market selloff has stretched into this week, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite off 2.5% this morning. But while tech shares are down broadly to start the holiday-shortened week — and are taking stick for bringing down even broader indices — some well-known technology, and technology-ish companies are suffering even more.

Tesla is one such company, with its equities shedding around 17% of its value in early trading today.

The American electric vehicle and battery company recent split its shares 5-1 after seeing their value shoot past the $2,000 a share mark. In the ‘stocks only go up’ era, Tesla has proved a favorite with bulls. Even calling Tesla a car company — factcheck: 85% of Tesla’s revenue in its most recent car came from its automotive efforts — is enough to invite scorn and abuse on social media as acolytes of the company will heckle you for not viewing the company through the same lens tint that they prefer.

Tesla shares gained value during their split process, an oddity given that the news should have been priced-in before the transaction took place.

Regardless, it’s another tough day for Tesla and the declines are starting to add up. According to Yahoo Finance, Tesla’s post-split 52 week high is $502.49. The company is currently worth $345.75 per share, meaning that Tesla’s value has fallen more than 30% from recent highs.

But Tesla is not alone in seeing its worth revalued. The useful Bessemer cloud index of public SaaS companies is off around 1.8%, and is off around 15% from its own, recently all-time highs. The Nasdaq Composite is off a more modest 8.9% from its own recent highs.

Concern during this selloff of tech shares could dampen enthusiasm for the wave of tech, and venture-backed companies that are looking to go public while the waters for such debuts remain warm. And it is not hard to guess that if general enthusiasm for risk-oriented shares declines, exotic financial vehicles like SPACs could see their luster diminish.

Regardless, Tesla shares are off sharply today while Nikola is bouncing on news that GM took a 11% stake (worth $2B) in the startup.

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

This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here, and myself here, and don’t forget to check out last Friday’s episode.

• Headline roundup: TikTok’s parent will pay an irregular bonus to staff, a move that is causing ripples as Bytedance’s social service finds itself an international political football. Reed Hastings is not big on working from home. And China’s fight with Australia is escalating, again showing how willing China is to become an ostracized internationally; in business terms this makes the India market more important to tech companies.
• New IPO filings are out from both JFrog and Sumo Logic. We’re going for a dive soon, but the short riff is that JFrog wants up to $37 per share, valuing it at more than $3 billion while Sumo Logic wants $21 per share, valuing it at more than $2 billion. (More here on Sumo Logic and here on JFrog.)
• Big rounds: Byju has put together a half-billion dollars at a $10.8 billion valuation, while Mollie has stacked on $106 million at a valuation that makes it a unicorn.
• Small rounds: Fashionphile has raised $38.5 million, Cloudentity raised $13 million, and Sarbacane has raised $27 million.
• And as we recorded, tech shares were set to sell off yet again.

Disney’s live-action remake of “Mulan” skipped theaters to instead stream on Disney+ over the weekend, for the added fee of $30. According to early data, the launch helped grow Disney+ mobile installs by 68%, compared with one week prior. Consumer spending in the app also grew by 193% during the same time period.

This data comes from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower, which also noted that “Mulan” didn’t deliver quite as big bump to downloads as Disney’s release of “Hamilton” did. While “Mulan” sent installs up by 68% from its release on Friday, September 4 through Sunday, September 6, “Hamilton’s” debut on July 3 led to 79% week-over week download growth from the period of July 3 to July 5, compared with installs between June 26 to June 28.

While Sensor Tower data only focused on percentage growth, another app intelligence firm, Apptopia, offered an early estimate for Disney+ app downloads.

From Friday, September 4 through Sunday, September 6, the firm estimates the Disney+ mobile app was downloaded approximately 674,000 times worldwide, with 400,000 of those from the U.S. (This data doesn’t include the Indian HotStar app.)

The firm says this represents an increase of 42.7% over the average seen during the previous four weekends (Friday through Sunday 8/7-8/9, 8/14-8/16, 8/21-8/23, 8/28-8/30).

Though Apptopia took a different angle on the data than Sensor Tower did, both firms agree on one point: though “Mulan” drove installs, it didn’t outpace “Hamilton’s” impact.

Apptopia says “Hamilton” had brought in approximately 458,000 new users in the U.S., and 780,000+ new users worldwide, excluding India.

This data, of course, doesn’t present a full picture of “Mulan’s” impact, as these two firms only focus on mobile data — like new app installs and consumer spending. Much of the Disney+ customer base, however, is likely watching via an app on their TV, through a connected device like a game console, Fire TV or Roku, for example. Others may be streaming it from their computer over the web.

While it may offer an incomplete picture, mobile install data can still help point to general trends. And in the case of “Mulan,” it appears the Disney” release did, in fact, deliver a bump in new subscribers, despite the calls for boycotts.

