Author: azeeadmin

Could the coronavirus crisis — and the way different countries have responded — make Silicon Valley VCs more bullish on European startups? That’s the thesis put forward by Salman Ullah, co-founder and managing director of Merus Capital.

As COVID-19 spreads globally, he argues that countries with national healthcare — along with fiscal and monetary policies that balance the interests of citizens versus those of corporations — are better positioned to navigate the pandemic.

More broadly, investors prefer to invest in stable and resilient economies, and resilience depends on the ability of governments to respond to a crisis, let alone one on such an unprecedented scale. For investors, the strength of national infrastructure and political institutions in many European countries is a net positive — and a stark contrast to Trump’s U.S.

Germany, where Merus has already made several investments, is cited as an example of a European country that has become more attractive to Silicon Valley investors in recent years. Not only is the cost of starting up in Germany lower, but Ullah argues there’s been a “cultural shift” amongst young people who now view startups as a viable career path, while the coronavirus crisis — and the German government’s response — is making ecosystems such as Berlin and Munich even more attractive.

“Your dollar goes much further in Europe, rents are lower, everyone gets free healthcare, essentially,” says Ullah during a call. “And the level of education and expertise in computer science in particular is no better or worse than in the U.S. And I think the pandemic has just kind of reinforced that.”

In a time of such uncertainly and the economic shock that comes with that, Ullah notes that in European countries like Germany, citizens aren’t worried about the personal cost of healthcare. He also points to the way German finance minister Olaf Scholz has pledged unlimited credit for businesses affected by the pandemic alongside an expansion of its short-time work scheme, which gives support for companies that are forced to reduce working hours of their employees.

Uber argued in a recent court filing that former employee Anthony Levandowski committed fraud, an action that frees the company from any obligation to pay his legal bills, including a judgment ordering the star engineer to pay Google $179 million.

The court filing was first reported by Bloomberg.

Uber’s fraud claim was part of its response to Levandowski’s motion to compel the ride-hailing company into arbitration in the hopes that his former employee will have to shoulder the cost of the $179 million judgment against him. The motion to compel arbitration, and now Uber’s response, is part of Levandowski’s bankruptcy proceedings. It’s the latest chapter in a legal saga that has entangled Uber and Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that is now a business under Alphabet.

In this latest court filing, Uber has agreed to arbitration. However, Uber also pushed back against Levandowski’s primary aim to force the company to stand by an indemnity agreement. Uber signed an indemnity agreement in 2016 when it acquired Levandowski’s self-driving truck startup Otto. Under the agreement, Uber said it would indemnify — or compensate — Levandowski against claims brought by his former employer, Google.

Uber said it rescinded the indemnification agreement several months prior to the inception of Levandowski’s bankruptcy case “because it was procured by his fraud,” according to the court filing. Uber revoked the indemnification agreement after Levandowski was indicted by a federal grand jury with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets, while working at Google, where he was an engineer and one of the founding members of the group that worked on Google’s self-driving car project.

Uber notified Levandowski’s counsel on August 30, three days after the indictment, explaining that the indemnification agreement was rescinded “because it had been procured by Levandowski’s fraud, including his fraudulent concealment of the facts alleged in the indictment.”

Levandowski reached a plea deal in March 2020 with the U.S. District Attorney to one count of stealing trade secrets while working at Google.

Uber said it never received any benefits from Levandowski under the indemnification agreement, and had nothing to return to him as a result of the rescission, the company said in the court filing.

Levandowski’s attorney pushed back at Uber’s argument.

“Uber’s assertion that Anthony did not disclose material information to Uber is false,” Levandowski’s attorney Neel Chatterjee said in an emailed statement sent to TechCrunch . “The accusations Uber makes is premised on information they obtained as part of the due diligence process. This is the latest in a string of meritless theories Uber has set forth to try to get out of the deal it struck because it did not like the outcome.”

Levi’s is leveraging its advertising partnership with TikTok to connect online shoppers with the denim brand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced retailers to close their doors — including most of Levi’s own stores. The company announced today its success as one of the first retailers to use TikTok’s “Shop Now” buttons that allow consumers make purchases through links posted to TikTok. Though the implementation is still in the early stages, Levi’s says it has already seen high engagement and increased traffic to its website, as a result of initial tests.

