Author: azeeadmin

In its antitrust trial with Epic Games, which has just adjourned, Apple argued it doesn’t evaluate its App Store profit and loss as a standalone business. But today, the company put out new figures that indicate it does have a good understanding of the money that flows through its app marketplace, at the very least. The company has now released an updated version of a study performed by the economists at the Analysis Group, which claims the App Store ecosystem facilitated $643 billion in billings and sales in 2020, up 24% from the $519 billion seen the year prior. The new report focuses on the pandemic impacts to apps and the small business developers the App Store serves, among other things.

It also noted that about 90% of the billings and sales facilitated by the App Store actually took place outside its walls, meaning Apple took no commission on those purchases. This is up from the 85% figure reported last year, and is a figure Apple has been using in antitrust battles to paint a picture of an App Store that facilitates a lot commerce where it doesn’t take a commission.

The study then broke down how the different categories of App Store billings and sales were distributed.

Apple takes a commission on the sales of digital goods and services, which were $86 billion in 2020, or 13% of the total. But another $511 billion came from the sale of physical goods and services through apps — think online shopping, food delivery, ride hailing, etc. — or 80% of the total. These aren’t commissioned. And $46 billion came from in-app advertising, or 7% of the total.

The larger point being made with some of these figures is that, while the dollar amount flowing through apps being commissioned is large, it’s much smaller than most of the business being conducted on the App Store.

The report also noted how much of that business originates from China, which accounted for 47% of total global billings and sales ($300B) versus the U.S.’s 27% ($175+B).

Image Credits: TechCrunch

The study additionally dove into how some App Store categories had been heavily impacted by the pandemic — particularly those apps that helped businesses and schools move online, those that offered ways to shop from your phone, or helped consumers stay entertained and healthy, among other things.

This led to an over 40% increase in billings and sales from apps offering digital goods and services, while sales in the travel and ride hailing sectors decreased by 30%. While the latter may gradually return to pre-pandemic levels, some of the acceleration driven by the pandemic in other categories — like online shopping and grocery delivery — could be here to stay.

To break it down further, general retail grew to $383 billion in 2020, up from $268 billion last year. Food delivery and pickup grew from $31 billion in 2019 to $36 billion in 2021. Grocery shopping jumped from $14 billion to $22 billion. But travel fell from $57 billion in 2019 to $38 billion in 2020, and ride hailing dropped from $40 billion to $26 billion. (None of these categories are commissioned.)

The study then continued with a deep dive into how the App Store aided small businesses.

Highlighting how smaller businesses benefit from a tech giant’s ecosystem is a tactic others have taken to, as well, in order shore up support for their own operations, which have similarly been accused of being monopolies in recent months.

Amazon, for example, raves about the small businesses benefitting from its marketplace and its sales event Prime Day, even as it stands accused of leveraging nonpublic data to compete with those same small business sellers. Facebook, meanwhile, pushed the small business impact angle when Apple’s new privacy protections in iOS 14 allowed customers to opt out of being tracked — and therefore out of Facebook’s personalized ads empire.

In Apple’s case, it’s pointing to the fact that the number of small developers worldwide has grown by 40% since 2015. This group now makes up more than 90% of App Store developers. The study defines this group of “small” developers as those with fewer than 1 million downloads and less than $1 million in earnings across all their apps. It also excludes any developers that never saw more than 1,000 downloads in a year between 2015 and 2020, to ensure the data focuses on businesses, not hobbyists. (This is a slightly different definition than Apple uses for its Small Business Program, we should note.)

Among this group, more than 1 in 5 saw at least an increase in downloads of at least 25% annually since their first full year on the App Store. And 1 in 4 who sold digital goods and services saw an earnings increase of at least 25% annually.

The study also connected being on the App Store with growing a business’s revenue, noting that only 23% of large developers (those with more than $1 million in earnings in 2020) had already earned more than $1 million back in 2015. 42% were active on the App Store in 2015 but hadn’t crossed the $1 million threshold, and another 35% were not even on the App Store — an indication their success has been far more recent.

