Year: 2020

With the COVID-19 pandemic making work from home the default for those companies that are able to do so, it’s no surprise that we are seeing a massive rise in the usage of video chat tools like Zoom, Google Meet and Teams . We’d already heard some updates from Zoom and Google, but today Microsoft joined the parade with a new report on how its Teams users have adapted to the rise of remote work.

Back on March 16, the company reported 900 million meeting minutes in Teams . Now, less than a month later, it says that it saw a new daily record of 2.7 billion meetings in one on March 31. During those meetings, more users than ever also turn on their video cameras. Overall, the number of users who go on camera has doubled since before this crisis began and the overall number of video calls in Teams grew by over 1,000 percent in March.

That’s a lot of time spent in meetings that could’ve probably been used in more productive ways, but it sure is a lot of Teams meetings.

The Microsoft team also looked at where people use video most, with Norway and the Netherlands leading the pack. There, 60 percent of calls include video. In the U.S., that number is 38 percent. Microsoft says this may be due to the availability of fast broadband.

Microsoft also found that its users are also spending more time of the day with Teams. In March, the average time between when somebody first used teams and the last use of the service increased by over an hour. The company argues that this doesn’t mean that people are working longer hours, “rather that they are breaking up the day in a way that works for their personal productivity or makes space for obligations outside of work.”

No matter the service a company uses for remote work, it’ll be interesting to see how many of these new habits will stick once this crisis is over. In China, where some employees are now returning to work, the number of daily active Teams users continues to grow according to Microsoft but there will surely also be regions where usage will decline quickly once things get back to something resembling normal.

Chip maker Intel has been chosen to lead a new initiative led by the U.S. military’s research wing DARPA, aimed at improving cyber-defenses against deception attacks on machine learning models.

Machine learning is a kind of artificial intelligence that allows systems to improve over time with new data and experiences. One of its most common use cases today is object recognition, such as taking a photo and describing what’s in it. That can help those with impaired vision to know what’s in a photo if they can’t see it, for example,  but it can also be used by other computers, such as autonomous vehicles, to identify what’s what’s on the road.

But deception attacks, although rare, can meddle with machine learning algorithms. Subtle changes to real-world objects can, in the case of a self-driving vehicle, can have disastrous consequences.

Just a few weeks ago, McAfee researchers tricked a Tesla into accelerating 50 miles per hour above its intended speed by adding a two-inch piece of tape on a speed limit sign. The research was one of the first examples of manipulating a device’s machine learning algorithms.

That’s where DARPA hopes to come into play. The research arm said earlier this year that it’s working on a program known as GARD, or the Guaranteeing AI Robustness against Deception. The existing mitigations against machine learning attacks are typically rule-based and pre-defined, but DARPA hopes it can develop GARD into a system that will have broader defenses to address a number of different kinds of attacks.

Intel said today it’ll serve as the prime contractor for the four-year program alongside Georgia Tech.

Jason Martin, principal engineer at Intel Labs who leads Intel’s GARD team, said the chip maker and Georgia Tech will work together to “enhance object detection and to improve the ability for AI and machine learning to respond to adversarial attacks.”

During the first phase of the program, Intel said its focus is on enhancing its object detection technologies using spatial, temporal, and semantic coherence for both still images and video.

DARPA said GARD could be used in a number of settings — such as in biology.

“The kind of broad scenario-based defense we’re looking to generate can be seen, for example, in the immune system, which identifies attacks, wins and remembers the attack to create a more effective response during future engagements,” said Dr. Hava Siegelmann, a program manager in DARPA’s Information Innovation Office.

“We must ensure machine learning is safe and incapable of being deceived,” said Siegelmann.

Esports One is a startup betting that there’s a big opportunity in bringing a fantasy sports approach to the world of esports — particularly at a time when traditional pro sports are on pause.

Co-founder and COO Sharon Winter told me that the company’s platform, which is leaving beta testing today, is the first “all-in-one fantasy platform” for esports. In other words, it’s not just a site where you can create a fantasy team to compete with others, but also a place where you can research players, read articles about the latest news and watch live games.

And while Esports One is starting out by supporting the LCS (North American) and LEC (European) regions for League of Legends, the goal is to support a wide range of esports titles.

Co-founder and CEO Matt Gunnin said that when he started Esports One in 2017, the goal was to create “the first and only esports fantasy destination.” And while today’s launch is in many ways the realization of that vision, Esports One has been launching other data and analytics products in the meantime, becoming a data partner for both Acer’s Planet 9 esports platform and League of Legends publisher Riot Games.

Backed by Eniac Ventures and Xseed Capital,, the company was also part of the first class of startups to participate in the MIT Play Labs accelerator, and it says it uses computer vision technology developed at MIT and Caltech.

