Author: azeeadmin

Long before the multi-million-dollar acquisitions and funding rounds pushed autonomous vehicles to the top of the hype cycle, Karl Iagnemma and Chris Urmson were researching and, later, developing the foundations of the technology.

These pioneers, Iagnemma coming from MIT, Urmson from Carnegie Mellon University — would eventually go on to launch their own autonomous vehicle startups in an aim to finally bring years of R&D to the public.

That task isn’t over quite yet. Urmson, who is co-founder and CEO of Aurora, and Iagnemma, who is president and CEO of Motional, are still working on unlocking the technical and business problems that stand in the way of commercialization.

TechCrunch is excited to announce that Urmson and Iagnemma will be joining us on the virtual stage of TC Sessions: Mobility 2021. The one-day event, scheduled for June 9, is bringing together engineers and founders, investors and CEOs who are working on all the present and future ways people and packages will get from Point A to Point B. Iagnemma and Urmson will come to discuss the past, the present challenges and what both aim to do in the future. We’ll tackle questions about the technical problems that remain to be solved, the war over talent, the best business models and applications of autonomous vehicles and maybe even hear a few stories from the early days of testing and launching a startup.

Both guests have a long list of accolades and accomplishments — and too many, to cover them all here.

Urmson has been working on AVs for more than 15 years. He earned his Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and his BSc in computer engineering from the University of Manitoba in 1998. He was a faculty member of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where he worked with house-sized trucks, drove robots in the desert, and was the technical director of the DARPA Urban and Grand Challenge teams. Urmson has authored more than 60 patents and 50 publications.

He left CMU and was one of the founding members of Google’s self-driving program, serving as its CTO. In 2017, Urmson co-founded Aurora with Sterling Anderson and Drew Bagnell.

Iagnemma is also considered an authority on robotics and driverless vehicles. He was the director of the Robotic Mobility Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where his research resulted in more than 150 technical publications, 50 issued or filed patents, and numerous edited volumes, including books on the DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge autonomous vehicle competitions. He holds MS and PhD degrees from MIT, where he was a National Science Foundation fellow, and a BS from the University of Michigan, where he graduated first in his class.

In 2013, Iagnemma co-founded autonomous vehicle startup nuTonomy, one of the first to launch ride-hailing pilots. The company was acquired by Aptiv in late 2017. Aptiv and Hyundai formed the joint venture, which he now heads, in 2020. 

Iagnemma and Urmson are two of the many of the best and brightest minds in transportation who will be joining us on our virtual stage in June. Among the growing list of speakers is GM’s vp of global innovation Pam Fletcher, Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, Joby Aviation founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt, investor and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, whose special purpose acquisition company just merged with Joby, investors Clara Brenner of Urban Innovation Fund, Quin Garcia of Autotech Ventures and Rachel Holt of Construct Capital, Starship Technologies co-founder and CEO/CTO Ahti Heinla, Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson, community organizer, transportation consultant and lawyer Tamika L. Butler, Remix co-founder and CEO Tiffany Chu and Revel co-founder and CEO Frank Reig.

Stay tuned for more announcements in the weeks leading up to the event. Early Bird sales ends tonight, May 7 at 11:59 pm PT. Be sure to book your tickets ASAP and save $100.

Walmart-owned Flipkart is exempting storage and cancellation fees for sellers on its marketplace and also providing them with insurance coverage as the top e-commerce platform in India looks to maintain cordial relationships with more than 300,000 sellers who are facing severe disruption amid an unprecedented rise in the spread of coronavirus infections in the South Asian nation.

The Bangalore-headquartered firm said Friday evening that it is exempting storage fees to sellers who use the company’s fulfilment centres, and also waiving off the cancellation fees until the end of the month. (Several Indian states, as they did during the first wave of the virus, have imposed restrictions on sale and delivery of non-essential items.)

Flipkart will bear 100% premium of COVID insurance to all sellers that transact on the platform, covering any hospitalization and consultation fees between 50,000 Indian rupees ($685) to 300,000 Indian rupees ($4095).

The news today comes a week after Amazon, Flipkart’s chief rival in India, announced it was waiving 50% of the referral fee sellers are required to pay the e-commerce firm for this month, though not all sellers are qualified to avail this benefit. (The company said earlier this week that it was also postponing Prime Day in India and Canada due to the growing cases of the infection.)