The research additionally identified over 75 businesses in the U.S. and Europe, where iOS was essential to their business, that went public or were acquired since 2011. Their valuation totaled nearly $500 billion.

Finally, the study examined how apps transact outside their home market, as around 40% of all downloads of apps from small developers came from outside their home countries and nearly 80% were operating in multiple storefronts.

Image Credits: Apple WWDC 2021 imagery 

While the antitrust scrutiny may have pushed Apple into to commissioning this type of App Store research last year, it’s interesting to see the company is now updating the data on an annual basis to give the industry a deeper view into the App Store compared with the general developer revenue figure it used to trot out at various events and occasions.

Like last year’s study, the updated research has been released in the days leading up to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference. It’s a time of the year when Apple aims to renew its bond with the developer community as it rolls out new software development kits (SDKs), application programming interfaces (API)s, software and other tools — enhancements it wants remid developers are made possible, in part, because of its App Store fees.

Today, Apple notes it has more than 250,000 APIs included in 40 SDKs. At WWDC 2021, it will host hundreds of virtual sessions, 1-on-1 developer labs, and highlight App Store favorites.

“Developers on the App Store prove every day that there is no more innovative, resilient or dynamic marketplace on earth than the app economy,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook, in a statement about the research. “The apps we’ve relied on through the pandemic have been life-changing in so many ways — from groceries delivered to our homes, to teaching tools for parents and educators, to an imaginative and ever-expanding universe of games and entertainment. The result isn’t just incredible apps for users: it’s jobs, it’s opportunity, and it’s untold innovation that will power global economies for many years to come,” he added.

It’s still a bit of a legal maze, but more cities are coming around to the idea of letting local home chefs bring in more income by selling homecooked meals to those nearby.

Shef is a marketplace meant to help these home chefs connect with customers, handle orders, and get the food delivered — and they’ve just raised $20M to get it done.

The company is announcing its Series A round this morning, led by Andreessen Horowitz and backed by Y Combinator, Craft Ventures, M13, and a bevy of celebrities including Padma Lakshmi, Chef Aarón Sánchez, Katy Perry, Tiffany Haddish, Orlando Bloom, and NBA All-Star Andre Iguodala.

As part of the round, Andreessen Horowitz GP (and former OpenTable CEO) Jeff Jordan will join Shef’s board.

Because of varying local laws, Shef works a bit differently from market to market. In some places, for example, they’re able to tap local delivery networks to get meals the last mile; in others, chefs handle deliveries themselves.

Across all markets, though, the ordering process boils down to: pick a chef, order what you want a few days in advance (everything is done via pre-orders so chefs know exactly what they’ll need each day — it’s not an on-a-whim kind of thing), then heat it up upon arrival.

Image Credits: Shef

But whether or not a service like this is even allowed to exist varies from place to place. Even in California where a relatively new statewide law allows home cooks to sell their goods, the final say (and the details of the implementation) comes down to each county. In many places, “homecooking” still requires getting access to a commercial kitchen.

Shef co-founders Alvin Salehi and Joey Grassia don’t shy away from the legal challenges — in a chat earlier this week, they told me that they expect much of the funds they raised to go toward two things: figuring out how to get services like theirs legalized in more markets (they’ve hired Danielle Merida, former General Counsel for TaskRabbit, to help there), and to onboard chefs as those new markets come online.

The company says they currently have over 12,000 home chefs on their wait list, with that number ballooning as the pandemic shuttered restaurants around the country. Each chef they bring on to the platform goes through a 150-step onboarding process, including a food safety certification exam and food quality assessment.

“We want to be able to expand the services to as many people as possible, because so many people need it,” Salehi tells me. “But it takes resources to be able to do that effectively, and most importantly, to do that safely.”

Shef is currently live in the Bay Area, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Seattle, and New York, with plans to roll out in new markets… well, as soon as they can.

Facebook said it’s preparing to launch a new application programming interface (API) designed specifically for access by the research community. The API was announced during Facebook’s F8 developer conference today, and is meant to address issues that arose from changes made to Facebook’s platform in 2018 following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. That event forced the company to re-evaluate the access developers had to its user data.