To send traffic to its e-commerce site, Levi’s recently partnered with TikTok influencers Callen Schaub, Cosette Rinab, Gabby Morrison and Everett Williams who used Levis’ laser-powered Future Finish 3-D denim customization technology to create their own customized denim. While the collaboration itself began before the shelter-in-place orders rolled out across the U.S., the resulting videos were only posted last week.

TikTok users viewing the influencers’ videos, which appeared on TikTok as in-feed ads, could then click to buy the same design on Levi.com up until the experiment wrapped on April 19.

Levi’s reports that watch time for these videos were twice as long as the TikTok platform average.

@callenschaubIn my Montreal studio putting my spin on the Levi’s® Future Finish jeans – Shop online from home! ##stayhome ##oddlysatisfying ##levishausmiami ##ad♬ original sound – callenschaub

In addition, Levi’s notes that product views to Levi.com’s “Future Finish” pages more than doubled for every product included in the experience.

Though these are not hard numbers, few retailers have yet to share the results of their TikTok-powered social commerce efforts. In fact, the “Shop Now” call-to-action button itself is fairly new, so only a handful of advertisers have used the option to date.

TikTok is not the first social network the Levi’s brand has worked with — it also has similar partnerships with top social platforms like Snap, Instagram, and Pinterest. However, the company said it was drawn to TikTok due the size of its audience, noting that in November 2018 TikTok was then seeing 680 million monthly active users worldwide, and is now estimated to have as high as 800 million. Levi’s also noted that nearly 60% of that user base is in between the ages fo 16 to 24.

TikTok, meanwhile, has been dabbling in social commerce for over a year through a variety of efforts.

For example, AdWeek in April 2019 reported on Hollister’s participation in a program that allowed retailers to run in-feed ads that directed customers to its e-commerce site by a “Shop Now” button. And Digiday last July noted Poshmark had done the same. In August 2019, Kroger became the first brand to try a new Hashtag Challenge Plus feature, which added a shoppable component to a TikTok hashtag.

Last November, TikTok also began to allow some TikTok users to add e-commerce links to their posts and their bios. Many of the beta participants testing this feature began linking from their video directly to Amazon, The WSJ had reported at the time.

In the case of the Levi’s influencer program, the videos from the creators ran as in-feed ads, linked to the retailer’s website. Some influencers also included a Levi’s website link in their bio, but this is separate from the advertiser-facing feature. (See photo on right).

“TikTok was the perfect platform for us to expand our efforts in social commerce. Over the last decade, we’ve been on a journey to not only grow our digital footprint, but also help our fans buy our products at the point of inspiration, when they see something they love,” said Brady Stewart, managing director, U.S. Direct to Consumer, in a statement about the TikTok partnership. “As consumer behavior shifts over the coming months and people explore different online channels for shopping and engaging with brands, we are here to connect with consumers, wherever they are,” he added.

The line between social media and commerce has been blurring for years, thanks to influencer-fueled advertising, in-feed ad units, shoppable media, and more. Instagram today event lets you shop from some retailers without leaving its app. Meanwhile, Facebook’s Marketplace has turned into an eBay and Craigslist-sized rival and its business Pages help customers and brands connect in a number of ways.

TikTok, however, has only dipped a toe in the water of social commerce as of yet. But given its app’s sizable reach, particularly among Gen Z, it’s an area to watch. And as the pandemic forces more retailers to remain closed to foot traffic in stores, being able to attract young shoppers to their online shops will be more valuable than ever.

A new study conducted by the University of Southern California along with the LA County Department of Public Health indicates that the presence of antibodies for COVID-19 in between 2.5 and 5.6% of the population of LA County, suggesting that between 221,000 and 442,000 individuals had the infection – up to 55 times more people than have been confirmed via testing. This is the second antibody study in a short span of time in California that suspects infections are far more widespread than previously thought, and a good justification for continued social distancing measures.

The LA County study does contain some good news, if the antibody testing proves to be accurate (we aren’t entirely sure what they show for sure at this point, especially in terms of immunity), in that the mortality rate of the infection is actually much lower than the official diagnosed case data would suggest. The infection rate found via antibody testing through the USC study is also remarkably close to the rate found in a Stanford study published last week about the number of infections in Santa Clara County, which found that between 48,000 and 81,000 people in that part of California could’ve had and recovered from the infection.

Whereas the LA study found around 2.8 to 5.6 parent had antibodies, accounting for the margin of error and extrapolating from results to the entire population, the Stanford research found between 2.5 and 4.2 percent of residents carry antibodies for the infection. Those numbers are based on the test kits’ performance, as well as the demographic makeup of the sample population tested.