Flipkart said it is also making it easier for sellers to access working capital from the firm without any incremental cost, though it did not specify the steps it had made.

It is also extending the window for the Seller Protection Fund to 30 days (from 14) to make claims on returned products. Flipkart said it will also ease its policies and performance metrics to ensure that they are not impacted by state-led lockdowns.

Flipkart, which as of last year was working to go public this year, said it has partnered with Vriddhi, Walmart’s Supplier Development Program in India, to organize webinars for small businesses to share best practices to ensure safety of workforce and provide insights to stay afloat amid the crisis.

“Through these testing times it is our constant effort to support our seller partners who face immense operational challenges as a result of the pandemic. As a democratic marketplace, we want to ensure that our lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of seller partners are able to continue operations and keep the economic engine running,” said Jagjeet Harode, senior director and head of Marketplace at Flipkart, in a statement.

“With them and their family’s financial and health safety in mind, we have rolled out these initiatives that will bring them the much-needed respite to keep their businesses active.”

India has been reporting over 400,00 daily infections this week, more than any other nation, as the world’s second-most populated nation struggles to contain the second wave of the virus. Scores of firms, startups, investors and people alike are uniting to help the nation fight the virus, which has severely impacted the healthcare facilities.

Shares of Square are up more than 6% today after the American fintech company reported a staggering $5.06 billion in revenue in its Q1 2021 earnings report, far ahead of an expected tally of $3.36 billion.

By posting the huge revenue beat, Square grew 266% compared to its year-ago Q1. Because that’s the sort of growth that we generally expect to see from early-stage startups instead of maturing public companies, some exploration is in order. In short, bitcoin revenues from Square, and how they fit into its accounting, are responsible for much of its outsized growth.

And that’s something we need to talk about.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. 

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Square’s performance apart from its bitcoin-driven results were strong. But its bitcoin incomes underscore not only rising consumer sentiment concerning bitcoin, but also an interesting angle on the question of Coinbase and its long-term fee structure.

Mix in the huge growth in bitcoin investment activity that Robinhood has seen and we can easily understand that, at least in the American market, consumers are not beholden to traditional cryptocurrency arguments regarding coin ownership. And the pace at which non-Coinbase entities are accreting trading volume could point to more competition at the now-public crypto exchange than some fans, backers and believers anticipated.

So today, we’re talking Square earnings and its bitcoin base, especially in how it relates to the results of other entities that offer bitcoin sales. Our broader question is whether consumers are going to behave as many expect, or if the less crypto-focused on-ramps to bitcoin and its brethren will prove more popular than many crypto-enthusiasts anticipate.

A bitcoin boom

If we remove the bitcoin top line from Square’s quarter, the company posted $1.55 billion in revenue, a figure that was up 44% compared to its year-ago period. That’s impressive.

But the company’s bitcoin-related revenue growth was far more so. From $306.1 million in Q1 2020 bitcoin revenue to $3.51 billion in Q1 2021, Square wrote in its report that it saw “significant growth in bitcoin revenue year over year,” up “approximately 11x.”

“I feel the need — the need for speed.” That could be the official mobility startup founder credo, amirite? Speed and agility are important, but don’t move so quickly that you miss the chance to save $100 on a pass to TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 on June 9.

We’ve extended our early-bird price for just one more day. Slow your EV roll, reroute your autonomous vehicle or dock your scooter just long enough to buy a pass before the extended deadline expires on May 7, at 11:59 pm (PT).

TC Sessions: Mobility is where you’ll learn about the latest trends and tech advancements across the mobility spectrum — autonomous trucks, AI, EVs, the future of flight, regulatory issues, micromobility, robotics and more — from the brightest minds, makers and investors around the world.

Don’t just take our word for it. Here are what past attendees shared with us about their TC Sessions: Mobility experience.

“The virtual dynamic gave the conference a relaxed, conversational vibe. The speakers and TechCrunch editors were more accessible, and that was a welcome surprise.” — Rachael Wilcox, creative producer, Volvo Cars.

“TC Sessions: Mobility exceeded my expectations in terms of useful content. Every panel discussion I attended, every interaction I had was relevant to my work or to my daily life — because we don’t stop living at 5 pm.” — Jens Lehmann, technical lead and product manager, SAP.