Over the past three years, Facebook says it has deprecated thousands of APIs to reduce the risk of future data misuse and breaches.

It also renewed its agreements with developers on the platform to ensure they were “committed to the same values as we are,” noted Facebook VP of platform partnerships, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, during the keynote address.

However, Facebook admitted these changes had an impact on the academic research community, which had before been able to more broadly access Facebook data.

To address this, the company announced it’s soon launching a Researcher API, which will allow researchers to again analyze Facebook data with the goal of understanding the social network’s “influence on society,” Papamiltiadis noted.

“We wanted to make sure we got this right, and we were intentional about developing the best products to support researchers, while keeping people’s data safe and secure,” he said.

The Researcher API will offer real-time access to public Pages, Groups, Events and post-level U.S. data in a privacy-protected environment, the exec said. But further details were not offered, including, for example, how researchers would be vetted or whether there would be any fees associated with the data access.

The API will become available to the academic community later this year, Facebook said.

Seven days, 168 hours or 10,080 minutes — no matter how you count it, there’s just one week left until the global mobility tech community gathers on June 9 for TC Sessions: Mobility 2021. If you’re one of the brilliant minds focused on changing the future of transportation, grab your pass and join your tribe of revolutionaries.

Whether you’re into AI, AVs, EVs, robotics (not everything’s an acronym around here) or hunting potential unicorns, you’ll gain insight from the leading voices in mobility. We packed the event agenda with an exciting variety of interactive presentations, panel discussions and breakout sessions. Bring your questions and join the conversation.

Here’s a peek at just some of the topics and people you can enjoy.

Supercharging Self-Driving Super Vision: Few startups were as prescient as Scale AI when it came to anticipating the need for massive sets of tagged data for use in AI. Co-founder and CEO Alex Wang also made a great bet on addressing the needs of lidar-sensing companies early on, which has made the company instrumental in deploying AV networks. We’ll hear about what it takes to make sense of sensor data in driverless cars and look at where the industry is headed.

Innovating Future Mobility for Global Scale: Learn how the California Mobility Center’s (CMC) model of bringing its clients’ new technologies to market is new and innovative, going beyond a typical demonstration or pilot program, to the point of product launch and sustaining market viability. Hear from an expert panel about how the CMC’s programming is unique, innovative, and game-changing.

Building an Electric Powerhouse: Rimac Automobili, today known for its electric hypercars and battery and powertrain development, began like so many storied startups do — in a garage. Mate Rimac has taken his company from tiny upstart to a 1,000-person company that has attracted Porsche as an investor and customer. And more is coming. We’ll talk to Mate about building a startup, his views on the EVs, and what is next for the company.

Don’t stress out about missing out — this is a no FOMO situation. Your pass includes live streaming and VOD access. That kind of flexibility lets you attend live and still get some work done at your desk. VOD lets you tap into any of the sessions you miss.

But don’t miss out on the 30 game-changing mobility startups showcasing their tech and talent in the expo area. Visit their virtual booths, ask for a demo, or strike up a collaboration. You’ll also get a chance to see them pitch during the Startup Pitch Feedback Session (listed in the agenda). Those feedback sessions can help you hone your own pitch, so check it out and take notes.

TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 takes place in just one week. Buy your pass today and keep the revolution rolling.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

DevOps platform GitLab today announced that it has acquired UnReview, a machine learning-based tool that helps software teams recommend the best reviewers for when developers want to check in their latest code. GitLab, which is looking to bring more of these machine learning capabilities to its platform, will integrate UnReview’s capabilities into its own code review workflow. The two companies did not disclose the price of the acquisition.

“Last year we decided that the future of DevOps includes ML/AI, both within the DevOps lifecycle as well as the growth of adoption of ML/AI with our customers,” David DeSanto, GitLab’s senior director, Product Management – Dev & Sec, told me. He noted that when GitLab recently surveyed its customers, 75% of the teams said they are already using AI/ML. The company started by adding a bot to the platform that can automatically label issues, which then led to the team meeting with UnReview and, finally, acquiring it.

