Author: azeeadmin

Two weeks after the New York Times revealed Facebook’s controversial work with Republican opposition research firm Definers Public Affairs, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has changed her story in significant ways.

The latest revelation: Sandberg herself directed Facebook’s communications team to probe the financial ties of George Soros, left-leaning billionaire and frequent political target of the right. The new reporting cites an email between Sandberg and a Facebook senior executive that was circulated more broadly to senior comms and policy staff.

As TechCrunch has learned — and Sandberg herself alluded to in a statement — Sandberg was also looped into emails about Definers, the team that later conducted research into Soros on Facebook’s behalf. Definers was also integrated more deeply into Facebook’s communications operations than has previously been reported.

People knowledgeable of Facebook’s inner workings and those outside of the company expressed surprise at Sandberg’s choice to initially deny any knowledge of the relationship with Definers. “Mark issued an absolute denial and Sheryl followed, which surprised all of us because we knew her denial wasn’t true,” a source familiar with the firm’s work told TechCrunch.

When the Definers story broke, Mark Zuckerberg issued a swift statement denying any knowledge of the firm’s work. Sheryl Sandberg also denied any knowledge of Definers, though walked that statement back four days later when Facebook’s recently departed policy and communications head Elliot Schrage took the blame for the work.

In a statement coupled with his, Sandberg said that she initially did not remember a firm named Definers but upon review admitted that the firm’s work with Facebook was “incorporated into materials” presented to her and that the firm was referenced in “a small number of emails” she had received. Facebook’s decision to hire Definers, a corporate-facing outgrowth of the Republican America Rising PAC known for its fierce opposition research, proved to be a deeply controversial departure from Silicon Valley ethical norms.

How the Definers relationship began

As TechCrunch has learned, Definers began its work with Facebook through Facebook’s content communications team and Facebook’s Director of Policy Communications, Andrea Saul, a former colleague of Definers founder Matt Rhoades. As we previously reported, many members of Facebook’s communications team are former Republican campaign staffers and strategists with ties to the outside firm that Facebook controversially brought in to support its own internal PR efforts.

Definers began working with Facebook last July and over time the firm was integrated more deeply into Facebook’s communications workings. The firm began its work through Facebook’s content communications team and Facebook’s Director of Policy Communications, Andrea Saul, a former colleague of Definers founder Matt Rhoades.

After it was set into motion, Facebook’s relationship with Definers was mostly overseen by Andrea Saul, Tom Reynolds and Ruchika Budhraja in Menlo Park. In Washington D.C., Definers was handled by Andy Stone under Facebook’s chief lobbyist, Joel Kaplan. Kaplan, who worked in the George W. Bush administration with Definers’ founder and its president, was also in the loop due to his role as a strong in-house Republican voice among many at Facebook. Kaplan made headlines recently when he made a public show of support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh who was accused of sexual violence.

As TechCrunch previously reported, many members of Facebook’s communications team are former Republican campaign staffers and strategists with ties to the outside firm that Facebook controversially brought in to support its own internal PR efforts. Facebook’s Tucker Bounds also has close ties to Definers through his friend Tim Miller, who helped create America Rising, the political action committee prong of the firm. His role in the relationship with Facebook, if any, is not clear.

It’s true that Definers came on board initially for more generic PR support — not oppo research per se — and that’s how the firm’s involvement was framed in an email introducing them into Facebook’s own team. According to a source who spoke with TechCrunch, “The work that they were doing initially was nonpartisan, it was media monitoring.” Definers provided Facebook with its own press lists and engaged in other more mundane day to day PR activities.

Over time, Facebook leaned more heavily on the outside firm. Definers worked closely with Facebook’s policy communications team, checking in through weekly calls. While legal firm WilmerHale prepared the Facebook CEO and COO for their time on the stand, Definers also assisted with all three Congressional hearings that brought Facebook before Congress, including Zuckerberg and Sandberg’s hearings. For Sandberg’s hearing, Definers handled the crisis PR responding to the event and the coverage around the testimony.

