Author: azeeadmin

Spotify this morning officially announced the limited U.S. release of its first hardware device, the oddly named Car Thing, aimed at Spotify Premium subscribers. The new device — which Spotify is surprisingly offering for free plus shipping — has evolved substantially from the version that first began testing in 2019. This upgraded model has a touchscreen, a big, grippable knob for navigation, voice control features, and four preset buttons at the top for favorite music, podcasts or playlists, similar to Spotify on mobile devices.

The company explained its interest in Car Thing is about solving a need for customers who want a “more seamless” and personalized in-car listening experience. Although many cars today support Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, Spotify points out that the average age of a car in the U.S. is actually 11 years old and the average lifetime of cars is 18 years. That means there are still a large number of cars on the road that don’t support modern, in-car infotainment systems.

Car Thing is being introduced to serve this market — and likely, to give Spotify the opportunity to explore future business models where it has a more direct relationship with customers inside the vehicle, though the company isn’t speaking to its longer-term ambitions at this time.

The new Car Thing itself is a lightweight (3.4 oz.), thin (4.6″ x 2.5″ x 0.7″) music and podcast player that offers a combination of voice control, knobs, buttons, and a touchscreen display for navigating its menus and selecting the media you want to hear. You can choose to use set up the device to work via Bluetooth or an AUX or USB cable, depending on how you usually connect your phone to your car stereo to play music.

You’re also able to mount Car Thing to your dash in a variety of ways as the device ships with three different types of dash and vent mounts to choose from, along with a car charger and USB-C cable.

At launch, Car Thing will walk you through a quick tour where it explains how to get started. The user interface recalls the Spotify mobile app, so it isn’t difficult to get used to for first-time users. Here, you can tap, swipe and use your voice to interact with the screen. The knob lets you quickly move through your choices — an experience that may be more comfortable to those used to interacting with knobs on their car’s built-in stereo.

Across the top of the device are four preset buttons that let you save your favorite content for easy access. By default, these are configured with your Liked Songs and Spotify’s Daily Drive and Morning Commute playlists, with the last preset empty. Many users may just keep these selections, but you can change them at any time, Spotify says.

Ahead of the device’s launch, Spotify quietly began rolling out support for its “Hey Spotify” voice command, which Car Thing leverages, too. This lets you speak your requests directly to Spotify, by asking for a song, album, artist, playlist, station or podcast, which Car Thing “hears” by way of its four microphones at the top. (Four, because Spotify wants Car Thing to respond even if you’re blasting your music or have the windows down, which creates additional noise.)

On mobile devices, using “Hey Spotify” is an opt-in option that you can shut off from the app’s settings. But Car Thing represents a smarter, not to mention more safety-focused, use case for voice control. Instead of fiddling with the screen or knobs, you can speak your commands — or allow your kids to shout out their options from the backseat, perhaps.

Spotify’s policy regarding its use of voice data explains the company will collect recordings and transcripts of what you say along with information about the content it returned to you, and may use the data to improve the feature over time. The company told us that beyond the voice data, the device isn’t collecting any more information that it does already in the mobile app. Still, Car Thing does give Spotify a more direct window into what people listen to during commutes and longer road trips, which could inform its future products, programmed playlists and other features.

“In a typical year, Americans spend over 70 billion hours in their cars and there are 250 million cars on America’s roads today,” noted Spotify’s Head of Global Culture and Trends, Shanon Cook. “That’s a lot of time spent on the road. So what you do and what you listen to, to help you get through those hours in the car really matters.”

Initially, Car Thing is being made available during this limited release period for free, as selected users will just pay the cost of shipping — a choice Spotify made because Car Thing is still somewhat experimental.

“This is Spotify’s first hardware, and we obviously want to get things right,” said Spotify’s Head of Hardware Products, Andreas Cedborg. “And we want to learn quite a lot here in the beginning, so it’s a natural way for us to start,” he said.

 

Spotify says the current retail price for the device is $80. It doesn’t know if or when it will begin to retail the device, however. But it can roll out updates to its software so at least the device won’t be immediately obsolete, if Spotify decides to go in a different direction one day.

