Year: 2020

A big changing of the guard is underway at one of the world’s biggest and iconic names in telecoms and media: AT&T today announced that Randall Stephenson will be stepping down as the chairman and CEO of the telco, and he will be replaced by John Stankey, currently the COO. The change is effective on June 1, and while Stephenson is retiring, he will stay on as executive chairman of AT&T until January 2021.

The appointment of Stankey is a sign of how AT&T has been evolving as a business and specifically its stronger reorientation as a media company alongside its telco roots, as one way of evolving and diversifying its business at a time that communications infrastructure becomes increasingly commoditized.

Media, in that time, has become increasingly digitised, and so those who are controlling what goes “over” our broadband and wireless connections stand to make strong returns by having more of a verticalized business model, where they control the medium and the message, so to speak. (That, at least, is the theory, since for many carriers their best returns still come from their networks, not the services that run on top of them.)

Most notable in AT&T’s evolution towards a stronger media focus has been its acquisition of Time Warner for $85.4 billion in 2018, although others such as its acquisition of AppNexus have also been notable advances.

That strategy has put AT&T in some contrast with, for example, Verizon, which also has media interests (including TechCrunch, which it owns) but it arguably has taken a different approach to developing the “M” of TMT compared to Comcast or AT&T. (And when it appointed a new CEO in August 2018, Verizon brought in a person from telecoms, Ericsson’s Hans Vestberg.)

Stankey’s roles at AT&T have included CEO of WarnerMedia, and CEO of the AT&T Entertainment Group, as well as a number of other roles including Chief Strategy Officer; Chief Technology Officer; CEO of AT&T Operations; and CEO of AT&T Business Solutions.

Prior to the announcement, he was already overseeing three of AT&T’s four business units — AT&T Communications, WarnerMedia and Xandr (its advertising business). Together these three represented 95% of AT&T’s 2019 consolidated revenues of $181.2 billion, the company says. (A large part of that will come from AT&T Communications, which has 135 million U.S. mobile, broadband and pay-TV customers and 3 million business customers, with 60 million high-speed internet connections among those).

“I’m honored to be elected the next CEO of AT&T, a company with a rich history and a bright future,” said Stankey in a statement. “My thanks go to Randall for his vision and outstanding leadership during a period of tremendous change and investment in the core capabilities needed to position AT&T well for the years ahead. And I appreciate the Board’s confidence in me leading the company during our next chapter of growth and innovation in keeping people connected, informed and entertained. We have a strong company, leading brands and a great employee team, which I’m privileged to lead. I couldn’t be more excited about the new opportunities we have to serve our customers and communities and create value for our shareholders.”

“I congratulate John, and I look forward to partnering with him as the leadership team moves forward on our strategic initiatives while navigating the difficult economic and health challenges currently facing our country and the world,” said Stephenson in a statement. “John has the right experiences and skills, and the unflinching determination every CEO needs to act on his convictions. He has a terrific leadership team onboard to ensure AT&T remains strong and continues to deliver for customers and shareholders for years to come.”

Matt Rose, AT&T’s independent Lead Director, added: “Randall has done an outstanding job as CEO in transforming AT&T into a leader in communications, technology, and media and entertainment. His strong leadership and strategic investments during a period of unprecedented customer demand for mobile communications and premium entertainment have positioned the company extremely well for the years ahead. We look forward to Randall continuing to lead the Board and working with John to ensure a smooth leadership transition.”

The idea of an in-game Travis Scott concert might seem a little silly — particularly if, like me, you’re not really a Fortnite player.

Yes, the popular multiplayer game has hosted other promotional events for movies and music. But even if all this COVID-19 imposed isolation has left you hungry for live performances, why not watch actual footage of Travis Scott in concert?

What Scott and Fortnite-maker Epic Games delivered, however, is a gloriously surreal “astronomical” event, with an enormous, kaiju-sized Scott avatar looming over players and teleporting around the venue while the visuals around him get increasingly psychedelic. It’s something that could only happen in a virtual concert, and that’s what makes it delightful.

Plus, the event was viewed by far more people than could ever pack into even the largest concert venue. Epic Games said 12.3 million concurrent players participated, a new record for the game.

You can watch for yourself in the video above, but if you want to actually interact with a giant Travis Scott while he sings “Sicko Mode,” Epic Games is planning encore events throughout the weekend.

Nintendo today confirmed earlier reports of account breaches dating back over the past few weeks.The gaming giant issued an update (via Nintendo Japan) noting that around 160,000 Nintendo Accounts were impacted, which found multiple being used to purchase digital items without the owner’s consent. Along with the purchasing powers, the offending parties may have also gained access to personal information, including D.O.B. and email addresses.

