Author: azeeadmin

The lackluster performance of shares in companies that have combined with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) in recent quarters took another hit yesterday when Lordstown Motors reported its first-quarter results.

Lordstown, part of a wave of electric-vehicle companies that raised capital and went public via SPACs, announced lower-than-expected 2021 vehicle production, higher capital expenditures (capex) for the year, and the need to raise more capital. For holders of its equity, the news was a disappointment, as TechCrunch explored after the results dropped.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. 

Read it every morning on Extra Crunch or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

Shares of Lordstown are down 14% in pre-market trading after falling in after-hours trading yesterday evening.

But there’s more to the Lordstown mess than merely a single bad quarter. What the company reported is somewhat contradicted by its SPAC deck, a document that every startup combining with a blank-check company releases. They are often cheery and full of good news. With just a little capital, the company in question is going to scale rapidly in the coming years, with improving profitability to boot.

Then the deal is sold, capital is raised, entities combine, and the startup in question becomes public, with earnings calls commencing on a quarterly cadence. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

Lordstown’s earnings mess and the resulting dissonance with its own predictions are notable on their own, but they also point to what could be shifting sentiment regarding SPAC combinations. Returns are lackluster, the SEC is worried about too-rosy forecasts and Congress is looking into the boom.

We’re taking a look into Lordstown’s results this morning, but don’t think that we’re only singling out one company; others fit the bill, and more will in time.

Whoops

The lackluster performance of shares in companies that have combined with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) in recent quarters took another hit yesterday when Lordstown Motors reported its first-quarter results.

Lordstown, part of a wave of electric-vehicle companies that raised capital and went public via SPACs, announced lower-than-expected 2021 vehicle production, higher capital expenditures (capex) for the year, and the need to raise more capital. For holders of its equity, the news was a disappointment, as TechCrunch explored after the results dropped.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. 

Read it every morning on Extra Crunch or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

Shares of Lordstown are down 14% in pre-market trading after falling in after-hours trading yesterday evening.

But there’s more to the Lordstown mess than merely a single bad quarter. What the company reported is somewhat contradicted by its SPAC deck, a document that every startup combining with a blank-check company releases. They are often cheery and full of good news. With just a little capital, the company in question is going to scale rapidly in the coming years, with improving profitability to boot.

Then the deal is sold, capital is raised, entities combine, and the startup in question becomes public, with earnings calls commencing on a quarterly cadence. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

Lordstown’s earnings mess and the resulting dissonance with its own predictions are notable on their own, but they also point to what could be shifting sentiment regarding SPAC combinations. Returns are lackluster, the SEC is worried about too-rosy forecasts and Congress is looking into the boom.

We’re taking a look into Lordstown’s results this morning, but don’t think that we’re only singling out one company; others fit the bill, and more will in time.

Whoops

The lackluster performance of shares in companies that have combined with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) in recent quarters took another hit yesterday when Lordstown Motors reported its first-quarter results.

Lordstown, part of a wave of electric-vehicle companies that raised capital and went public via SPACs, announced lower-than-expected 2021 vehicle production, higher capital expenditures (capex) for the year, and the need to raise more capital. For holders of its equity, the news was a disappointment, as TechCrunch explored after the results dropped.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. 

Read it every morning on Extra Crunch or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

Shares of Lordstown are down 14% in pre-market trading after falling in after-hours trading yesterday evening.

But there’s more to the Lordstown mess than merely a single bad quarter. What the company reported is somewhat contradicted by its SPAC deck, a document that every startup combining with a blank-check company releases. They are often cheery and full of good news. With just a little capital, the company in question is going to scale rapidly in the coming years, with improving profitability to boot.

Then the deal is sold, capital is raised, entities combine, and the startup in question becomes public, with earnings calls commencing on a quarterly cadence. That’s where the rubber meets the road.

Lordstown’s earnings mess and the resulting dissonance with its own predictions are notable on their own, but they also point to what could be shifting sentiment regarding SPAC combinations. Returns are lackluster, the SEC is worried about too-rosy forecasts and Congress is looking into the boom.

We’re taking a look into Lordstown’s results this morning, but don’t think that we’re only singling out one company; others fit the bill, and more will in time.

Whoops

eYs3D Microelectronics, a fabless design house that focuses on end-to-end software and hardware systems for computer vision technology, has raised a $7 million Series A. Participants included ARM IoT Capital, WI Harper and Marubun Corporation, who will each serve as strategic investors.