The real estate industry — like so many other sectors — was forced to adapt this year.

Now, investors are ready to pour capital into the startups they believe are best-positioned in this new era, from companies tackling construction tech, financing and digital workflow tools to those finding ways to monetize vacant spaces, flex offices and yes, even co-living arrangements.

TechCrunch surveyed nine firms that are writing checks today for startups in the sector. Our first survey, published last week, provided a broad view of the residential and commercial real estate landscape, and homed into the trends that have emerged and accelerated in the past year. In short: Optimism still runs high for startup hubs as well as supercities like New York and San Francisco. However, the move toward e-commerce and remote work — a trend that started before COVID-19 upended the way people live, work and play — has accelerated.

This second installment of responses focuses on the opportunities and risks for startups that these investors are betting on (or not). 

For additional context on where top investors believe the market is headed, be sure to check out our real estate and proptech investor survey from late March and the previous ones from late last year (when everyone thought 2020 would be something different).

• Clelia Warburg Peters, venture partner at Bain Capital Ventures
• Brad Greiwe and Brendan Wallace, co-founders and managing partners, Fifth Wall
• Zach Aarons, co-founder and general partner, MetaProp
• John Helm, managing director, Real Estate Technology Ventures
• Adam Demuyakor, co-founder and managing partner, Wilshire Lane Partners
• Casey Berman, founder and managing director, Camber Creek
• Florian Reichert, partner, Picus Capital
• Stonly Baptiste, co-founder and partner, Urban Us
• Andrew Ackerman, managing director, DreamIt Ventures

Clelia Warburg Peters, venture partner at Bain Capital Ventures

How do current trends translate to opportunities and problems for proptech companies? For example, co-living is among the worst-performing asset classes with a risky tenant demographic. Are there still worthy investment opportunities in previously hot areas like this?

Because real estate is such a complex business, some of the investing trends we have seen around proptech are fad-based and not deeply rooted in fundamentals — and I do agree that some of these fads may not weather the challenges presented by the pandemic.

Co-living is clearly facing challenges, and likely will for some time as younger consumers have more flexibility to opt out of living in larger cities with supply constraints and high pricing. However, there are also a number of underlying trends that suggest that the way that we rent or own properties is going to continue to evolve. I believe we will see shorter lease terms, more amenitization (including a trend towards furnished apartments or renting furniture) and more options for shared community resources. This could extend into co-living, but in the short to mid-term, means that I think we will see more rapid growth in companies offering more hybrid short to mid-term stay innovation models (Sonder, Zeus, Kasa, Whyhotel, etc.) and companies servicing landlords or consumers who are doing this themselves (CasaOne, Feather, HelloAlfred, Hom).

Flex office is also an area that I think will be challenged in the short term but I believe could see a major recovery once companies start to think about their ongoing office commitments. In my opinion, premium players such as Convene and Industrious who have focused on building relationships with enterprise clients and increasingly use management contract models with landlords will likely see major growth 12-18 months from now.

Real estate fintech companies have a unique set of challenges in this time, given limited real estate sales and higher costs. How do you see these companies successfully adapting?

I don’t think these companies are challenged across the board. In fact, real estate fintech companies focused on disrupting the residential real estate transaction have largely seen a bump, not a decline, in their business during this time. Nationally, the residential market has remained brisk (with some obvious exceptions, like New York), and many of the companies providing equity-based alternatives to debt financing (mortgages or HELOCs) are seeing a big surge in demand. Obviously it’s also been a great time to refinance a home, so many companies in the mortgage space are seeing a big jump in demand as well. Even iBuyers, who many thought would be facing the ‘economic challenge which undermined their whole model’ have instead seen meaningful growth during this time. I think this moment may prove to be a watershed in terms of consumer openness to different tools to facilitate and finance the residential home transaction.

What are other big problems and solutions that everybody else is missing?

Increasingly, there is a whole ecosystem of really smart people working in and around proptech, so I don’t know that there are many big problems no one has noticed. (I would contrast that with five years ago when I don’t think much of the industry had woken up to the degree of disruption and innovation that was coming!)

With that said, I think we are primed to see a massive expansion of innovation in construction, and I am excited by the quality of entrepreneurs I see actively building in that space, as well as the engagement of industry-leading incumbents.

Nikola and General Motors today announced a strategic partnership. Through the deal, GM gets 11% ownership in startup Nikola, and will, in turn, produce Nikola’s wild fuel cell pickup truck by the end of 2022.

Both companies’ shares jumped on the news, with Nikola trading up 45% and GM up 11% in pre-market trading.