Neither new research papers have yet been peer-reviewed, so it’s worth taking them with a grain of salt. But the close alignment between the numbers in both, along with early results from similar studies being conducted globally, does seem to suggest that the number of actual cases of COVID-19 far undershoots the published numbers, which typically only include confirmed diagnoses – most of which represent individuals showing moderate to severe symptoms.

The higher rate of undetected infection definitely should not be taken as a sign that COVID-19 is less serious than it appeared, however; this new info only means that its transmission from people who showed no outward symptoms and never subsequently never sought any medical care or were identified for quarantine or contact tracing is probably a lot higher than anyone guessed.

That means social distancing measures are more important than ever, since it’s likely harder than ever to identify who might be a passive carrier of the virus that leads to COVID-19 without realizing it. Eventually, understanding the nature of the spread should help with refining measures to avoid the greatest potential risks of exposure, but for now, this new info just means that COVID-19 is much more effective at moving through a population without raising early warning signs than we previously understood.

COVID-19 commanded an understandably outsized presence in Jeff Bezos’s annual shareholder letter last week. The Amazon exec laid out the company’s plans for addressing the pandemic on a number of different levels, including building a testing lab for employees, along “with regular testing of all Amazonians, including those showing no symptoms.”

It has become a given that Amazon would test employees exhibiting fever and other COVID-19 symptoms. The company is, after all, one of the primary retail backbones for the U.S. and a number of other countries. And while the World Health Organization has stated that it doesn’t believe the virus can be transmitted via parcels, the virus has the potential to spread extremely quickly within a warehouse.

The notion of testing employees who don’t exhibit symptoms has been a less pressing question, however, due in no small part to the limited availability of testing kits. But as the WHO, CDC and other organizations have made abundantly clear, it’s entirely possible to carry the virus while remaining asymptomatic — a fact that’s made the novel coronavirus all the more scary.

Once testing becomes more readily available, it will be important to determine whether employers can, in fact, mandate testing, regardless of whether employees exhibit symptoms. There are important matters of both public safety and personal sovereignty to take into account.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has been actively updating guidance for employers under the Americans with Disabilities Act:

The EEO laws, including the ADA and Rehabilitation Act, continue to apply during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they do not interfere with or prevent employers from following the guidelines and suggestions made by the CDC or state/local public health authorities about steps employers should take regarding COVID-19. Employers should remember that guidance from public health authorities is likely to change as the COVID-19 pandemic evolves. Therefore, employers should continue to follow the most current information on maintaining workplace safety.

Among the updated issues to deal with the pandemic is screening, which includes a temperature check. “During a pandemic, ADA-covered employers may ask such employees if they are experiencing symptoms of the pandemic virus,” the EEOC continues. “For COVID-19, these include symptoms such as fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, or sore throat. Employers must maintain all information about employee illness as a confidential medical record in compliance with the ADA.”

We put the question to Tricia Bozyk Sherno, counsel at Debevoise & Plimpton, which focuses on employment and general commercial litigation.

“For current employees, a medical inquiry or exam is permitted for current employees only if the employer has a reasonable belief that a particular employee will provide a ‘direct threat’ due to a medical condition,” Sherno explains. “For new employees, the ADA permits employers to conduct medical examinations after a conditional offer of employment is made, but before an individual begins working, provided that all employees in the same job category must be subject to the same examination requirement. The primary ‘medical examination’ considered by the existing EEOC guidance is temperature measurements. Available guidance does not yet address COVID-19 testing.”

The current rules around testing aren’t entirely clear under current guidelines, but expect that to continue to evolve as testing becomes more widely available and state governments begin to loosen stay-at-home restrictions. We can likely expect that the guidance will no longer apply once the pandemic is no longer deemed a threat. What remains consistent under ADA guidelines, however, is the illegality of firing an individual over a condition like COVID-19.

“The ADA prohibits discrimination against individuals with a disability and requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for such individuals,” says Sherno. “Local and state laws may also provide additional protections for impacted employees.”

Facebook confirmed this week that it will be pulling down a number of posts promoting stay-at-home protests. CNN was the first to report the news, which finds the social media giant pulling down events in a variety of different states, including California, Nebraska and New Jersey.