Image Credits: GitLab

“Our primary focus for the second half of this year in bringing on UnReview is to help automate the selection of code reviewers. It’s a very interesting problem to solve, even we at GitLab occasionally end up picking the wrong reviewers based off of what people know,” DeSanto noted.

GitLab launched its original code review components last year. As Wayne Haber, GitLab’s director of Engineering, noted, that was still a very manual process. Even with the new system, teams still retain full control over which reviewers will be assigned to a merge request, but the tool will automatically — and transparently — rank potential reviewers based on who the system believes is best suited to this task.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to share my passion for data science and machine learning with GitLab and its community,” said Alexander Chueshev, UnReview’s founder (and now a senior full stack engineer at GitLab). “I look forward to enhancing the user experience by playing a role in integrating UnReview into the GitLab platform and extending machine learning and artificial intelligence into additional DevOps stages in the future.”

DeSanto noted that GitLab now has quite a bit of experience in acquiring companies and integrating them into its stack. “We’re always looking to acquire strong teams and strong concepts that can help accelerate our roadmap or strategy or help the platform in general,” he said. “And you can see it over the last couple of years of acquisitions. When we were looking at extending what we did in security, we acquired two leaders in the security space to help build that portfolio out. And that’s fully integrated today. […] In the case of this, UnReview is doing something that we thought we may need to do in the future. They had already built it, they were able to show the value of it, and it became a good partnership between the two companies, which then led to this acquisition.”

One interesting wrinkle here is that GitLab offers both a hosted SaaS service and allows users to run their own on-premises systems as well. Running an ML service like UnReview on-premises isn’t necessarily something that most businesses are equipped to do, so at first, UnReview will be integrated with the SaaS service. The team is still looking at how to best bring it to its self-hosted user base, including a hybrid model.

Iterative, an open-source startup that is building an enterprise AI platform to help companies operationalize their models, today announced that it has raised a $20 million Series A round led by 468 Capital and Mesosphere co-founder Florian Leibert. Previous investors True Ventures and Afore Capital also participated in this round, which brings the company’s total funding to $25 million.

The core idea behind Iterative is to provide data scientists and data engineers with a platform that closely resembles a modern GitOps-driven development stack.

After spending time in academia, Iterative co-founder and CEO Dmitry Petrov joined Microsoft as a data scientist on the Bing team in 2013. He noted that the industry has changed quite a bit since then. While early on, the questions were about how to build machine learning models, today the problem is how to build predictable processes around machine learning, especially in large organizations with sizable teams. “How can we make the team productive not the person? This is a new challenge for the entire industry,” he said.

Big companies (like Microsoft) were able to build their own proprietary tooling and processes to build their AI operations, Petrov noted, but that’s not an option for smaller companies.

Currently, Iterative’s stack consists of a couple of different components that sit on top of tools like GitLab and GitHub. These include DVC for running experiments and data and model versioning, CML, the company’s CI/CD platform for machine learning, and the company’s newest product, Studio, its SaaS platform for enabling collaboration between teams. Instead of reinventing the wheel, Iterative essentially provides data scientists who already use GitHub or GitLab to collaborate on their source code with a tool like DVC Studio that extends this to help them collaborate on data and metrics, too.

Image Credits: Iterative

“DVC Studio enables machine learning developers to run hundreds of experiments with full transparency, giving other developers in the organization the ability to collaborate fully in the process,” said Dmitry Petrov, CEO and founder of Iterative. “The funding today will help us bring more innovative products and services into our ecosystem.”

Petrov stressed that he wants to build an ecosystem of tools, not a monolithic platform. When the company closed this current funding round about three months ago, Iterative had about 30 employees, many of which were previously active in the open-source community around its projects. Today, that number is already closer to 60.

“Data, ML and AI are becoming an essential part of the industry and IT infrastructure,” said Leibert, general partner at 468 Capital. “Companies with great open source adoption and bottom-up market strategy, like Iterative, are going to define the standards for AI tools and processes around building ML models.”

F8 Refresh, Facebook’s annual developer conference with a new twist — it’s more pared down than in years past, and virtual — is going to be kicking off later today, and ahead of that Facebook is unveiling some news: all businesses can now use the Messenger API to interact with users on Instagram.