Based in Taipei, Taiwan, eYs3D was spun out of Etron, a fabless IC and system-in-package (SiP) design firm, in 2016. It will use its new funding to build its embedded chip business in new markets. The company’s technology, including integrated circuits, 3D sensors, camera modules and AI-based software, have a wide range of applications, such as robotics, touchless controls, autonomous vehicles and smart retail. eYs3D’s products have been used in the Facebook Oculus Rift S and Valve Index virtual reality headsets, and Techman Robots.

ARM, the microprocessor company, will integrate eYs3D’s chips into its CPU and NPUs. WI Harper, a cross-border investment firm with offices in Taipei, Beijing and San Francisco, will give eYs3D access to its international network of industrial partners. Marubun Corporation, a Japan-based company that distributes semiconductors and other electronic components, will open new distribution channels for eYs3D.

In a press statement, ARM IoT Capital chairman Peter Hsieh said, “As we look to the future, enhanced computer vision support plays a key role in ARM’s AI architecture and deployment. eYs3D’s innovative 3D computer vision capability can offer the market major benefits, and we are pleased to partner with the company and invest in the creation of more AI-capable vision processors.”

The new funding will also be used to expand eYs3D’s product development and launch a series of 3D computer vision modules. It will also work with new business partners to expand its platform and hire more talent.

eYs3D’s chief strategy officer James Wang told TechCrunch that the global chip shortage and Taiwan’s drought haven’t significantly impacted the company’s business or production plans, because it works with Etron as its integrated circuits manufacturing service.

“Etron Technology is one of the major accounts for the Taiwanese foundry sector and has strong relationships with the foundries, so eYs3D can receive products for its customers as required,” he said. “Meanwhile, eYs3D works closly with its major customers to schedule a just-in-time supply chain for their production pipelines.”

The company’s systems combine silicon design and algorithms to manage information collected from different sensor sources, including thermal, 3D and neural network perception. Its technology is capable of supporting visual simultaneous location and mapping (vSLAM), object feature depth recognition, and gesture-based commands.

Yang said eYs3D can provide end-to-end services, from integrated circuit design to ready-to-use products, and works closely with clients to determine what they need. For example, it offered its chip solution to an autonomous robot company for obstacle avoidance and people-tracing features.

“Since their expertise is in robotic motor controls and mechanicals, they needed a more complete solution for a design module for 3D sensing, as well as object and people recognition. We provided them with one of our 3D depth camera solutions and SDK along with middleware algorithm samples for their validation,” said Yang. “The customer took our design package and seamlessly integrated our 3D depth camera solution for proof-of-concept within a short period of time. Next, we helped them to retrofit the camera design to fit in their robot body prior to commercialization of the robot.”

eYs3D Microelectronics, a fabless design house that focuses on end-to-end software and hardware systems for computer vision technology, has raised a $7 million Series A. Participants included ARM IoT Capital, WI Harper and Marubun Corporation, who will each serve as strategic investors.

Based in Taipei, Taiwan, eYs3D was spun out of Etron, a fabless IC and system-in-package (SiP) design firm, in 2016. It will use its new funding to build its embedded chip business in new markets. The company’s technology, including integrated circuits, 3D sensors, camera modules and AI-based software, have a wide range of applications, such as robotics, touchless controls, autonomous vehicles and smart retail. eYs3D’s products have been used in the Facebook Oculus Rift S and Valve Index virtual reality headsets, and Techman Robots.

ARM, the microprocessor company, will integrate eYs3D’s chips into its CPU and NPUs. WI Harper, a cross-border investment firm with offices in Taipei, Beijing and San Francisco, will give eYs3D access to its international network of industrial partners. Marubun Corporation, a Japan-based company that distributes semiconductors and other electronic components, will open new distribution channels for eYs3D.

In a press statement, ARM IoT Capital chairman Peter Hsieh said, “As we look to the future, enhanced computer vision support plays a key role in ARM’s AI architecture and deployment. eYs3D’s innovative 3D computer vision capability can offer the market major benefits, and we are pleased to partner with the company and invest in the creation of more AI-capable vision processors.”

The new funding will also be used to expand eYs3D’s product development and launch a series of 3D computer vision modules. It will also work with new business partners to expand its platform and hire more talent.

eYs3D’s chief strategy officer James Wang told TechCrunch that the global chip shortage and Taiwan’s drought haven’t significantly impacted the company’s business or production plans, because it works with Etron as its integrated circuits manufacturing service.

“Etron Technology is one of the major accounts for the Taiwanese foundry sector and has strong relationships with the foundries, so eYs3D can receive products for its customers as required,” he said. “Meanwhile, eYs3D works closly with its major customers to schedule a just-in-time supply chain for their production pipelines.”