The news follows a spike in events across the country, as people have gathered to protest stay-at-home orders issued to combat the spread of COVID-19. Facebook confirmed that it has begun pulling some protests, citing defiance of state guidelines.

A spokesperson for the site told TechCrunch, “Unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook. For this same reason, events that defy government’s guidance on social distancing aren’t allowed on Facebook .”

The company’s actions will vary from location to location and event to event, determining whether they are in violation of specific guidance. A spokesperson told CNN they are working with state governments in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to determine whether to pull events. Among other determinations are whether protests call for social distancing among attendees where required. 

Pictures from protests have become some of the most defining imagery over the past week, as attendees risk their health and the health of others in hopes of returning to some sense of normalcy a month in. Kentucky, notably, has seen a record number of COVID-19 cases following local protests.

“They seem to be very responsible people to me,” President Trump said of protesters during a press conference Friday, “but they’ve been treated a little bit rough.”

A new project designed to help address the growing need for ventilator hardware in order to treat the most serious cases of COVID-19 achieved an important milestone today, getting FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for its units to be used and scaled for production. The hardware, dubbed ‘Spiro Wave,’ is an emergency automated resuscitator that can be produced for under $5,000, and that a team of engineers, doctors and researchers has already begun producing and delivering to care facilities.

The Spiro Wave essentially replicates the functionality of a manual resuscitator, a portable device is typically operated manually to provide ventilation to emergency patients in case of emergency, but it automated the process, while still working with the same types of bags that are typically used with the manual version for easier sourcing of supplies.

Spiro Wave is based on MIT’s open-source E-Vent prototype design, which was created by researchers at the institution as one way to alleviate the shortage that resulted from the COVID-19 crisis. From that design, the team behind Spiro Wave, which includes the co-founders of Newly, 10XBeta and Boyce Technologies, were able to go from design to production of their emergency ventilator in just a few weeks.

Manufacturing partner Boyce says that it can hopefully ramp production not as much as 500 per day, at its Long Island City production facility in Queens, and the first few hundred are already shipping out to facilities in NYC starting this week. The team is also now looking for international production scaling assistance with partners who are registered to produce medical devices with the FDA in order to increase supply even further.

The team behind this note that it’s not meant to replace a full-fledged ventilator, but that it will instead help alleviate the drain on those resources used in emergency care situations where a respirator would be just as effective, but where the manual version is impractical in terms of staffing and prolonged use. Like so many other measures granted EUA, this may not be an ideal replacement for fully FDA-approved equipment and therapies, but it’s an innovative, scalable solution that could mean big differences in the level of care at overburdened healthcare facilities.

The new Extra Crunch Live series is taking flight this week. Later today we’re talking to Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee and Ted Wang. This Thursday we’re keeping the parade of well-known investors coming, when Charles Hudson will join Natasha Mascarenhas and I for a deep-dive into all things pre-seed and seed.

Extra Crunch Live Episode 2: Charles Hudson will air at 3 PM PT/6 PM ET this Thursday. Important Note: Extra Crunch members will be able to ask their own questions live on the call.

Hudson has been a guest on Equity a few times and even popped on stage at Disrupt. Why? Because he’s made a number of notable investments and he has a penchant for explaining the seed venture market in useful, easy-to-grok terms.

Precursor Ventures, Hudson’s firm, has raised a number of funds, and filed paperwork to put together a $40 million third fund earlier this year. If closed, the new vehicle would be Precursor’s largest to date. The firm previously raised two main funds, and one $10 million “opportunity” fund.

Hudson, along with senior associate Sydney Thomas and analyst Ayanna Kerrison, tends to invest in software, Internet-focused, and ecommerce companies, according to Crunchbase data. However, other data indicates that the firm’s investment pace may have slowed in 2019 as the world unwittingly marched towards the new, COVID-19 era.

The new world we live in is precisely why we wanted to get Charles back for a chat. The last time we spoke with him Airbnb was still going public in 2020 on the back of a direct listing. We also chatted about which Y Combinator companies were the biggest was a topic of conversation. Now Airbnb’s been forced to borrow expensive capital, cut its valuation, and is generally expected to delay its public debut. And Y Combinator is pulling back on its investing cadence.

A new world, a changed world.

Before we let you go, while prepping for our talk with Hudson, we discovered that Precursor put money into both payment firm Finix’s seed round and Series A, according to Crunchbase data. The startup later raised a Series B that would wind up being more complicated than it first seemed.