The feature was first announced as a closed beta in October with select businesses — 30 developers and 700 brands in all. Now, any brand or organization using Instagram to interact with customers can use it.

The key point with this tool is that this integration represents a significant step forward in how companies can leverage the wider Facebook platform.

In the past, a brand that wanted to interact with customers either needed to do so directly through Instagram, or via Facebook’s unified business inbox, which are limited how they can be used, especially by companies that might be handling large volumes of traffic, or keen to be able to link up those customer interactions with wider customer service databases.

The Messenger API, by contrast, can be integrated into any third-party application that a company or brand might be using to manage communication, whether it’s a social media management platform like Hootsuite or Sprinklr, or a CRM application that can bring in other kinds of customer data, for example warranty information or loyalty card numbers.

Facebook noted that one of the key takeaways from the closed beta was that brands and companies wanted better ways of managing communications from one place; and another was that many of them are making more investments in software to better manage their communications and workflows. So extending the Messenger API to Instagram was a feature that was long needed in that regard.

The move to expand the Messenger API to Instagram makes sense in a couple of different ways. For starters, Facebook has been turning up the volume for some time on how it leverages Instagram’s commercial potential, starting with advertising but expanding into areas like conversation between brands or businesses and users, and most recently, enhanced shopping features. Facebook also notes that 90% of Instagram users today follow at least one business, so creating a better route for managing those conversations is a logical move.

At the same time, Facebook has been working on ways of better linking up its various apps and platforms — which include Facebook itself, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus, not just for users to interact across them but to help businesses leverage them in a more unified social strategy. Rolling out the Messenger API — created originally to help brands interact with bots and manage conversations on Messenger — to include support for Instagram fits into both of those bigger strategies.

And for those wondering why it’s being announced ahead of F8 Refresh? Perhaps it’s a hint of what is the social network’s bigger priorities for this year’s event: partnerships to enable more business to take place on the social networking giant’s platforms.

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

Extra Crunch members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie,

I’ve been hearing a lot about International Entrepreneur Parole lately. I’m wondering if both my co-founder, who is currently on an H-1B that we’re in the process of transferring to our startup, and an employee on STEM OPT, who we’re making a co-founder, would be eligible to apply. How does parole work and how long does it take?

Also, we are close to securing $200,000 in investments. Do we have to raise another $50,000 to sponsor someone for parole?

— Looking for Answers in Los Altos

Dear Looking,

Thanks for reaching out to me with your International Entrepreneur Parole (IEP) questions! What makes IEP so exciting is its flexibility: Up to three co-founders of a startup can self-petition for IEP, which means they don’t need an employer sponsor. Unlike an H-1B or another work visa, this is great because the applicant can be the boss of the company. Moreover, if your startup has raised less than $250,000, your team can still qualify for IEP by submitting evidence of your startup’s potential for rapid growth and job creation. Take a listen to my podcast episode on IEP, which goes over the process for applying and answers some of the most frequently asked questions that I receive.

If your co-founders pursue IEP, I highly recommend, as usual, that they work with an immigration attorney. It’s especially important here because the stakes are so high for your company and because this is a new program, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers have little experience reviewing IEP applications. Additionally, your startup’s fundraising falls short of $250,000 from U.S. investors, so you’ll need strong legal arguments about your qualifications.

How new is this program? Well, it already has a lot of history. Even though IEP has been available since 2017, the previous administration had unsuccessfully tried to eliminate it. Only recently did the Department of Homeland Security withdraw the proposal to rescind the IEP program, which has been available since 2017, and the the Biden administration announced it would fully implement it.

A 2020 Congressional Research Report on “Immigration Parole” noted that USCIS had received 28 IEP applications from the time it began them through February 10, 2020. Of those, only one was approved, 22 were denied, three were withdrawn and two were pending.

We don’t know exactly how long USCIS will take to make a determination on IEP applications — and USCIS said in a recent stakeholder meeting that there is no processing time yet. My law firm is in the process of submitting several applications on behalf of clients and hope to have decisions soon. We’ll keep you posted!