“People want to be around what’s interesting and learn what trends and issues they need to pay attention to. Even large companies like GM and Ford were there, because they’re starting to see the trend move toward mobility. They want to learn from the experts, and TC Sessions: Mobility has all the experts.” — Melika Jahangiri, vice president at Wunder Mobility.

Did someone say experts? Here are just a few of the leading voices in the mobility ecosystem who will offer their invaluable insight and advice.

• Kameale Terry, co-founder and CEO at ChargerHelp! Inc.
• Ahti Heinla, co-founder, CEO and CTO at Starship Technologies
• Clara Brenner, co-founder and managing partner at Urban Innovation Fund

Check the event agenda and start planning your schedule now. Your pass includes both live-stream and video-on-demand, so you won’t miss a minute of startup action.

TC Sessions: Mobility 2021 takes place on June 9, and you have just one last shot to save $100 on the price of admission. Buy your pass before the price goes up and the savings disappear on May 7, at 11:59 pm (PT).

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

Credit Karma Money, a new checking and savings account from the company best known for its credit monitoring service, recently launched a significant new feature. Called Instant Karma, the program rewards users by randomly refunding purchases or adding money to cash deposits. So far, since launching the feature, Credit Karma says it has rewarded 100,000 transactions, worth $5 million.

I spoke to Poulomi Damany, General Manager at Credit Karma, who said the idea behind Credit Karma Money is to “change people’s relationship with money.” Credit Karma Instant Karma is an extension of that goal.

The process works differently from other cash back offers. For one, this product is linked to a debt card rather than a credit card. Credit Karma Product Manger Kyle Thibaut says that’s by design as their target demographic tends to stay away from credit cards. Second, the refund, though random, happens instantly. Swipe your card at a grocery store, and if selected, the money spent on the transaction is refunded instantly.

“Gen Z do not necessarily like credit cards,” Thibaut said. ” When you talk to them, they like debit cards and debit cards are the way they spend. Debit card usage is higher than credit cards in the US, and it’s actually growing while credit card usage is declining.”

According to Damany and Thibaut, a large portion of Credit Karma’s 110 million members are millennials and this product, along with Credit Karma Money, are targeted at this demographic. They say this model lines up better with the spending habits of this generation, who are generally not optimizing their spending to maximize credit card rewards.

At this time, the company is unwilling to share user numbers for Credit karma Money and the amount of users who received a refund from Instant Karma. The company says it is saving those numbers for an upcoming earnings release — Credit Karma is owned by Turbo Tax maker, Intuit.

In non-aerobatic fixed-wing aviation, spins are an emergency. If you don’t have spin recovery training, you can easily make things worse, dramatically increasing your chances of crashing. Despite the life-and-death consequences, licensed amateur pilots in the United States are not required to train for this. Uncontrolled spins don’t happen often enough to warrant the training.

Startups can enter the equivalent of a spin as well. My startup, Kolide, entered a dangerous spin in early 2018, only a year after our Series A fundraise. We had little traction and we were quickly burning through our sizable cash reserves. We were spinning out of control, certain to hit the ground in no time.

All spins start with a stall — a reduction in lift when either the aircraft is flying too slowly or the nose is pointed too high. In Kolide’s case, we were doing both.

First, we raised too much money too fast. In order to justify the post-money valuation that came with the raise, we set unattainable goals. To make matters worse, we lacked the confidence in our product and strategy, so we developed our solution with hesitancy, underspending in critical areas. As a result, we were flying too steep and too slow. We stalled.

If a stall isn’t corrected promptly, a spin can develop. Flat spins are one of the worst. Once the flat spin starts, there are a number of techniques experienced pilots should perform to recover the aircraft. Nearly all of these techniques require a critical resource, altitude — or, put another way, time.

Just like amateur pilots, startup CEOs don’t receive spin recovery training. When Kolide was spinning out of control, the vast majority of the advice I received was to cut our losses and sell the company or return the money to the investors.

At the time, I didn’t find any promising examples of companies with these same problems successfully recovering; I found only smoldering wreckage. By February 2019, my co-founders departed.

Despite this tell-tale sign of imminent demise, I was ultimately able to recover and put us on track for a great fundraise. Here’s how I recreated the engineering process.

Buying time

Kolide had a lot going for it that enabled me to recover the company, but by far the most important was that we recognized we were in a spin very early, and we had enough cash remaining (and therefore sufficient time) to execute a recovery plan. Even waiting just a few more months would have likely changed the outcome.