Why does an esports startup need that level of tech? Gunnin compared it to watching pro football on TV, where you can see a virtual yellow line indicating how far a team needs to advance to achieve first down.

“Imagine trying to watch a football game if there isn’t that yellow first-down line,” he said. “What we’ve been trying to build from the early days is the technology to be that first-down line for esports.”

Image Credits: Esports One

More specifically, Gunnin and Winter explained that their computer vision capabilities allow Esports One to track the activity in a game without having to rely on a game publisher’s company’s API — though Gunnin added that when an API is available, they’re happy to use it as “a central source of truth” to start training the company’s algorithms.

Gunnin added that the plan is to keep the basic Esports One platform free, then add premium subscription features over the summer.

“There could be various ways for users to get more insights, more analytics, more research tools, more ways to engage with one another,” he said. “We’re not going into gambling … Users don’t have to buy an advantage when they’re playing against anyone else, [we don’t want users to have an advantage] because they’re paying for monthly subscription access to stats. But we could take some of those stats and make it available in chart form, make it exportable.”

The company said that while in beta, the platform has already pulled in 30,000 active participants — and that’s without advertising spend.

And Gannin and Winter suggested that there’s an even bigger opportunity to expand the esports audience right now, as traditional fans have nothing to watch and even pro basketball players are turning to video games to compete.

“As people have been staying at home… we’re seeing DMs to our social media accounts from people diving into esports, signing up for Discord accounts,” Winter said. “We’ve ramped up the support to educate the community and expand the esports audience. It’s quickly surpassing mainstream, traditional sports.”

If you want to contribute to efforts to better understand and contain the COVID-19 pandemic, and you’re based in the U.S., you can do a lot with very little effort by downloading a free iOS and Google Play application called simply ‘COVID Symptom Tracker.’ The app was originally developed in partnership with food science startup Zoe, and released first in the U.K., and was quickly downloaded by nearly one million people in its first day of availability.

The app aims to supplement information provided by testing programs and other public measures of the spread of the coronavirus using self-reported information provided by individuals. It includes a self-reporting quiz that takes roughly one minute per day to complete, and also provides an estimated picture of the potential spread of the virus in your immediate area.

There are a number of different, similar efforts to use self-reported information as a signal in determining the full spread of the virus, in the absence of plentiful, accurate and consistent testing across geographies. One other high-profile project, founded by Pinterest CEO and co-founder Ben Silbermann, launched earlier this month, and offers a similar self-reporting mechanism, for similar purposes – with a mandate of offering up information shared with research partners and health organizations.

The COVID-19 Symptom Tracker has the advantage of already having been used at scale in the U.K., and the information its gathering will be used in a study that’s already in progress, led by King’s College epidemiologist Tim Spector, along with Harvard Medical School professor and infectious disease specialist Andrew Chan. The research team is providing regular updates about their work and the project via a public blog, too.

The goals of the research resulting from the app include forming a better understanding of COVID-19s symptoms, and how they might cluster, as well as helping identify high-risk and high-spread areas, and figuring out who might be most at risk in future. Data shared by individuals is protected under GDPR, and it’s used strictly for non-profit purposes, with any commercial purposes off the table. The group behind the app also advises that while they may share information more broadly with other medical researchers, it strips the data of any potential identifying information before doing so.

These efforts can definitely contribute to a better understanding of COVID-19 and its transmission, and because they’re relatively low-lift in terms of how much time you need to spend with them, it’s probably worth considering using more than one. Sensitivities around sharing info are always going to vary, of course, but if you’re okay with the trade-offs outlined, this does seem like an easy way to do something from the comfort and safety of your own home.

Following voluntary employee furloughs and salary cuts in the U.K., Monzo is continuing to take tough decisions in order to shore up its financial position amidst the coronavirus crisis and resulting economic downturn.

The latest move — which TechCrunch understands was being considered prior to the pandemic, though undoubtedly the decision was escalated and made because of it — will see the U.K. challenger bank shutter its customer support office in Las Vegas.

The U.S. outpost employs 165 customer support staff, who will now lose their jobs, and provided overnight customer support to U.K. customers, a much loved feature of the bank. However, that has proven expensive for Monzo, which now claims over 4 million customers, and disproportionate to the number of support requests made during overnight hours (12% of queries, apparently). Instead, overnight support will now happen from the U.K.

It should also be noted that this doesn’t appear to impact Monzo’s U.S. launch. Vegas support staff were servicing U.K. customers only, with U.S. customer support provided by a small team in London closer to the development and iteration of the Monzo USA beta.

Meanwhile, I also understand that Monzo Las Vegas employees are being given two months notice, with full pay and healthcare. And, as it should do, the bank is offering support with CVs and reaching out to other employers, and doing things like running interview prep sessions (however futile that may be with sky rocketing U.S. unemployment). In addition, it is supporting applications for extended healthcare cover after the end of notice period.