The deal nets GM a $2 billion stake in Nikola, one of the hottest vehicle startups. Along with the financial stake, the General gains one seat on Nikola’s board of directors in exchange for in-kind services.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra said that she sees this as another path to deploy GM’s battery and fuel cell systems.

“We are growing our presence in multiple high-volume EV segments while building scale to lower battery and fuel cell costs and increase profitability,” CEO Barra said. “In addition, applying General Motors’ electrified technology solutions to the heavy-duty class of commercial vehicles is another important step in fulfilling our vision of a zero-emissions future.”

The partnership names GM as the exclusive fuel cell supplier for Nikola’s upcoming class 7/8 trucks.

For Nikola, this deal nets the startup a significant partner as it moves closer to production. GM will “engineer, validate, homologate, and build the Nikola Badger” electric and fuel cell pickup. General Motors will also take over the manufacturing of the pickup.

Nikola Founder and Executive Chairman Trevor Milton in a released statement. “By joining together, we get access to their validated parts for all of our programs, General Motors’ Ultium battery technology and a multi-billion dollar fuel cell program ready for production. Nikola immediately gets decades of supplier and manufacturing knowledge, validated and tested production-ready EV propulsion, world-class engineering, and investor confidence. Most importantly, General Motors has a vested interest to see Nikola succeed. We made three promises to our stakeholders and have now fulfilled two out of three promises ahead of schedule. What an exciting announcement.”

The deal enables Nikola to hit the market faster by offloading the manufacturing duties to one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers. This, in turn, returns value to Nikola’s investors quicker, and with likely less risk. For GM, at least on paper, the automaker gains a significant asset that has serious momentum.

Progress, a Boston area developer tool company, boosted its offerings in a big way today when it announced it was acquiring software automation platform Chef for $220 million.

Chef, which went 100% open source last year, had annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $70 million from the commercial side of the house. Needless to say, Progress CEO Yogesh Gupta was happy to bring the company into the fold and gain not only that revenue, but a set of highly skilled employees, a strong developer community and an impressive customer list.

Gupta said that Chef fits with his company’s acquisition philosophy. “This acquisition perfectly aligns with our growth strategy and meets the requirements that we’ve previously laid out: a strong recurring revenue model, technology that complements our business, a loyal customer base and the ability to leverage our operating model and infrastructure to run the business more efficiently,” he said in a statement.

Chef CEO Barry Crist offered a typical argument for an acquired company, that Progress offered  a better path to future growth, while sending a message to the open source community and customers that Progress would be a good steward of the startup’s vision.

“For Chef, this acquisition is our next chapter, and Progress will help enhance our growth potential, support our Open Source vision, and provide broader opportunities for our customers, partners, employees and community,” Crist said in a statement.

Chef’s customer list is certainly impressive including tech industry stalwarts like Facebook, IBM and SAP, as well as non-tech companies like Nordstrom, Alaska Airlines and Capital One.

The company was founded in 2008 and had raised $105 million. according to Crunchbase data. It hadn’t raised any funds since 2015 when it raised a $40 million Series E led by DFJ Growth. Other investors along the way included Battery Ventures, Ignition Partners and Scale Venture Partners.

The transaction is expected to close next month pending normal regulatory approvals.

Unlike some of its competitors, Google Cloud has recently started emphasizing how its large lineup of different services can be combined to solve common business problems. Instead of trying to sell individual services, Google is focusing on solutions and the latest effort here is what it calls its Business Application Platform, which combines the API management capabilities of Apigee with the no-code application development platform of AppSheet, which Google acquired earlier this year.

As part of this process, Google is also launching a number of new features for both services today. The company is launching the beta of a new API Gateway, built on top of the open-source Envoy project, for example. This is a fully-managed service that is meant o makes it easier for developers to secure and manage their API across Google’s cloud computing services and serverless offerings like Cloud Functions and Cloud Run. The new gateway, which has been in alpha for a while now, offers all the standard features you’d expect, including authentication, key validation and rate limiting.

As for its low-code service AppSheet, the Google Cloud team is now making it easier to bring in data from third-party applications thanks to the general availability to Apigee as a data source for the service. AppSheet already supported standard sources like MySQL, Salesforce and G Suite, but this new feature adds a lot of flexibility to the service.

With more data comes more complexity, so AppSheet is also launching new tools for automating processes inside the service today, thanks to the early access launch of AppSheet Automation. Like the rest of AppSheet, the promise here is that developers won’t have to write any code. Instead, AppSheet Automation provides a visual interface, that according to Google, “provides contextual suggestions based on natural language inputs.” 

“We are confident the new category of business application platforms will help empower both technical and line of business developers with the core ability to create and extend applications, build and automate workflows, and connect and modernize applications,” Google notes in today’s announcement. And indeed, this looks like a smart way to combine the no-code environment of AppSheet with the power of Apigee .