Despite Spotify’s exploration into hardware, the company stressed it doesn’t aim to be a hardware company. If anything, it’s seems more likely that Spotify is toying with the idea of becoming the next SiriusXM by way of a specialized in-car experience — although one that’s even more of an add-on than SiriusXM is as you physically have to attach the thing — the Car Thing — to your dash. Longer-term, it’s not clear it makes much sense to develop a Car Thing product line as cars get smarter every year and infotainment systems become more standard.

Car Thing will only be offered on an invite-only basis via carthing.spotify.com to U.S. Spotify Premium subscribers with a smartphone. The company declined to say how many units would be shipped, so you’ll probably want to jump on the waitlist sooner rather than later if such a device interests you.

Are you 100% sure that your children are brushing their teeth properly? A New York-based startup called Willo has been working for several years on a device that should transform the tooth-brushing experience for children.

Willo isn’t a new toothbrush — electric or not. It’s an oral care device that doesn’t look like a toothbrush at all. The startup has worked with dental professionals to start from scratch with oral care in mind.

The device can be quite intimidating when you don’t see it in action as it takes quite a bit of shelf space and you don’t know what you’re supposed to do. But when you see it in action, it looks easier than expected. Willo specifically targets children because they tend to struggle to reach every tooth and brush properly.

Kids are supposed to grab the handle and put the mouthpiece in their mouth. They can start brushing by pressing the button and that’s it. They don’t have to do anything else. The silicone-based mouthpiece also features soft bristles. It starts vibrating in your kid’s mouth when they press the button.

The handle is connected to a bigger home station that contains a water tank with a special rinse liquid. Kids don’t have to use toothpaste and don’t have to rinse their mouth. Everything is handled by the device.

Finally, Willo is a connected device, which means that parents can track oral care in a mobile app. You can also set up multiple users — your kids will have to swap the mouthpiece before using the device.

If you’re thinking about buying a device for your children, Willo costs $199. You then have to pay $13 per month to receive rinse pods as well as new mouthpieces that always fit.

While the product is going live today, the startup has already tested it with real families. These children rated the device 4.73/5 and parents gave an NPS of 70+. They’ve all kept using Willo after the testing phase.

Behind this product, there’s a team of 33 people in France and the U.S. They have filed over 50 patents over the past 7 years — 30 of them have been granted so far. The company has raised $17 million in total funding from Kleiner Perkins, Bpifrance and Matt Rogers’ fund Incite.

It’s true that the concept of a toothbrush hasn’t changed at all. Making a device that changes the way you brush your teeth is an ambitious bet. But it’s clear that the startup has made a lot of efforts to tackle this challenge. Now let’s see if they manage to convince parents.

Meroxa, a startup that makes it easier for businesses to build the data pipelines to power both their analytics and operational workflows, today announced that it has raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by Drive Capital. Existing investors Root, Amplify and Hustle Fund also participated in this round, which together with the company’s previously undisclosed $4.2 million seed round now brings total funding in the company to $19.2 million.

The promise of Meroxa is that can use a single platform for their various data needs and won’t need a team of experts to build their infrastructure and then manage it. At its core, Meroxa provides a single Software-as-a-Service solution that connects relational databases to data warehouses and then helps businesses operationalize that data.

“The interesting thing is that we are focusing squarely on relational and NoSQL databases into data warehouse,” Meroxa co-founder and CEO DeVaris Brown told me. “Honestly, people come to us as a real-time FiveTran or real-time data warehouse sink. Because, you know, the industry has moved to this [extract, load, transform] format. But the beautiful part about us is, because we do change data capture, we get that granular data as it happens.” And businesses want this very granular data to be reflected inside of their data warehouses, Brown noted, but he also stressed that Meroxa can expose this stream of data as an API endpoint or point it to a Webhook.

The company is able to do this because its core architecture is somewhat different from other data pipeline and integration services that, at first glance, seem to offer a similar solution. Because of this, users can use the service to connect different tools to their data warehouse but also build real-time tools on top of these data streams.