Lastly, as I caveated when exclusively reporting on Monzo’s planned furloughs, these measures, although extremely distressful for the employees affected (which should never be forgotten), are largely precautionary as the bank’s board looks to plan responsibly for however long the coronavirus-related economic uncertainty continues. (Related to this, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Monzo closing in on some additional funding from existing investors in the interim.)

In addition, unlike many fintechs, Monzo is a fully licensed bank, and therefore has a regulatory obligation to hold significant cash reserves. Under the license, customer deposits up to £85,000 are also protected as part of the U.K. government’s deposit protection scheme.

For more than two decades, virtual care has slowly made inroads into the annals of American medicine.

A somewhat nebulous and overwhelming term, “virtual care” refers to the integration of products like telehealth, remote patient monitoring, prescription delivery and even behavioral coaching into the fabric of medical practice. And while some early entrants, like Doctor on Demand in the primary care telehealth space and Mercy Virtual for remote-monitoring programs, have achieved some traction, the space has suffered from a lack of consumer scale, challenges with government regulation and significant technological and usability barriers.

This is not for lack of promise or even early results. The University of Pennsylvania was able to reduce its 30-day readmissions rate for heart failure patients by 73% using aggressive virtual care methodologies like telehealth and remote monitoring.

And yet, over the past month, the rapid spread of COVID-19 changed everything.

The global pandemic has jolted American medicine into making groundbreaking changes. Changes that may forever alter the path of virtual care and provide key insights and lessons for entrepreneurs looking to seize this moment.

Chief amongst these are leapfrog advances in sensor technology allowing a “consumer-grade” user experience at scale. Historically, medical-grade sensor technology has resulted in a lackluster and poor user experience that requires significant patient compliance. Now, many sensors can be deployed “in the background” and require few patient lifestyle changes. Numerous players are now advancing on this development and providing other entrepreneurs with a guidebook forward.

Record demand for online grocery shopping amid the COVID-19 pandemic has sent the apps for grocery pickup and delivery services up the charts. Walmart Grocery, as a result, has now hit an all-time high in downloads — grabbing the No. 1 ranking position across all Shopping apps in the U.S. on April 5, 2020, and surpassing Amazon by 20%, according to a new analysis from app intelligence firm App Annie.

The Walmart Grocery application retained that No. 1 position for at least two days, the firm said, citing data from both the Google Play store and the Apple App Store, combined. While App Annie’s data was calculated on April 7, 2020, Walmart Grocery today is still No. 1 on Google Play as of today, April 9. It’s also now No. 2 on the App Store.

The surge of interest in Walmart Grocery may complicate Walmart’s plans to wind down the standalone app to instead merge Walmart Grocery into the retailer’s flagship mobile application and website. Earlier in March — before government lockdowns and home quarantines were widespread — Walmart announced a new strategy that would make its online grocery shopping service a part of the overall Walmart.com website and Walmart mobile app (the blue one).

The goal was to eventually wind down the separate Walmart Grocery experience entirely after customers had made the shift.

There are multiple benefits to this plan, including the ability to direct marketing dollars into only promoting one Walmart app, instead of two. It could also help drive sales across departments, as grocery shoppers may choose to buy other in-store items and Walmart shoppers may discover the grocery option while browsing the site for something else. In addition, Walmart Grocery’s millions of customers would be shifted to the main app, boosting its ranking on the app stores.

However, the COVID-19 health crisis has changed things quite a bit. As of April 5, 2020, the Walmart Grocery app saw a 460% growth in average daily downloads, in comparison with its January 2020 performance. That indicates a surge of brand-new customers to Walmart Grocery who may have never before placed an online grocery order.

Walmart Grocery isn’t the only Shopping app surging due to increased demand amid COVID-19.

An earlier report from Apptopia in March saw Walmart Grocery, Instacart and Shipt climbing the charts.

Overall, demand for retail delivery is now booming with Shopping app global downloads hitting 106 million during the week of March 29 and April 4, 2020, App Annie says — that’s up 15% from the weekly average in January 2020. Downloads in the U.S. alone were 14.4 million — up 20% from the same period. While Walmart Grocery’s jump was much larger (460%), Amazon also saw 20% growth in average daily downloads from January.

Even Walmart’s internal, employee-facing app is growing, App Annie found. The Me@Walmart app for associates using the Walmart scheduling system grew 220% on Android phones during the week of March 22 compared to 4 weeks prior. That reflects the increased demand for in-store workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Walmart had said in March it planned to hire 150,000 new employees in both its stores and fulfillment centers to help it meet the increased demand for e-commerce orders and deliveries. Since the March announcement, Walmart said it has hired around 5,000 new employees per day and may even surpass the original 150,000 figure. While Walmart’s intention was to hire these workers on a more temporary basis, it may find that things don’t revert to “normal” any time soon. Newcomers to online grocery may discover it’s an easier and now less riskier way to shop, and will continue to do so even when lockdowns are lifted.