The issue appears frequency of account access appears to have increased in recent weeks. To address the matter, the company is shutting down log-ins via NNID (Nintendo Network ID), an older account system that dates back to the 3DS/Wii U. Nintendo is resetting passwords for those impacted and recommending that everyone (impacted or not) enable two-factor authentication for their systems.

It will also be sending out notifications for the 160,000 or so users who were targeted during the month of April. The company noted earlier this week that it was investigating the issue, which found many users seeing unexpected purchases of items including Fortnite V-Bucks, using a connected PayPal account.

Nintendo appears to still be trying to get to the bottom of how the parties gained access to the NNID info, beyond “by some means other than our service.” It has been asking for users to submit feedback in an attempt to locate the source of the breach.

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

The crew at Bessemer released their new, yearly cloud report this week. It’s a useful lens into how venture capitalists are thinking about cloud and SaaS startup performance metrics. Bessemer’s cloud and SaaS exits include Twilio, Shopify, PagerDuty, Box, and a few others, so they’re worth listening to at least a little on the topic.

I bring all this up as I finally got the chance to read the 2020 report (here, if you want to dig through it yourself, and here’s the 2019 version for reference). I’m going to chat with Bessemer’s Mary D’Onofrio about some numbers from the presentation next week, but this morning I wanted to discuss the report’s SaaS and cloud startup scorecard.

Bessemer likes to invent metrics, something that I approve of. In 2019, the firm debuted a G.R.I.T (“ARR growth, retention, years of runway, and efficiency”) score that was a bit complicated. This year the report included a six metric rundown of “good, better, and best” startup cloud and SaaS startup performance.

Let’s chew over the set of SaaS metrics that investors, before COVID-19, were looking for. Next week we’ll find out if Bessemer has changed any of them in light of the new economic collapse cum malaise.

Grow this fast, lose this much

TechCrunch has a general rule against screenshots of text, but today there’s no way around it. Here’s the pertinent summary slide from the Bessemer report:

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

The crew at Bessemer released their new, yearly cloud report this week. It’s a useful lens into how venture capitalists are thinking about cloud and SaaS startup performance metrics. Bessemer’s cloud and SaaS exits include Twilio, Shopify, PagerDuty, Box, and a few others, so they’re worth listening to at least a little on the topic.

I bring all this up as I finally got the chance to read the 2020 report (here, if you want to dig through it yourself, and here’s the 2019 version for reference). I’m going to chat with Bessemer’s Mary D’Onofrio about some numbers from the presentation next week, but this morning I wanted to discuss the report’s SaaS and cloud startup scorecard.

Bessemer likes to invent metrics, something that I approve of. In 2019, the firm debuted a G.R.I.T (“ARR growth, retention, years of runway, and efficiency”) score that was a bit complicated. This year the report included a six metric rundown of “good, better, and best” startup cloud and SaaS startup performance.

Let’s chew over the set of SaaS metrics that investors, before COVID-19, were looking for. Next week we’ll find out if Bessemer has changed any of them in light of the new economic collapse cum malaise.

Grow this fast, lose this much

TechCrunch has a general rule against screenshots of text, but today there’s no way around it. Here’s the pertinent summary slide from the Bessemer report:

India has emerged as one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the last decade, reporting growth each quarter even as handset shipments slowed or declined elsewhere globally. But the world’s second largest smartphone is beginning to feel the coronavirus heat, too.

The Indian smartphone market grew by a modest 4% year-over-year in the quarter that ended on March 31, research firm Counterpoint said Friday evening. The shipment grew annually in January and February, when several firms launched their smartphones and unveiled aggressive promotional plans.

But in March, the shipment saw a 19% year-over-year dip, the firm said. Counterpoint estimated that the smartphone shipments in India will decline by 10% this year, compared to a 8.9% growth in 2019 and 10% growth in 2018.

The research firm also cautioned that India’s lockdown, ordered last month, has severely slowed down the local smartphone industry and it may take seven to eight months to get back on track. Currently, only select items such as grocery products are permitted to be sold in India.

Prachir Singh, Senior Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research, said the Covid-19 impact on India was relatively mild until mid-March. “However, economic activities declined as people save money in expectation of an extended period of uncertainty and an almost complete lockdown. Almost all smartphone manufacturing has been suspended. Further, with the social distancing norms, factories will be running at lower capacities even after the lockdown is lifted,” he said.

Overall, 31 million smartphone units shipped in India in Q1 2020. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, which has held the tentpole position in what has become its biggest market globally for more than two years, widened its lead to command 30% of the market.

Vivo’s share grew to 17%, up from 12% during the same period last year. Samsung, which once led the Indian market, now sits at the third spot with 16% market share, down from 24% in Q1 2019. Apple maintained its recent momentum and grew by a strong 78% year-over-year in Q1 this year. It now commands 55% of the premium smartphone segment (handsets priced at $600 or above.).