“We aren’t a point-to-point solution,” Meroxa co-founder and CTO Ali Hamidi explained. “When you set up the connection, you aren’t taking data from Postgres and only putting it into Snowflake. What’s really happening is that it’s going into our intermediate stream. Once it’s in that stream, you can then start hanging off connectors and say, ‘Okay, well, I also want to peek into the stream, I want to transfer my data, I want to filter out some things, I want to put it into S3.”

Because of this, users can use the service to connect different tools to their data warehouse but also build real-time tools to utilize the real-time data stream. With this flexibility, Hamidi noted, a lot of the company’s customers start with a pretty standard use case and then quickly expand into other areas as well.

Brown and Hamidi met during their time at Heroku, where Brown was a director of product management and Hamidi a lead software engineer. But while Heroku made it very easy for developers to publish their web apps, there wasn’t anything comparable in the highly fragmented database space. The team acknowledges that there are a lot of tools that aim to solve these data problems, but few of them focus on the user experience.

“When we talk to customers now, it’s still very much an unsolved problem,” Hamidi said. “It seems kind of insane to me that this is such a common thing and there is no ‘oh, of course you use this tool because it addresses all my problems.’ And so the angle that we’re taking is that we see user experience not as a nice-to-have, it’s really an enabler, it is something that enables a software engineer or someone who isn’t a data engineer with 10 years of experience in wrangling Kafka and Postgres and all these things. […] That’s a transformative kind of change.”

It’s worth noting that Meroxa uses a lot of open-source tools but the company has also committed to open-sourcing everything in its data plane as well. “This has multiple wins for us, but one of the biggest incentives is in terms of the customer, we’re really committed to having our agenda aligned. Because if we don’t do well, we don’t serve the customer. If we do a crappy job, they can just keep all of those components and run it themselves,” Hamidi explained.

Today, Meroxa, which the team founded in early 2020, has over 24 employees (and is 100% remote). “I really think we’re building one of the most talented and most inclusive teams possible,” Brown told me. “Inclusion and diversity are very, very high on our radar. Our team is 50% black and brown. Over 40% are women. Our management team is 90% underrepresented. So not only are we building a great product, we’re building a great company, we’re building a great business.”  

Microsoft is understandably positioning the latest additions to its Surface line as productivity devices. Laptop sales, in particular, have jumped amid the pandemic, as many have scrambled to shift to a work from home setting. With that in mind, the latest version of the Surface Laptop is far and away the headline item amid a new batch of devices.

The Surface Laptop 4 doesn’t seem to mark a massive upgrade to the line, arriving about a year and half after the previous model. Of course, the product has been one of the better received among the company’s proprietary hardware offerings, swapping the more creator-focused convertible models for a more straightforward approach. Sometimes the classics are classics for a reason.

Available with either a 13.5- or 15-inch touchscreen, the new Laptop sports either an 11th Gen Intel Core or AMD Ryzen processor. The system’s lowest configuration will run $999, but Microsoft has yet to break down the pricing from there. The company is promising improved performance and increased battery life, over the 11.5 posted hours on the Laptop 3. The below video puts the new time at “up to 19 hours,” which big if true — and nice for when we all start traveling again.

The system builds on its predecessor’s HD webcam with the addition of improved low-light capabilities. That’s paired with a studio mic array. Again, nothing groundbreaking, but it’s nice to see companies paying attention to this stuff in the age of COVID-19, when a concerning percentage of our interpersonal communication occurs via webcam.

The design language is similar to earlier versions, though the company has swapped in a new Ice Blue color option. Microsoft is keeping that proprietary charging port around (fast charging will get you up to 80% in an hour). That’s coupled with USB A and C. There are a pair of Dolby Atmos speakers on board and the touchscreen works with the Surface Pen.

The Laptop is available for preorder today in the U.S., Canada and Japan, and starts shipping on April 15. The 13.5-inch AMD Ryzen with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage runs $999. On the high end, the 15-inch Intel Core i7 with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage is $2,399 (plus another $100 if you want to upgrade Windows 10 Home to Pro). The company is tossing in Surface Earbuds for early preorders.

The new Surface Laptop was the marquee arrival in today’s Microsoft announcement, but boy howdy, the company also dropped a whole bunch of new accessories. It’s a pretty broad range of new devices, including some small updates to existing products and entirely new entries. But there’s one clear through line across them all: Teams.