“Facebook consultants are on very short leashes,” a source familiar with the work told TechCrunch. “Everything that Definers shared with media was approved by a Facebook employee.” While an outside agency might have more autonomy in working with a different company, Facebook was closely involved in the firm’s work and was likely aware of all of its plans and dealings. “Definers knows where the bodies are buried,” the source told TechCrunch.

So far nothing has turned up to indicate that Zuckerberg, like Sandberg, had prior exposure to the firm’s work. Given his general disinterest in media relations, it is believable that Mark Zuckerberg had no awareness of Definers or the communications team’s deep and often out in the open ties with the external Republican communications firm. Zuckerberg is far less involved in the strategic decisions that go into the way Facebook positions itself to the outside world than Sandberg herself.

Facebook’s communications team is an infamously well-oiled machine and that machine is often put to use to protect Sandberg and promote her agenda — at times over Facebook’s own interests. If Sandberg’s latest and perhaps most surprising admission will at last strain trust in her leadership to a breaking point remains to be seen.

No one wants to post silly, racy, or vulnerable Stories if they’re worried their boss, parents, and distant acquaintances are watching. So to get people sharing more, and more authentically, Instagram will let you share to fewer people. Today after 17 months of testing, Instagram is globally launching Close Friends on iOS and Android over the next two days. It lets you build a single private list of your best buddies on Instagram through suggestions or search, and then share Stories just to them. They’ll see a green circle around your profile pic in the existing Story tray to let them know this is Close Friends-only content, but no one gets notified if they’re added or removed from your list that only you can view.

“As you add more and more people [on any social network], you start not to know them. That’s obviously going to change the things that you’re sharing and it makes it even harder to form every deep connections with your closest friends because you’re basically curating for the largest possible distribution” Instagram director of product Robby Stein. “To really be yourself and connect and be connected to your best friends, you need your own place.”

I spent the last few days demoing Close Friends and it’s remarkably smooth, intuitive, and useful. Suddenly there was a place to post what I might otherwise consider too random or embarassing to share. Teens already invented the idea of “Finstagrams”, or fake Instagram accounts, to share feed posts to just their favorite people without the pressure to look cool. Now Instagram is formalizing that idea into “Finstastories” through Close Friends.

The feature is a wise way to counteract the natural social graph creep that occurs as people accept social networking requests out of a sense of obligatory courtesy from people they aren’t close to, which then causes them to only share blander content. Helping people express their wild side as must-see content for their Close Friends could drive up time spent on the app. But there’s also the risk that the launch creates private echosphere havens for offensive content beyond the eyes of those who’d rightfully report it.

“No one has ever mastered a close friends graph and made it easy for people to understand” Stein notes. The path to variable sharing privacy winds through a cemetery. Facebook’s “Lists” product struggled to find traction for a decade before being half-shut down. Google+’s big selling point was “Circles” for sharing to different groups of people. But with both, user found it too boring and confusing to make a bunch of different lists they could share to or view feeds from. Snapchat launched its own Groups feature two months ago, but it’s easy to forget who’s in which list and they’re designed around group chat. Most users just end up trying their best to reject, unfollow, or mute people they didn’t want to see or share with.

Now after almost 15 years of Facebook, 12 years of Twitter, 8 years of Instagram, and 7 years of Snapchat, that strategy has failed for many, leading to noisy feeds and a fear of sharing to too many. “People get friend requests and they feel pressure to accept” Stein explains. “The curve is actually that your sharing goes up and as you add more people initially, as more people can respond to you. But then there’s a point where it reduces sharing over time.”

So Instagram chose to build Close Friends as just a single list in hopes that you won’t lose track of who’s part of it. As the feature rolls out today, there’ll be an explainer Story from Instagram about it in your tray, you’ll get walked through when you hit the Close Friends button on the Story composer, and there’ll be a call out on your profile to configure Close Friends in the settings menu. You’ll be able to search for your close friends or quickly add them from a list of suggestions based on who you interact with most. You can add or remove as many people as you want without them knowing, they just will or won’t see your green circled Close Friends story. “We’re protecting you and your right to share or not share to certain people. It gives you air cover” Stein tells me

From then on, you can use the Close Friends shortcut in the Stories composer to share it with just those people, who’ll see a green “Close Friends” label on the story to let them know they’re special. Instagram will use the signal of who you add to help rank and order your Stories tray, but it won’t automatically pop Close Friends Stories to the front. When asked if Facebook would use that data for personalization too, Stein told me “We’re the same company” but said using it to improve Facebook is “not something that we’re actively working on.”