More than 100 smartphone plants in India assemble or produce about 700,000 to 800,000 handsets a day, some of which are exported outside of the country. But the lockdown has halted the production and could cost the industry more than $3 billion to $4 billion in direct loss this year.

“We often draw parallels between India and China. But in China, their factories have adopted automation at various levels, something that is not the case in India,” said Tarun Pathak, a senior analyst at Counterpoint, earlier this week.

China, where smartphone sales declined by 38% annually in February this year, has already started to see recovery. Xiaomi said last month that its phone factories were already operating at more than 80% of their capacity. Globally, smartphone shipment declined by 14% in February, according to Counterpoint.

Billionaire. Entrepreneur. Investor. Shark.

Mark Cuban is one of tech’s best-known entrepreneurs, so we are amped to have him join us for an upcoming Extra Crunch Live, our virtual speaker series that connects the brightest minds in tech directly with our Extra Crunch audience.

Starting out as a salesman for one of Dallas’s earliest PC software resellers, Cuban was fired after he ignored his boss’ orders and asked another employee to cover for him while he picked up a check for a $10,000 sale. He went on to create his own software reseller/system integrator called MicroSolutions, which he sold in 1990 for $6 million to CompuServe, then an H&R Block subsidiary. That marked the beginning of a storied (and, at times, tumultuous) career as an entrepreneur and investor.

Cuban went on to co-found Audionet (later renamed Broadcast.com), which he eventually sold to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in 1999; that same year, he made history when he purchased a Gulfstream V for $40 million in the largest single e-commerce transaction ever conducted.

The man’s brain is always 20 years in the future.

The Dallas Mavericks majority owner and “Shark Tank” judge has invested in startups for two decades. His portfolio includes Apptopia, The Zebra, Node, UBeam and many other startups; according to Crunchbase, Cuban has made more than 100 investments since 2004.

We’ll ask how he’s advising his portfolio companies in the midst of a crisis and will get his predictions on the economic outlook over the next 12 to 24 months. We’re also interested to hear how Cuban thinks technology may or may not solve for the current situation around live sports, which have effectively been halted by the pandemic.

And if we have time, we’ll ask a bit about workers, equitable capitalism and his thoughts regarding the gig economy in these turbulent times. Given Cuban’s straightforward speaking style, we’re expecting a candid conversation, and as we’re snagging him in unprecedented times, our chat may help you understand how at least one leading capitalist views the new world.

Hit the jump to add the call details to your calendar via the AddEvent link and access the Zoom information directly. We’ll take audience questions toward the end, so weigh in. If you aren’t an Extra Crunch member yet, join here for just a few bucks to start.

Cuban joins a schedule packed with all-stars, including Charles Hudson, Mitch and Freada Kapor, Hunter Walk, Roelof Botha and Kirsten Green. And if you missed it, check out our Extra Crunch Live episode with Aileen Lee and Ted Wang.

Details

Here’s the information you’ll need:

Angling for a slice of the multi-billion dollar Medicare Advantage market with a pitch to integrate holistic medical practitioners into its network of service providers has netted Clever Care Health Plan some big backers and a huge market opportunity, the company says.

The company has raised $23 million in a new round of funding from investors led by Norwest Partners for its unique take on how to create a new network of healthcare providers for potential Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.

Several healthcare startups have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to tackle the Medicare Advantage opportunity. These include companies like Bright Health, Clover Health, Devoted Health, and Oscar, but, to-date, none have tried to put an emphasis on cultural sensitivity and holistic healing that chief operating officer Myong Lee and his co-founders settled on.

Joining Lee in the launch of Clever Care’s services are chief executive David Firdaus and chief financial officer Hiep Pham. The three have a long history of working together at other health plans. 

“We’re looking to have a really unique supplemental benefit on the Eastern Medicine side,” said Lee of the company’s pitch.

Of course, there’s one hitch. Whether the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will approve the treatments for coverage. ““All of this is predicated on CMS approval,” Lee acknowledged.

Already, CMS has identified some holistic medical treatments — notably acupuncture — as eligible for coverage, and Lee and his team are hoping that more approvals could be forthcoming. 

Lee said that the problem was particularly acute for California’s aging immigrant population, which does not necessarily feel comfortable accessing the current healthcare system. Often, these populations are comprised of people who don’t speak English very well and whose needs are going unmet by current providers.

Using his own parents as an example, he said, “There wasn’t anything from their perspective. Nothing that spoke to them from an Eastern Medicine perspective.”