Starling Bank, the U.K. challenger founded by veteran banker Anne Boden, isn’t furloughing any of its U.K. staff after all.

In what appears to be a u-turn, it has been decided that the 41 staff who were going to be put on furlough, under the U.K. government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, are now able to continue working, meaning that Starling will not be applying for government furlough support.

It was originally communicated that the reason for furloughing staff was that they hadn’t completed their full training, and to do so would require being on premise (ie at Starling’s offices), which wasn’t possible once the coronavirus-related lockdown began. However, pragmatically, the challenger bank has put in place a process to enable this to happen (presumably) remotely.

Starling provided TechCrunch with the following statement:

On our staffers, there were 41 staff who had not completed their training. We have now developed a way of training these staff to our usual high standard and so we do not need to use government’s Job Retention Scheme after all. We are continuing to hire, especially in software engineering, where will continue to deliver new features such as Cheque Imaging and Connected Cards both launched this week.

Meanwhile, TechCrunch understands that, separate from directly employed (and permanent) staff, post-lockdown, Starling has ended its contract with around 40 temporary workers who worked in customer support and were employed via agencies.

Initially, those temporary staff were given an additional two weeks pay by Starling, but were not offered furlough by the agency they worked for. However, at least one of those agencies — Tempo — has since decided to use the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, meaning that the ex-Starling temps should now receive further financial support.

Many presume that the SBA’s “affiliation” rules will prevent venture-backed startups from applying for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of the CARES Act. I think that’s unfortunate, because the potential benefits of a PPP loan are compelling. For sure, you’re prudent to assume that, if you’ve closed on one or more preferred stock financings, your startup will indeed have an affiliation issue, based on protective covenants found in your charter and investor agreements; but you may be pleasantly surprised to hear of ways to amend your startup’s governing documents that, at least arguably, do not do essential violence to minority investor protections.

Because the terms of the PPP are so compelling – a loan that becomes a tax-free grant if spent on payroll, rent and utilities (in essence, for earlier stage startups, your burn) – it simply has to be looked at as a financing source. If the initial problems with the SBA’s rollout of the PPP can be fixed, this program may be the best way out there to mitigate the uncertainties that arise from the global pandemic. The brutal reality is that your next priced equity round is significantly further down the road than you had planned.

At the same time, no one wants to re-trade on essential terms with their startup’s preferred stock investors. The affiliation “fixes” should, if they are to be feasible, focus on preferred stock class voting thresholds or the makeup of voting groups in your charter and/or to selectively eliminate preferred director veto power in your Investors’ Rights Agreement.

Let’s step back for a second and address another common misperception: it’s important to understand that an affiliation analysis is distinct from application disclosure requirements driven by the PPP’s 20% owner threshold. The 20% threshold pertains to the scope of information an applicant needs to provide, what representations need to be made, and the like. An affiliation analysis, by contrast, speaks instead as to whether the applicant even qualifies as a “small business.” For the most part, this means, will the SBA deem the applicant to have fewer than 500 employees. If your business is “affiliated” with other startups in your VC firm’s (or firms’) portfolios, your company may be deemed big, not small, and so not eligible for the PPP.

Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman announced in an internal email that the company is going through difficult times. Yelp has to cut expenses, which means a large round of layoffs and some additional measures. 1,000 employees have been laid off.

According to an SEC filing, Yelp had 5,950 employees as of December 31, 2019. Today’s layoffs represent a 17% staff reduction.

The company has shared Stoppelman’s internal email on its website. In addition to layoffs, another 1,100 employees are now on furlough. Those employees are considered on unpaid leave until further notice (with some exceptions) — they will receive two weeks of additional pay and retain their benefits.

Before considering layoffs, Yelp tried to cut costs in different ways. The company has reduced server costs, which makes sense given that traffic has shrunk both on mobile and on the website.

Many projects have been “deprioritized” and executives accepted 20-30% pay cuts. Stoppelman himself won’t take a salary nor vest any stock awards for the remainder of the year.

“The physical distancing measures and shelter-in-place orders, while critical to flatten the curve, have dealt a devastating blow to the local businesses that are core to our mission,” Stoppelman wrote. “Interest in restaurants, our most popular category, has dropped 64% since March 10, and the nightlife category is down 81%. Gyms are down 73%, and salons and other beauty businesses are down 83%.”

Given that Yelp is a service focused on recommending the best local businesses around you, the lockdown has a direct impact on usage. Fewer eyeballs mean shrinking ad revenue as well. A restaurant chain isn’t going to spend money on Yelp ads if it is closed.

The company expects $8 to $10 million in charges due to severance and benefits costs. Yelp shares are trading at $21.74, up 0.46% compared to yesterday’s closing price.