There’s no screenshot alerts, similar to the rest of Instagram Stories, but you won’t be able to DM anyone someone else’s Close Friends Story. That’s it. “We haven’t invented any new design affordances or things you need to know” Stein beams.

The one concern here is that Close Friends could create little bunkers in which people can share objectionable content without consequence. It’d be sad to see it harbor racism, sexism, or other stuff that doesn’t belong anywhere on Instagram. Stein says that because you’re talking with friends instead of strangers on a Reddit, “it self regulates what it’s used for. We haven’t seen a lot of that usage in the testing that we’ve done. It’s still a broadcast channel and it doesn’t generate this group discussion. It doesn’t spiral.”

Overall, I think Close Friends will be a hit. When it started testing a prototype called Favorites in June 2017 it worked with feed posts too, but Instagram decided the off the cuff posts wouldn’t fit right next to your more widely broadcasted highlights. But confined to Stories, it feels like a natural and much-needed extension of what Instagram was always supposed to be but that’s gotten lost in our swelling social networks: giving the people you love a window into your life.

Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have created a system that can reproduce paintings from a single photo, allowing museums and art lovers to snap their favorite pictures and print new copies complete with paint textures.

Called RePaint, the project uses machine learning to recreate the exact colors of each painting and then prints it using a high-end 3D printer that can output thousands of colors using half-toning.

The researchers, however, found a better way to capture a fuller spectrum of Degas and Dali. They used a special technique they developed called “color-contoning”, which involves using a 3-D printer and 10 different transparent inks stacked in very thin layers, much like the wafers and chocolate in a Kit-Kat bar. They combined their method with a decades-old technique called “halftoning”, where an image is created by tons of little ink dots, rather than continuous tones. Combining these, the team says, better captured the nuances of the colors.

“If you just reproduce the color of a painting as it looks in the gallery, it might look different in your home,” said researcher Changil Kim. “Our system works under any lighting condition, which shows a far greater color reproduction capability than almost any other previous work.”

Sadly the prints are only about as big as a business card. The system also can’t yet support matte finishes and detailed surface textures but the team is working on improving the algorithms and the 3D printing tech so you’ll finally be able to recreate that picture of dogs playing poker in 3D plastic.

In the world of online language learning, there are basically two heavyweights: Duolingo and Babbel. Duolingo is betting on a freemium model and a strong focus on using algorithms to help you learn better, while Berlin-based Babbel is a paid service that employs hundreds of teachers. As Babbel co-founder and CEO Markus Witte announced at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin today, his company is now moving into a new area of language learning with the launch of a language travel marketplace. The company also today announced that it now has over 1 million paying users in the United States.

This new service, which is scheduled to go live next year, is the result of the previously undisclosed acquisition of a Lingo Ventura, a Berlin-based startup that partners with international language schools and local providers to offer a language travel booking platform. As Witte told me ahead of today’s announcement, Lingo Ventura already had connections with 200 language schools in 30 countries. The company never quite managed to make a dent in this market, which has traditionally been quite fragmented.

Witte believes that Babbel, thanks to its existing user base, will be able to turn this into a profitable business, though. “There is a lot of potential here because the current market is not very transparent,” Witte told me. “In Europe, our brand is so well-known now that we are the first stop for learning languages.” And that brand awareness will surely help drive interest in this new platform. The person who uses the company’s app has, after all, already shown interest in learning languages and a willingness to pay for that.

While language travel is quite popular in Europe, it remains a bit of a foreign concept in the United States and few people specifically travel abroad to learn a language. This isn’t a small market, though. In Germany alone, market revenue was about €220 million in 2017, and the various companies that play in this space booked about 150,000 travel bookings last year.