Microsoft is, after all, a software company at heart. That’s always fueled the company’s hardware products. So it’s really not a major surprise that its productivity software is the driving force here. After all, this is the company that was pushing Office integration on its earbuds.

Matter of fact, the company’s actually debuting a slight upgrade to its Surface Headphone line. The Headphones 2+ for Business. The big distinction here is the addition on-ear Teams control. The other additions to the well-received over-ear headphones are fairly minor (hence the telling “2+” name), including improved remote calling. They also run a bit of a premium at $299 to the Headphone 2’s $250. They’re shipping later this month.

The remainder of the new products fall under the “Modern” line, which currently also includes the Modern Mouse. Joining the Headphones are the Microsoft Modern USB and Wireless Headsets. Here the products get a dedicated Teams button for joining calls on MS’ platform. They’ll ship in June for $50 and $100, respectively.

Microsoft is also adding a 1080p webcam to the mix. The Modern Webcam has a 78-degree field of view and can shoot in HDR. There’s a privacy shutter on board, as well as software settings for things like auto white balance and facial retouching, if you’re so inclined. And yes, Teams certification. Can’t help but think this would have been a big hit this time last year, but for many working from home will be the new normal, going forward. That will ship in June for a reasonable $70.

The oddest addition is probably the Microsoft Modern USB-C Speaker. With Cortana seemingly dead in the water, Teams is once again the driving force here. It’s a desktop speaker with dual microphones designed for Teams calls and some light music listening. That one is also arriving in June, priced at $100.

Roku today is unveiling new hardware and software, including the latest version of its Roku OS media software, Roku OS 10, which expands support for AirPlay 2 and Apple’s HomeKit, and adds a variety of new features and optimizations focused on helping users get to content and stream faster. It’s also introducing its latest 4K player, the Roku Express 4K+; an updated version of its combo media player and soundbar; and an upgraded voice remote with a rechargeable battery and hands-free voice support via the “Hey Roku” command.

Of the three new devices, the Roku Voice Remote Pro ($29.99) may actually be the more interesting addition as it pushes Roku further into the “smart speaker” space, so to speak — except in this case, the “speaker” is a TV remote equipped with a mid-field microphone that’s always listening for the “Hey Roku” command. From a practical standpoint, that means you can leave the remote laying on your coffee table and instead speak commands like “Hey Roku, launch Netflix” or “search for free movies,” or “show me comedies,” or whatever else it is you want to watch — without having to first pick up the device and press the push-to-talk voice search button.

This feature, of course, also comes with concerns. Consumers may be wary of bringing more voice assistants into their home, after it was discovered that tech giants Google, Amazon and Apple had initially dropped the ball on respecting consumer privacy when it came to how users’ voice data was being stored and utilized. Though they’ve all made changes since, the experience may have left its mark on consumers’ minds.

For what it’s worth, Roku says it will retain some of the audio recordings it receives for technical support and to improve the quality of its service, much like the others in the market. And users can opt out of that data collection (via Roku.com/account/voice). The company notes that voice recordings are disassociated from the consumer’s account within 30 days, and it only allows access to Roku employees, not contractor workforces.

If this doesn’t appeal to you, the remote offers a mute button for the microphone if you want to upgrade for its other features, and not use the hands-free listening.

The other features still make for a worthwhile upgrade, however, as this is Roku’s first remote with a rechargeable battery, for example. The device charges via a micro-USB cable, which is more environmentally friendly. It also offers preset buttons with access to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and, for the first time, Apple TV+. And it offers a lost remote finder feature (which works via voice, too); private listening via the built-in headphone jack; a push-to-talk voice button if you don’t want hands-free; and two personal shortcuts for favorite voice commands.

The voice remote is on sale today via Roku’s website and will be available in retail stores in May.

Another new device announced today is the Roku Express 4K+ ($39.99) which will replace the older Roku Premiere.

This digital media player is targeted towards first-time streamers and secondary TVs — which are now more often becoming 4K TVs, but where consumers don’t need the full specs of Roku’s top-of-the-line players. The Express 4K+ has a faster processor than the Premiere and more storage, as well as support for dual-band Wi-Fi. It works with third-party micro-USB and Ethernet adapters, which is a plus as hardwiring your device was previously a feature only available on the pricier Roku Ultra.