TechCrunch Disrupt — it’s the must-attend conference for anyone and everyone connected to the global startup community. Don’t miss your chance to attend TC Disrupt 2021, on September 21-23, for less than $100. That’s a tidy little bottom-line booster, yes?

Three opportunity-packed days can be yours at the super early-bird price — just $99 — but not for long. Prices increase next week. Purchase your pass to TC Disrupt 2021 before May 13, 11:59 pm (PST).

Come and listen to, learn from and engage with some of the leading voices in the startup world today. We’re talking dozens of in-depth, one-on-one interviews, moderated panel discussions and breakout sessions with folks like:

• Tope Awotona, the founder and CEO of Calendly
• Mercedes Bent, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners
• Julia Collins, the founder and CEO of Planet FWD and Moonshot
• Leslie Feinzaig, the founder and CEO of Female Founders Alliance

The all-virtual nature of Disrupt 2021 means that you can connect, network and collaborate with people across the globe — and in Silicon Valley. Still on the fence? Listen to what past attendees have told us about their Disrupt experiences.

“Tech startups go to Disrupt to show off their stuff. It’s the perfect place to scope out the competition, network with potential investors, get a feel for how other companies position themselves and to see what’s trending.” — Jessica McLean, director of marketing and communications, Infinite-Compute.

“I attend TechCrunch Disrupt every year because it’s different every time. It’s inspiring every single time. I’m never bored. Ever. I always learn something, whether it’s a new company, a new topic or a deeper exploration of a familiar technology. It’s great. I love stuff like that.” — Rachael Wilcox, creative producer, Volvo Cars.

“The virtual platform’s chat feature made it easy to connect with participants. People got creative using it to promote their business, like posting a LinkedIn profile or offering 15-minute time slots to review business pitches. I even saw a product-naming competition. You could find lots of opportunity rolling through the chat area.” — Ada Lau, manager of market development, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation.

And there are still more opportunities to discover at Disrupt. Don’t miss the Startup Battlefield as roughly 25 stand-out startups vie for $100,000. If you want to vie, you must apply by May 13 at 11:59 pm (PT).

Startup Alley — our expo area and the heart of every Disrupt — is synonymous with opportunity. Discover all the new perks and bennies that come with exhibiting there, including a shot at participating in Startup Alley+.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021, takes place on September 21-23, and you can grab all the opportunity for less than $100. Sound good? Great — just remember that prices go up next week. Buy your pass before May 13, 11:59 pm (PST).

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

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

The whole team was aboard for this recording, with Grace and Chris behind the scenes, and Danny, Alex, and Natasha on the mics. We had to cut more than we included this week, which should give you a good idea of how busy the startup and VC worlds are of late.

Make sure that you are following the podcast on Twitter, where we post all sorts of memes and cuts and, perhaps, the occasional video here and there. That aside, here’s the rundown:

• Investing legend David Swenson passed away.
• Twitter is buying Scroll (neat, very cool) as part of its subscription push, but also killing Nuzzel in the process (bad, very uncool). Natasha and Danny fill us in on why Nuzzel will be missed. Alex has thoughts on why Twitter-Scroll is good.
• Epic bought ArtStation and cut its marketplace take rate. This is the future, says Danny, who throws his own estimates in, too.
• Sony and Discord are tying up after the Microsoft-Discord deal fell apart.
• Edtech is doing the edtech thing in which it raises money and consolidates, as shown by Kahoot’s latest scoop.
• A friend of the pod, Jomayra Herrera, is joining Reach Capital as its first ever outside-partner hire.
• Uber is teaming up with Arrival for ride-hailing designed electric vehicles. We’re pretty bullish on the idea. Also Alex likes to say “microfactories.”
• IVF startups are raising venture capital, and this time its Alife Health that we’re talking about. 
• WorkBoard raised again. Alex once again made us talk about OKR-focused startups. He needs to get a life, and so does the rest of the Equity team which fought to do the transition into this segment.
• To end, we spoke about Leda Health, a new startup focused on at-home rape kits for sexual assault survivors. It’s a controversial company, and we discuss critiques and opportunities,

And that’s our show! No private equity deal can slow the Equity team down, so we’ll see you Monday!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PST, Wednesday, and Friday at 6:00 AM PST, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts!