The company’s systems combine silicon design and algorithms to manage information collected from different sensor sources, including thermal, 3D and neural network perception. Its technology is capable of supporting visual simultaneous location and mapping (vSLAM), object feature depth recognition, and gesture-based commands.

Yang said eYs3D can provide end-to-end services, from integrated circuit design to ready-to-use products, and works closely with clients to determine what they need. For example, it offered its chip solution to an autonomous robot company for obstacle avoidance and people-tracing features.

“Since their expertise is in robotic motor controls and mechanicals, they needed a more complete solution for a design module for 3D sensing, as well as object and people recognition. We provided them with one of our 3D depth camera solutions and SDK along with middleware algorithm samples for their validation,” said Yang. “The customer took our design package and seamlessly integrated our 3D depth camera solution for proof-of-concept within a short period of time. Next, we helped them to retrofit the camera design to fit in their robot body prior to commercialization of the robot.”

eYs3D Microelectronics, a fabless design house that focuses on end-to-end software and hardware systems for computer vision technology, has raised a $7 million Series A. Participants included ARM IoT Capital, WI Harper and Marubun Corporation, who will each serve as strategic investors.

Based in Taipei, Taiwan, eYs3D was spun out of Etron, a fabless IC and system-in-package (SiP) design firm, in 2016. It will use its new funding to build its embedded chip business in new markets. The company’s technology, including integrated circuits, 3D sensors, camera modules and AI-based software, have a wide range of applications, such as robotics, touchless controls, autonomous vehicles and smart retail. eYs3D’s products have been used in the Facebook Oculus Rift S and Valve Index virtual reality headsets, and Techman Robots.

ARM, the microprocessor company, will integrate eYs3D’s chips into its CPU and NPUs. WI Harper, a cross-border investment firm with offices in Taipei, Beijing and San Francisco, will give eYs3D access to its international network of industrial partners. Marubun Corporation, a Japan-based company that distributes semiconductors and other electronic components, will open new distribution channels for eYs3D.

In a press statement, ARM IoT Capital chairman Peter Hsieh said, “As we look to the future, enhanced computer vision support plays a key role in ARM’s AI architecture and deployment. eYs3D’s innovative 3D computer vision capability can offer the market major benefits, and we are pleased to partner with the company and invest in the creation of more AI-capable vision processors.”

The new funding will also be used to expand eYs3D’s product development and launch a series of 3D computer vision modules. It will also work with new business partners to expand its platform and hire more talent.

eYs3D’s chief strategy officer James Wang told TechCrunch that the global chip shortage and Taiwan’s drought haven’t significantly impacted the company’s business or production plans, because it works with Etron as its integrated circuits manufacturing service.

“Etron Technology is one of the major accounts for the Taiwanese foundry sector and has strong relationships with the foundries, so eYs3D can receive products for its customers as required,” he said. “Meanwhile, eYs3D works closly with its major customers to schedule a just-in-time supply chain for their production pipelines.”

The company’s systems combine silicon design and algorithms to manage information collected from different sensor sources, including thermal, 3D and neural network perception. Its technology is capable of supporting visual simultaneous location and mapping (vSLAM), object feature depth recognition, and gesture-based commands.

Yang said eYs3D can provide end-to-end services, from integrated circuit design to ready-to-use products, and works closely with clients to determine what they need. For example, it offered its chip solution to an autonomous robot company for obstacle avoidance and people-tracing features.

“Since their expertise is in robotic motor controls and mechanicals, they needed a more complete solution for a design module for 3D sensing, as well as object and people recognition. We provided them with one of our 3D depth camera solutions and SDK along with middleware algorithm samples for their validation,” said Yang. “The customer took our design package and seamlessly integrated our 3D depth camera solution for proof-of-concept within a short period of time. Next, we helped them to retrofit the camera design to fit in their robot body prior to commercialization of the robot.”

Hyro, formerly Airbud, is today announcing the close of a $10.5 million Series A financing round led by Spero Ventures, with participation from Twilio, and Mindset Ventures. Existing investors Hanaco Ventures, Spider Capital and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator also participated in the round.

Hyro is an enterprise application, currently aimed at the healthcare sector but with eyes on new verticals, that adds an intelligent layer of voice chat or text chat to any application or website.

The company calls itself an adaptive communications platform, which essentially means that customers use plug-and-play tools to get information to end-users in a conversational way, whether that be voice or chat. It can integrate with contact centers, chatbots, SMS and other forms of communication. Essentially, Hyro targets information-heavy industries that often have to communicate with end-users.