Image Credits: Joanna Buniak / Sophie Alcorn (opens in a new window)

How parole works

The secretary of Homeland Security and agencies within Homeland Security, including USCIS and Customs and Border Patrol, have the ability to grant parole, which allows entry to and a temporary stay in the United States. Parole has traditionally been granted for urgent humanitarian reasons, such as to persecuted refugees or those seeking medical treatment in the U.S., or to serve a public benefit, such as providing disaster assistance, cooperating with law enforcement or testifying at a trial.

Created by the Obama administration after Congress failed to create a startup visa, IEP allows entrepreneurs who provide a “significant public benefit” by creating jobs for American workers and expanding the U.S. economy to temporarily stay in the U.S. to grow their startup. If USCIS approves an IEP application, the entrepreneur will receive a parole document that is valid initially for 30 months.

Parole is not a non-immigrant (temporary) visa status, which means your co-founders cannot simply file to change their status from an H-1B or F-1 to IEP while living in the U.S. To be granted parole, your founders must leave the U.S. and re-enter and get a stamp by a border officer to be “paroled” into the U.S.

If an entrepreneur is approved for IEP, then her/his spouse and dependent children (unmarried and under 21 years) are also eligible for parole during that same period. Once they arrive in the U.S., spouses are eligible to file for a work permit that would allow them to get a job or start their own business.

IEP eligibility requirements

To qualify for IEP, each of your co-founders will need to show that:

• Your startup is a U.S. corporation that is less than five years old.
• She/he has at least a 10% ownership stake in the startup.
• She/he is central to and plays an active role in the startup. I recommend that your co-founders have a C-suite title, such as chief executive officer, chief operations officer or chief technology officer, and/or a senior-level title, such as president.
• Your startup has received at least $250,000 from qualified U.S. investors or at least $100,000 in grants or awards from federal, state or local governments.

If your startup has only received $200,000, your co-founders will need to provide compelling evidence of your company’s potential for rapid growth and job creation, such as its users or customers, revenue, social impact, far reaching or national scope, or positive local or regional effects. Your attorney can support you with these legal arguments.

To extend IEP for another 30 months, your co-founders will need to show that:

• She/he continues to play a central and active role with the company.
• She/he has at least a 5% ownership stake.

And one of the following:

• Your startup has received at least $500,000 from qualified investments and/or qualified government grants or awards.
• Your startup has created at least five full-time jobs with the startup entity during the initial parole period.
• Your startup has at least $500,000 in annual revenue in the United States and averaged 20% in annual revenue growth during the initial parole period.

If your startup entity partially meets funding, job creation or annual revenue criteria, your co-founders must provide compelling evidence that the startup entity continues to show substantial potential for rapid growth and job creation with the support of your attorney.

Although there is no wage requirement under the IEP program (like there is for H-1B visa), each of your co-founders will need to have a household income that is greater than 400% of the federal poverty line for his or her household size as defined by the Department of Health and Human Services. For example, based on today’s requirements, a family of four would need to have a household income of more than $106,000.

My hope is that by the time your co-founders are ready to extend their IEP, there will already be new laws in place for a startup visa and green card pathway for startup founders. I was honored to work on this draft legislation with Jeff Farrah of the National Venture Capital Association, and hopefully we’ll see some announcements soon!

Good luck!

Sophie

Have a question for Sophie? Ask it here. We reserve the right to edit your submission for clarity and/or space.

The information provided in “Dear Sophie” is general information and not legal advice. For more information on the limitations of “Dear Sophie,” please view our full disclaimer. You can contact Sophie directly at Alcorn Immigration Law.

Sophie’s podcast, Immigration Law for Tech Startups, is available on all major platforms. If you’d like to be a guest, she’s accepting applications!

SpaceX is going to be providing more rides to private astronauts to the International Space Station, on top of the previously announced mission set to take place as early as next January. All four of these flights will be for Axiom, a private commercial spaceflight and space station company, and they’re set to take place between early next year through 2023.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 spacecraft make up the first commercial launch system certified for transporting humans to the ISS, and they’ve already delivered three groups of NASA astronauts to the orbital lab, including one demo crew for its final qualification test, and two operational crews to live and work on the station. In May, Axiom and NASA revealed the details of their AX-1 mission, the first all-private launch to the ISS, which will carry four passengers to the station on a Crew Dragon to live and work in space for a duration of eight days in total.