Income-share agreements, or ISAs, are a way to bring flexibility to the often steep financial costs of higher education. The financial model allows a student to learn at zero upfront cost, and then pay any costs through a percentage of future income over time.

While the model has caught fire from a variety of trade schools and bootcamps, it’s a hard service to offer at scale. It required underwriting a risky group of people — and that costs money. Just last week, a leader in the ISA space Lambda School laid off 65 employees amid a broader restructuring.

It’s here that a startup like Blair, which graduated Y Combinator in 2019, could be of use. The startup today helps universities finance and offer income-share agreements, or ISAs, to students. The startup has two services: a capital arm (Blair Capital) for which it secured a $100 million debt facility, and a services arm (Blair Servicing) that helps manage the flow of money, which just got a new tranche of capital to expand

The company told TechCrunch that it has raised a $6.3 million round led by Tiger Global. Other investors include Rainfall and 468 Capital, along with angels such as Teachable’s Ankur Nagpal and Vouch’s Sam Hodges. The raise came on top of a $1.1 million pre-seed round, bringing Blair’s total capital raised to date at $7.4 million.

A big portion of the venture capital money will go toward doubling or tripling Blair’s San Francisco team, said CEO Mike Mahlkow. It is especially investing in engineering and product, as well as a few senior hires in finance, compliance and the service side.

The Blair founding team.

Notably, Blair’s eight person team is fully male. The lack of gender diversity, even as an early-stage startup with a handful of employees, could hurt its competitive advantage, recruiting prospects, and and performance over time. About 25 percent of the employees are LGBT and 27.5% identify as non-white.

Blair started as a tool to underwrite students with loans that would pay for college, a sum that would eventually be repaid through an income-share agreement. It was similar to an Affirm for Education, where it could help students get access with low or nonexistent upfront costs.

“The model worked very well until March last year,” Mahlkow said. “And then the debt market was fairly dead, so we needed to shift our focus to a more software-like approach.” Now, Blair focuses on building ISA-based programs for schools, and underwrites loans based on certain programs at certain schools that have historical returns.

Most companies use its servicing piece — aka an operating system for offering ISAs — but a number of companies turn to Blair to help finance the costs of offering an ISA. Either colleges and bootcamps finance the ISA themselves and put it on the balance sheet, or they sell it to a company like Blair to get the money upfront and get repaid eventually.

Blair Servicing takes a percent of money from an ISA once a student is employed post-graduation, and Blair Capital takes a base fee plus a portion for the ISA as well.

While the company did not share exact numbers, it did say it has doubled its customers since February, tripling revenue during the same time period. Of course, a bet from the ever-ravenous Tiger Global is a statement. And, unlike his new investor, Mahlkow plans to keep growth sustainable and lean. Long-term, Blair is betting that outcome-based financing could get traction in more than just a savvy startup bootcamp but in how recruiting and placement works in various industries. The startup is in talks with a sports association and large companies that are working on upskilling and reskilling their workforces. Incentives are key in edtech, and Blair speaking that language as an early-stage startup is key as the sector moves more into the spotlight.

Twitch evidently has no issues getting people to spend time on its platform — even politicians can draw huge crowds by streaming themselves playing games. But monetizing video content is hard, and Twitch has missed revenue targets for the last few years.

So how does Twitch make money? And more importantly, what subtle psychology does it use within its iOS app to encourage viewers to spend more?

I’m a UX analyst and the founder of UX community Built for Mars — where I regularly tear down some of the best products in the world, showing you how they’re made, and, more importantly, how they could be improved.

I recently published my analysis of Twitch. But for Extra Crunch subscribers, I wanted to go a little deeper and bridge the gap between what Twitch does and how you can make meaningful changes to your product’s UX.

So here are three UX tips to discuss during your next team Zoom call.

The Anchor Effect

In short: The Anchor Effect is a heuristic bias whereby people will become attached (anchored) to an initial piece of information. For example, spending $1,000 on an iPhone may not seem like a bad deal if you saw an ad for the $1,500 one first — by comparison, it looks “cheap.”

On Twitch, when a new user subscribes to a channel for the first time, they’re shown the benefits of subscribing, and then asked how long they want those benefits for before being shown a price.

Image Credits: Twitch

This type of bias is everywhere. For example, the order of your pricing tiers will affect conversions — which is likely why Mailchimp shows its pricing tiers in reverse order.