This type of scenario, in the words of cofounder Israel Krush, usually leads to a terrible experience for the end user and a costly, inefficient process for the organization. The problem was no more apparent than in the healthcare sector during the pandemic. End users would flood platforms for information regarding the virus, the vaccine, testing, etc., but ask those redundant questions in myriad ways. On the enterprise side, the answers to those questions were changing over time.

Hyro allows these organizations to easily edit and change that information and deliver it to end users in an efficient way. But perhaps most importantly, Hyro scrapes information from the website to set up its own conversational tree, so the client doesn’t have to do a lot of heavy lifting up front.

Krush says that the problem is big, which means that the space is crowded. He views Twilio’s participation in this round of fundraising as a differentiator.

“The market is crowded so it’s really hard to differentiate yourself from the crowd,” said Krush. “Even though we have great technology, everyone says they have great technology. Twilio coming into this round and the partnership we’re trying to develop around contact centers really attests to the differentiation of our approach, to the scalability and the modularity of our approach.”

He added that Hyro is not a healthcare company — “it’s really about serving any enterprise.”

Hyro healthcare customers include Carroll, Wheelpros, Mercy Health, University of Rochester Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine, but the company plans to use this new funding to scale into more verticals, with an aim toward real estate, government, and other information-heavy industries. 

This latest round brings Hyro’s total funding to $15 million.

Hyro, formerly Airbud, is today announcing the close of a $10.5 million Series A financing round led by Spero Ventures, with participation from Twilio, and Mindset Ventures. Existing investors Hanaco Ventures, Spider Capital and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator also participated in the round.

Hyro is an enterprise application, currently aimed at the healthcare sector but with eyes on new verticals, that adds an intelligent layer of voice chat or text chat to any application or website.

The company calls itself an adaptive communications platform, which essentially means that customers use plug-and-play tools to get information to end-users in a conversational way, whether that be voice or chat. It can integrate with contact centers, chatbots, SMS and other forms of communication. Essentially, Hyro targets information-heavy industries that often have to communicate with end-users.

This type of scenario, in the words of cofounder Israel Krush, usually leads to a terrible experience for the end user and a costly, inefficient process for the organization. The problem was no more apparent than in the healthcare sector during the pandemic. End users would flood platforms for information regarding the virus, the vaccine, testing, etc., but ask those redundant questions in myriad ways. On the enterprise side, the answers to those questions were changing over time.

Hyro allows these organizations to easily edit and change that information and deliver it to end users in an efficient way. But perhaps most importantly, Hyro scrapes information from the website to set up its own conversational tree, so the client doesn’t have to do a lot of heavy lifting up front.

Krush says that the problem is big, which means that the space is crowded. He views Twilio’s participation in this round of fundraising as a differentiator.

“The market is crowded so it’s really hard to differentiate yourself from the crowd,” said Krush. “Even though we have great technology, everyone says they have great technology. Twilio coming into this round and the partnership we’re trying to develop around contact centers really attests to the differentiation of our approach, to the scalability and the modularity of our approach.”

He added that Hyro is not a healthcare company — “it’s really about serving any enterprise.”

Hyro healthcare customers include Carroll, Wheelpros, Mercy Health, University of Rochester Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine, but the company plans to use this new funding to scale into more verticals, with an aim toward real estate, government, and other information-heavy industries. 

This latest round brings Hyro’s total funding to $15 million.

Hyro, formerly Airbud, is today announcing the close of a $10.5 million Series A financing round led by Spero Ventures, with participation from Twilio, and Mindset Ventures. Existing investors Hanaco Ventures, Spider Capital and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator also participated in the round.

Hyro is an enterprise application, currently aimed at the healthcare sector but with eyes on new verticals, that adds an intelligent layer of voice chat or text chat to any application or website.

The company calls itself an adaptive communications platform, which essentially means that customers use plug-and-play tools to get information to end-users in a conversational way, whether that be voice or chat. It can integrate with contact centers, chatbots, SMS and other forms of communication. Essentially, Hyro targets information-heavy industries that often have to communicate with end-users.

This type of scenario, in the words of cofounder Israel Krush, usually leads to a terrible experience for the end user and a costly, inefficient process for the organization. The problem was no more apparent than in the healthcare sector during the pandemic. End users would flood platforms for information regarding the virus, the vaccine, testing, etc., but ask those redundant questions in myriad ways. On the enterprise side, the answers to those questions were changing over time.