Unsurprisingly, Babbel will first focus its marketing efforts for its yet-to-be-named travel marketplace (I think Babbel Travel is a safe bet) on Europe. The platform, however, is global, and Babbel isn’t going to stop anybody from booking through its platform, of course.

As far as the U.S. language travel market is concerned, though, Babbel expects that it’ll be able to pull in some customers there, too. “It’s not zero,” the company’s U.S. CEO Julie Hansen told me when I asked her about that market. “I think in due course, we’ll discover if there’s a place for us. In a way, you can serve a market better that is so fragmented and ill-defined.” North America in general has generated quite a bit of growth for Babbel recently, especially since it appointed Hansen as a CEO there, though it remains to be seen if travel will become a major revenue source for the company there.

No matter in which geography it will operate, though, Babbel will work with partners, and not run its own programs. “That was a strategic decision on our part,” said Witte. “We want to work with partners, and if we make acquisitions, those are almost always about building bridges to our partners.”

Floyd Mayweather Jr. and DJ Khaled have agreed to “pay disgorgement, penalties and interest” for failing to disclose promotional payments from three ICOs including Centra Tech. Mayweather received $100,000 from Centra Tech while Khaled got $50,000 from the failed ICO. The SEC cited Khaled and Mayweather’s social media feeds, noting they touted securities for pay without disclosing their affiliation with the companies.

Mayweather, you’ll recall, appeared on Instagram with a whole lot of cash while Khaled called Centra Tech a “Game changer.”

“You can call me Floyd Crypto Mayweather from now on,” wrote Mayweather. Sadly, the SEC ruled he is no longer allowed to use the nom de guerre “Crypto” anymore.

Without admitting or denying the findings, Mayweather and Khaled agreed to pay disgorgement, penalties and interest. Mayweather agreed to pay $300,000 in disgorgement, a $300,000 penalty, and $14,775 in prejudgment interest. Khaled agreed to pay $50,000 in disgorgement, a $100,000 penalty, and $2,725 in prejudgment interest. In addition, Mayweather agreed not to promote any securities, digital or otherwise, for three years, and Khaled agreed to a similar ban for two years. Mayweather also agreed to continue to cooperate with the investigation.

“These cases highlight the importance of full disclosure to investors,” said Stephanie Avakian of the SEC. “With no disclosure about the payments, Mayweather and Khaled’s ICO promotions may have appeared to be unbiased, rather than paid endorsements.”

The SEC indicted Centra Tech’s founders, Raymond Trapani, Sohrab Sharma, and Robert Farkas, for fraud.

Disrupt Berlin generally kicked ass yesterday, and things are only going to get better from here.

Welcome, friends, to Disrupt Berlin Day 2. We have a great show in store for you, including Julie Hansen and Markus Witte from Babbel, the full cast of Accel Philipe Botteri, Sonali De Rycker, Luciana Lixandru, and Harry Nelis. Plus, we’ll hear from Threads founder and CEO Sophie Hill, as well as Starling’s Anne Boden.

But that’s not all…

The Startup Battlefield finals are going down today. Five startups — Imago AI, Kalepso, Legacy, Polyteia, and Spike — will battle it out one last time for $50,000 USD, the Disrupt Cup and eternal glory.

You can catch the whole thing live right here so sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

In a regulatory filing today, SoftBank Group said it has set an indicative price of 1,500 yen ($13.22) per share for the initial public offering of its domestic telecoms unit next month. This means the offering is potentially worth 2.4 trillion yen (about $21.16 billion), making it one of the largest IPOs ever. The price is the same as the tentative one SoftBank disclosed in a previous filing earlier this month.

The IPO is set for Dec. 19 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and its final price will be determined on Dec. 10. The record for the largest IPO is currently held by Alibaba Group, which raised a total of $25 billion in 2014. If there is enough demand for SoftBank Group’s shares, a overallotment can potentially increase its offering’s total by 240.6 billion yen (or about $2.12 billion), bringing it closer to the amount Alibaba raised.