If you aren’t a member of Extra Crunch just yet, join up and don’t miss any of the next few month’s worth of live chats that are going to be pretty damn cool.

You can find all the Zoom information below, as well as an AddEvent link to put the details directly onto your calendar.

See you soon!

Movie ticketing company Fandango has agreed to buy Walmart’s on-demand video streaming service, Vudu, for an undisclosed sum. The video service today reaches over 100 million living room devices across the U.S. including smart TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and other over-the-top streaming devices, as well as Windows 10 and Mac computers, as well as iOS and Android mobile devices.

To date, the Vudu app on mobile has been installed over 14.5 million times.

As a part of the agreement, Vudu will continue to power Walmart’s digital movie and TV store on Walmart.com.

In addition, Walmart says Vudu customers will have uninterrupted access to their Vudu library. They’ll also continue to be able to use their Walmart login, as well as their Walmart wallet to make purchases on Vudu, the retailer says.

Details as to how Fandango will specifically leverage Vudu weren’t immediately detailed, but Fandango today operates its own movie streaming platform, FandangoNOW, which is an obvious integration. The service has become a more essential business in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which has shut down theaters, significantly impacting Fandango’s digital ticketing operations.

As a result, Fandango has put more efforts into tis streaming business. For example, its stream of the newly released “Trolls World Tour,” which skipped its theatrical release due to COVID-19, was the most pre-ordered title in the streaming service’s history, the most-rented digital title on opening day and the best-selling rental during its first three days of digital release, according to Deadline.

Rumors that Walmart was shopping Vudu around have been reported for many months. In February, Walmart was said to be in discussions with Comcast, which could have leveraged the platform for its newly launched streaming service Peacock.

“We will continue to invest in areas where we have the greatest strength and are in the best position to serve our customers today and in the future,” a Walmart spokesperson noted in a statement. “Pickup and delivery are great examples of how we’ve invested to bring digital and physical capabilities together to better serve our customers, by offering more choice and convenience. We’re focused on serving customers through these type of omni-retail experiences and we’re actively prioritizing our investments to maximize our strengths and serve them in new ways,” they added.

The acquisition is expected to close in the months ahead, says Walmart.

More to come….

Building a startup is hard enough. But COVID-19, our generation’s worst plot twist, gives new meaning to uncertainty and stress. No one had “pandemic” on their early-stage startup’s radar, which begs the question: How do you move your business forward in unprecedented times?

It’s a huge challenge, and we’ve worked hard to find a way to help you keep momentum in the face of lockdowns and travel restrictions. Drumroll please — the Digital Startup Alley Package, a virtual exhibition for startups at Disrupt SF (September 14-16)

Accept no virtual substitutes. Disrupt is the OG of startup conferences, and TechCrunch has the resources and industry connections to replicate the Startup Alley experience as a truly world-class virtual event.

The Digital Startup Alley Package lets early-stage, pre-series A startups disrupt from home for only $445. Digital Startup Alley kicks off early, and it runs through the end of the physical event in September. Place your startup in front of thousands of influential investors, technologists, customers and media — with months to pitch, demo, network and schedule meetings.

The Digital Startup Alley Package covers three people and includes:

CrunchMatch: TechCrunch’s AI-powered founder/investor networking platform. Save time, zero in and connect with the people who can move your business forward. Each startup will create a customizable profile, allowing startups to easily note their value add and business model to potential customers and investors.

Exceptional Pitch Coaching: Grab a brew and join TechCrunch editors for Pitchers and Pitches — an interactive opportunity to learn from the best. Whip your pitch into shape with the team that coaches the Startup Battlefield competitors.

Exposure to Investors: Exhibiting startups will be included in a deck available exclusively to investors attending Disrupt SF.

Exhibitor Guide: The definitive resource to Startup Alley and Disrupt SF — modified to reflect our digital exhibitors. Plus, you get access to the content included with a Disrupt Digital Pro Pass.

Exclusive Founder Webinars – All Startup Alley exhibitors will get exclusive access to the brightest industry minds to hear their current thinking on ways startups can adapt and thrive both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pro Tip: Come September, if you can exhibit at Disrupt SF in person, you can upgrade your package and still enjoy the benefits of Digital Startup Alley.

Remember, founders don’t quit — they adapt and move forward. Buy your Digital Startup Alley Package today.

TechCrunch is mindful of the COVID-19 issue and its impact on live events. You can follow our updates here.