NASA and SpaceX will be providing training to all four of the Axiom crews set to make the trip to the station. And while neither SpaceX or Axiom has shared more details yet  on what the other three missions will entail, or when they’re set to take place, four missions in two years technically absorbs all the existing capacity NASA has allocated for private astronaut missions, which is set at 2 per year, for 2022 and 2023.

One private astronaut flight to the ISS is already set for 2021: Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa booked a ride to the station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket for early December. Maezawa booked through Space Adventures, which has already provided a handful of trips for deep-pocketed private astronauts over the course of the past couple of decades.

Axiom meanwhile envisions a somewhat less niche, and more continually active future for commercial orbital space stations. The company is already working on a commercial module to be added to the existing ISS, and has designs on building a fully private successor to the station in future. Booking four trips with multiple crew members in two years goes a long way towards showing there’s more than just very sporadic demand from eccentric rich people for this kind of offering.

Faction Technology founder and CEO Ain McKendrick didn’t have the $1 billion or the time that a typical automotive program might need to design and manufacture an EV that could be used for driverless delivery.

So, he turned to power sports to fulfill his vision of a micro-logistics service that can be used for driverless delivery or rented and operated by a human for jaunts around the city. Now, with prototypes built and an ambition to scale, McKendrick has raised $4.3 million in seed funding led by Trucks VC and Fifty Years.

“We keep doing the same things over and over again,” said McKendrick, who was previously vp of engineering at the now shuttered self-driving truck startup Starsky Robotics. “We keep taking legacy vehicles and trying to retrofit them for driverless technologies. Rather than do the same stuff over and over again, how about we do it a little bit differently?”

Faction, which launched last year and graduated this winter from the Y Combinator accelerator program, started with a three-wheel motorcycle platform. While the company is building the chassis from the ground up, McKendrick says it can be accomplished at a fraction of the cost of manufacturing an automobile. The vehicle costs about $30,000 in all, which McKendrick said has a payback period of two years.

These are motorcycle class vehicles, which means they are legal for city streets and highways but don’t have some of the same requirements that passenger vehicles do.

The vehicles can deliver cargo, which is accomplished through a combination of autonomy and a remote worker using teleoperations to assist. Faction, which is about a 10-person team, is working with other companies for the autonomous vehicle stack. However, it has developed a core platform with safety features that will step in if the autonomous system fails.

“The core technology that we’re building for these vehicles is actually something we aspire to bring to other vehicle formats, as the company grows over time,” he said, adding that they have developed a digital vehicle architecture and a teleoperation system, which work together.

Image Credits: Faction Technology

Delivery, or micro-logistics as McKendrick calls it, is the first focus of the company. However, the founder also sees an opportunity to build out fleets of its 3-wheeled vehicles and rent them out to people who want to use them for three- to five-mile trips around cities, or even longer distance from a city to a nearby suburb. These vehicles would be nearly the same with a few key differences like a glass canopy for the human operator versions. The delivery vehicles would have an opaque canopy.

McKendrick envisions users being able to hail one of its vehicles through an app. The vehicle would then drive itself to the user. Once they step inside, it would be manually operated by the human driver.

McKendrick’s pitch is that users get all the convenience of a scooter or bike share, but have weather protection and highway capability.

“So if you need to run from say, San Francisco down to San Francisco Airport, this is the perfect format of vehicle to do it for you, as opposed to trying to do more four-door sedans and larger format vehicles.”

Under the driverless delivery applications, the user would be charged on a per-mile basis. McKendrick said they may charge by the hour for the vehicle rentals.

The company is working now to form partnerships with manufacturers of light electric vehicles to scale operational fleets and plans to announce the first customer trials later this year. McKendrick said the goal is to deploy a small fleet of about 50 vehicles for the micro-logistics pilot and start some early rider trials by the fourth quarter.