One interesting aspect of this initial public offering is SoftBank Group’s efforts to reach retail investors. For example, brokerages have run television ads for the offering in Japan.

SoftBank’s brand recognition may appeal to individual investors, but at the same time it may also have to answer questions about how investments by its Vision Fund are performing, as well as the $100 billion fund’s reliance on Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Its biggest backer, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) put $45 billion in the Vision Fund and may put the same amount into the second Vision Fund. The PIF is led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been implicated by the Central Intelligence Agency and Turkish officials the planning of Khashoggi’s death.

Sorry folks. If you wanted to buy a ticket to Startup Battlefield Africa 2018 you’re out of luck. We’re sold out. However, you could be one of the lucky few to score a free ticket to our day-long startup-pitch extravaganza in Lagos, Nigeria on 11 December. We have a limited number of tickets available, so apply for your free ticket here — before they’re all gone.

Don’t miss 15 of the continent’s top early-stage startup founders as they launch their companies on a global stage in front of a live, enthusiastic audience. Choosing the Startup Battlefield competitors from hundreds of applications was no easy feat — a testament to the depth and creativity of the region’s growing startup scene.

A quick reminder of how Startup Battlefield works. The 15 teams compete in three preliminary rounds — five startups per round. They get only six minutes to pitch and present a live demo to a panel of expert technologists and VC investors. After each pitch, the judges have six minutes to grill the team with tough questions. That’s when all the free pitch-coaching they received from TechCrunch editors will come in handy.

If you’re curious about the judges, here are just a few of the many experts we’ve tapped to pick the Startup Battlefield champion.

• Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin, founder and chief executive of blueMoon, Ethiopia’s first youth agribusiness/agritech incubator and seed investor
• Erik Hersman, CEO of BRCK, a rugged wireless Wi-Fi device designed and engineered in Kenya for use throughout the emerging markets
• Sangu Delle, co-founder and managing director of Africa Health Holdings, based in West Africa and focused on “building Africa’s healthcare future”

And if you’re curious about the stakes, the winning founders receive the Battlefield Cup, US$25,000 in no-equity cash plus a trip for two and the opportunity to compete in Startup Battlefield at a TechCrunch Disrupt in 2019.

While the Startup Battlefield is the crown jewel, it’s by no means the only event of the day. We’ve scheduled an impressive agenda filled with presentations from the region’s leading experts discussing a range of topics. For example, Kola Aina, CEO and founder of Lagos-based Ventures Platform, will be on hand to discuss venture capital investing. And Flutterwave’s IIyinoluwa Aboyeji will share his take on blockchain.

The competitors are busy preparing for battle, the speakers are ready to dive deep on their respective topics. You’re the remaining piece of the puzzle. Apply now for a free ticket to Startup Battlefield Africa 2018 and join us on 11 December in Lagos, Nigeria to celebrate these exceptional African startups.

Despite strong reviews and a fan petition, Netflix said today that it is cancelling “Daredevil” after three seasons. This is the latest Marvel series, after “Luke Cage” and “Iron Fist,” that Netflix has cancelled recently, and is a sign that Marvel TV and Netflix’s multi-series agreement, signed in 2013, may be hitting some bumps.

Centered around a blind lawyer-turned-superhero in New York City, played by Charlie Cox, “Daredevil” was the first series released as part of the Marvel -Netflix deal in 2015. This leaves “Jessica Jones” and “The Punisher” as the two remaining Marvel series on Netflix.

Netflix said in a statement sent to Deadline, which first broke the news, that “we are tremendously proud of the show’s last and final season and although it’s painful for the fans, we feel it best to close this chapter on a high note. We are thankful to our partners at Marvel, showrunner Erik Oleson, the show’s writers, stellar crew, and incredible cast including Charlie Cox as Daredevil himself, and we’re grateful to the fans who have supported the show over the years.”

The streaming service added that the three seasons will remain on Netflix for years, while “the Daredevil will live on in future projects for Marvel,” leaving open the possibility that the character might appear in “Jessica Jones” or “The Punisher.” Another possibility is the series moving to Disney’s upcoming streaming service, Disney+, expected to launch late next year (the Walt Disney Company owns Marvel Entertainment).