Hyro allows these organizations to easily edit and change that information and deliver it to end users in an efficient way. But perhaps most importantly, Hyro scrapes information from the website to set up its own conversational tree, so the client doesn’t have to do a lot of heavy lifting up front.

Krush says that the problem is big, which means that the space is crowded. He views Twilio’s participation in this round of fundraising as a differentiator.

“The market is crowded so it’s really hard to differentiate yourself from the crowd,” said Krush. “Even though we have great technology, everyone says they have great technology. Twilio coming into this round and the partnership we’re trying to develop around contact centers really attests to the differentiation of our approach, to the scalability and the modularity of our approach.”

He added that Hyro is not a healthcare company — “it’s really about serving any enterprise.”

Hyro healthcare customers include Carroll, Wheelpros, Mercy Health, University of Rochester Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine, but the company plans to use this new funding to scale into more verticals, with an aim toward real estate, government, and other information-heavy industries. 

This latest round brings Hyro’s total funding to $15 million.

We previously wrote about Propy using blockchain technology to smooth real-world real estate sales by introducing the concept of smart contracts. Propy was the first blockchain startup to make that work. Now the company is pushing the boundaries again, by auctioning a real apartment as an NFT. Although one might want to brush this aside as a stunt, the event is designed to make the point that it could well be done legally. And, by golly, they are going to try.

The auction will be of the NFT attached to a modern, brand new, one-bedroom apartment in Kiev, Ukraine, that Propy previously made history with by making it the first-ever level blockchain-based real estate sale.

The NFT created by Propy will, it says, transfers real ownership of the property. Just in case you haven;t been paying attention, NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are cryptographic ‘tokens’ that represent a unique asset — such as a piece of art, music, or other collectibles — and certify ownership digitally. NFTs have set the crypto-world alight with their potential to be applied to just about anything, including a work of art by Banksy which was then burnt.

Once someone has won the NFT of the apartment at auction, the NFT will include access to the ownership transfer paperwork; a digital artwork NFT by a popular Kiev graffiti artist, Chizz (a physical painting of the digital artwork is painted on a wall of the apartment)’ and the apartment pictures. But obviously, the apartment is the main asset here. 


The auction itself will happen over a 24hr period with the initial listing starting at $20,000. Details for the NFT sale are available here and will be updated with any new information as the auction proceeds.

The apartment in question is currently owned by Michael Arrington, founder of this very news site, and now a Crypto investor with Arrington XRP Capital.

Investors in Propy – which says it has so far processed $1bn worth of transactions via its platform – include Arrington himself and Tim Draper, former founder of DFJ.

Natalia Karayaneva, CEO of Propy said: “This NFT will go down in history. For Propy it is a major milestone in leveraging the promise of blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFT) to achieve ‘self-driving’ real estate transactions and real estate participation in the decentralized finance economy.”

Here’s how this is all going to work: Arrington has signed legal papers designed by Propy’s lawyers for the NFT to transfer ownership to a future buyer. Propy then conducts the NFT auction and receives payment in cryptocurrency. The winner in the auction becomes the owner within a minute, after filling out KYC details.

The Kiev property is owned by a USA-based entity, and when the auction completes, the new owner of the NFT becomes the owner of the entity and thus the property itself. This process is repeated every time the NFT attached to the property is resold. 

In an interview with me, Karayaneva said: “We were brainstorming and this appeared to be a natural development of our white paper of 2017. And in fact, many things we transact, real estate, via property, we are actually already kind of doing NF T’s, but with our unique smart contracts. But now the NFT concept provides a different approach, where a property can be transferred between two wallets, peer to peer.”

“Thus we do not need to change the name of the owner in the land registry. And this applies to many countries, as well as the United States. This model will work for the United States, and overall, there is this notion of buying real estate via LLC in the United States to preserve the privacy of the owner.”

Over the same call, Arrington added: “Coming at this from a crypto angle, we’ve seen what happens how DeFi gets plugged into credit markets. If I have an NFT or any DeFI asset I can then borrow against it, without a middleman. Right now, if I have a real piece of real estate, there is no way for me to borrow against it, without a middleman, because I have to go through a bank and get a mortgage or whatever. And it’s also the friction all of the costs in terms of speed and how long it takes.”

“If we can find a way to plug real estate and other real-world assets into DeFi, I think that the amount of credit that can be created around that is in the trillions, eventually. And so I think that has to happen. The questions around this are legal and regulatory… The legal stuff around this is tough, and so Propy has done a lot of work with that. But if they do, I think that the idea of an NFT representation of a real-world asset purely from the point of view of ease of trade and ease of access to credit markets is a big idea.”