As Norwest general partner Casper de Clerq noted, Medicare Advantage has grown to encompass roughly 35% of all Medicare recipients. “There are 64 million Medicare members and 22 million are on Medicare Advnatage,” de Clerq said. “As this market matures it’s going to become more and more specialized and more niche with different populations that are not properly served. This hyperlocal phenomenon will be more and more important.”

The company said it would use the capital to establish its California Medicare Advantage health plan and hire staff for its two offices in Little Saigon in Orange County and Arcadia in Los Angeles County. 

“Medicare spending was 15 percent of total federal spending in 2018 and is projected to nearly double due to the retirement of the Baby Boom Generation and the rapid growth of per capita healthcare costs,” said Sean Doolan, healthcare partner at Global Founders Capital, which joined the round alongside Norwest. “We are excited to partner with the Clever Care Health Plan team and fully believe in their bold vision to create a progressive and affordable Medicare Advantage plan that will dramatically expand access to high quality care for diverse communities.”

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

This week we had a choice of all sorts of news, but as we cut the show together as a group Danny pushed all the funding rounds up. So, when Alex and Natasha jumped into the show we had a bunch of good news to cover. We’re avoiding COVID-19 news, but the pandemic is just a part of the broader stories we want to tell. For the foreseeable future, coronavirus will be always be part of our interviews. But the conversation can’t start and stop there.

So what was on the docket? Three things: Accelerator news for the early-stage founders, funding rounds, of course, and some layoff news that was worth mentioning as it might trickle down beyond the unfortunate hosts. 

Here’s the rundown:

• Y Combinator moves its new accelerator class to a virtual setting. We want to know what the move will mean for global startups and Silicon Valley as the effective nexus of nerddom.
• Speaking of accelerators, Boston-area VC firm just launched one for the first time ever. It’s opting for a different approach from YC and 500 Startups: no demo day, smaller cohort, and no promises to lead future rounds.
• Miro raises a $50 million Series B. The apparently profitable Miro had us curious once again about remote work, which startups are going to do the best in the coming recession, and the company competes with. Is it more contra-Notion? Contra-Mural? Neither?
• Confluent put together a $250 million round at a $4.5 billion valuation. This funding event proved that megarounds are not dead. Alex thinks the company is nearly IPO ready, but with the public offering window seemingly closed, we’re not holding our breath for an S-1.
• Pepper raised money to make a bra that fits small-chested women better. For those of you reading this that can relate to the woes of ill-fitting bras, Jaclyn Fu wants to have a word for you.
• Human Capital raised $15 million for its engineer-focused talent agency. This one was a bit controversial, especially in the changing economic climate.
• In the media startup world, The Dipp launched to provide us (well, those of us that subscribe) TV and entertainment news. We’ll always nerd out about new news companies, and the fact that this was founded by former Bustle colleagues caught our eye.
• And then there were the layoffs. Magic Leap cut 1,000 jobs, while coding school Lambda School and 2020 IPO Casper each made smaller cuts. It’s a bummer of a topic, but expect cuts to remain on the agenda for a while yet.

We didn’t get to talk through some Silicon Valley or European venture capital data, not to mention what we’re seeing in Boston because we ran out of time! More soon.

Instant messaging service Telegram has amassed 400 million monthly active users, it said today, up from 300 million active users the seven-year-old service disclosed to the SEC last October.

The service — founded by Pavel Durov, who also created Russian social networking site VK — said it adds about 1.5 million users each day and is the most downloaded social media app in over 20 nations.

Telegram is working on bringing secure video call feature to its users this year in response to the growing popularity of Zoom and Houseparty, it said. The company, headquartered in London and Dubai, however, did not talk about the future of its Gram cryptocurrency wallet and TON Blockchain that it had revealed in 2018, but put on hold early this year.

“As the gap in popularity between Telegram and its older competitors narrows, we find more and more validity in that original assumption,” the firm said in a blog post.

Telegram competes with dozens of popular instant messaging services including WhatsApp that has amassed over 2 billion users globally. Telegram often sees a surge in its user base when Facebook-owned service is facing an outage. Durov is one of the most vocal critics of WhatsApp.

Its desktop app, which does not require the phone to be connected to the internet for function, and a range of features including folders and cloud storage have won it a loyal set of users.

These features have also given rise to misuse of its platform with at least hundreds of thousands of its users relying on the service to distribute and download illegal copies of movies, songs, and applications. Its piracy issue remains prevalent today.

Telegram today revealed a sticker directory that lists over 20,000 stickers, and detailed a handful of improvements such as a new attachment menu on Android . The firm also said it was creating a database of educational tests for students, and plans to distribute 400,000 Euro to creators for creating those tests.

TechCrunch learned last week that the service had reached the 400 million users milestone, but at the time Telegram did not respond to a request for comment.