The abrupt cancellations of three Marvel series over the last new months may point to hiccups in the partnership between Netflix and Marvel TV. Potential conflicts between the two include the cost of producing Marvel-Netflix shows, the success of Netflix’s own original content, and disagreements about the length of seasons. The Marvel seasons had 13 episodes each, but newer Netflix shows are only 10 episodes per season.

A flurry of digital-first insurers are betting they can surpass industry incumbents with a little help from technology and a lot of help from venture capitalists.

The latest to land a massive check is Bright Health, a Minneapolis-headquartered provider of affordable individual, family and Medicare Advantage healthcare plans in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, New York City, Ohio and Tennessee. The company, founded by the former chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare Bob Sheehy; Kyle Rolfing, the former CEO of UnitedHealth-acquired Definity Health; and Tom Valdivia, another former Definity Health executive, has brought in a $200 million Series C.

The funding values Bright Health at $950 million, according to PitchBook — more than double the $400 million valuation it garnered with its $160 million Series B in June 2017. Sheehy, Bright Health’s CEO, declined to comment on the valuation. New investors Declaration Partners and Meritech Capital participated in the round, with backing from Bessemer Venture Partners, Greycroft, NEA, Redpoint Ventures and others. Bright Health has raised a total of $440 million since early 2016.

VCs have deployed significantly more capital to the insurance technology (insurtech) space in recent years. Startups in the industry, long-known for a serious dearth of innovation, have raked in nearly $3 billion in private capital this year. U.S.-based insurtech startups have raised $2 billion in 2018, a record year for the sector and more than double last year’s total.

Deal count, meanwhile, is swelling. In 2016, there were 72 deals conducted in the space, followed by 86 in 2017 and 94 so far this year, again, according to PitchBook’s data.

Oscar Health, the health insurance provider led by Josh Kushner, is responsible for about 25 percent of the capital invested in U.S. insurtech startups this year. The company has raised a total of $540 million across two notable deals in 2018. The first saw Oscar pulling in $165 million at a $3 billion valuation and the second, announced in August, had Alphabet investing a whopping $375 million. Devoted Health, a Waltham, Mass.-based Medicare Advantage startup, followed up with a massive round of its own. The company nabbed $300 million and announced that it would begin enrolling members to its Medicare Advantage plan in eight Florida counties. Devoted is led by Todd Park, the co-founder of Athenahealth and Castlight Health.

Bright Health co-founders Bob Sheehy, CEO; Tom Valdivia, chief medical officer; and Kyle Rolfing, president

VC’s interest in insurtech isn’t limited to healthcare.

Hippo, which sells home insurance plans at lower premiums, officially launched in 2017 and has brought in $109 million to date. Earlier this month the company announced a $70 million Series C funding round led by Felicis Ventures and Lennar Corporation. Lemonade, which is similarly an insurer focused on homeowners, raised $120 million in a SoftBank-led round late last year. And Root Insurance, an app-based car insurance company founded in 2015, itself raised a $100 million Series D led by Tiger Global Management in August. The financing valued the company at $1 billion.

Together, these companies have raised well over $1 billion this year alone. Why? Because building a health insurance platform is incredibly cash-intensive and particularly difficult given the breadth of incumbents like Aetna or UnitedHealth. Sheehy, considering his 20-year tenure at UnitedHealthcare, may be especially well-positioned to disrupt the industry.

The opportunity here for investors and startups alike is huge; the health insurance market alone is forecasted to be worth more than $1 trillion by 2023. Companies that can leverage technology to create consumer-friendly, efficient and, most importantly, reasonably priced insurance options stand to win big.

As for Bright Health, the company plans to use its $200 million infusion to rapidly expand into new markets, planning to triple its geographic footprint in 2019.

“Bright Health has continued to execute at a fast pace towards our goal of disrupting the old health care model that places insurers at odds with providers,” Sheehy said in a statement. “[Its] current high re-enrollment rate shows that consumers are ready for this improved healthcare experience – especially when it is priced competitively.”