The device also brings HDR 10+ to the Roku platform for the first time, though this support will soon make its way to the Roku Ultra through the upcoming Roku OS 10 software update. It additionally supports HD, 4K, HDR, and HDR 10 and ships with a standard voice remote.

The device goes on sale in the U.S. in mid-May online and in retail stores. Walmart, a Roku partner, will have an exclusive version of the Roku Express 4K+ called Roku Express 4K ($35) which offers a better value by dropping the voice remote for the basic one.

Along with the launch of the media player and remote, Roku is updating its Roku Smart Soundbar in mid-May. The device is being rebranded to the Roku Streambar Pro ($179.99), and will feature both 4K streaming and cinematic sound, but now ships with the same voice remote that comes with the Ultra, which means it supports private listening on headphones. And it adds support for a new Roku OS 10 feature called Virtual Surround, which aims to simulate a surround sound setup for Roku Smart Soundbar and Roku Streambar Pro owners, who don’t have another set of speakers to offer true surround sound.

In addition to Virtual Surround and HDR 10+ support, Roku latest OS will roll out Apple AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support to more HD devices, including the Roku Express and some HD Roku TVs.

It will also add a customizable Live TV Channel Guide with favorites; automatic Wi-Fi network detection during setup (and it tells you which of your multiple channels is better to use); and an “instant resume” feature which takes you back to where you left off when you relaunch a supported channel.

At launch, there are over 15 channels that support “instant resume,” including AT&T TV, FilmRise, FOX Business Network, FOX News Channel, Fubo Sports Network, HappyKids TV, Plex.tv, STARZ, and The Roku Channel.

For gamers, a new automatic game console configuration feature, which automatically configures preferred settings, could be useful.

“Depending on the capabilities of the console and the TV, it can also mean turning on things like HDR gaming, variable refresh rates, high frame rate gaming like 120Hz, or maybe THX Certified Game Mode. So, without having to go through complex menus, a user just plugs in their console, and we know exactly how to give them the best experience on the game side,” noted Roku VP of Retail Product Strategy, Mark Ely. The feature works with both Xbox and PlayStation consoles and will also update the input on the Home Screen.

Roku OS 10 is rolling out to select Roku players now and is expected to roll out to all supported streaming players, including the all-new Roku Express 4K+ and Roku Streambar Pro, and all Roku TV models in the weeks ahead.

The new devices and software arrive after a year of increased at-home streaming due to the coronavirus pandemic, which forced users indoors and under lockdowns. Roku in Q4 2020 reported 51.2 million active accounts, up 39% for the year, and 58.7 billion streaming hours, while its free streaming hub, The Roku Channel, saw roughly 200% growth between just June and August 2020 when it added live linear viewing.

“Our business and streaming, in general, continues to grow and accelerate just because there’s such a shift from people that are getting rid of cable and moving over to streaming. And we saw, of course, with theater shutdowns, more people streaming first-run movies at home,” Ely noted. “So, streaming hours increased, and the volume of our products and the popularity of streaming devices increased, as well,” he added.

Roku’s continued momentum, however, cannot rely on pandemic impacts alone. Amazon remains a top competitor, and just rolled out its updated Fire TV interface months ago. There are also now rumors that Apple is planning an updated player of its own, with an Apple TV-HomePod combo of sorts, similar to the existing Roku Streambar. That will leave Roku with plenty of competition to keep it on its toes for months to come.

Netflix is giving its Kids’ profiles a revamp, the company announced today. While adults’ profiles are personalized with horizontal rows of recommendations that appear as they scroll down, the Kids profiles’ redesign is more visual in nature. When kids now log in to their account on a TV, they’ll be greeted with their favorite titles and characters right at the top of the screen, Netflix says.

Previously, the layout for the Kids profile was similar to an adult’s, with rows that showed Trending shows and other suggestions from Netflix’s library (See below). Now, the top row will feature the kid’s most-watched content — and for early readers, the characters will help direct kids to the show they want to watch.

To customize this row for each user, Netflix uses information about what was watched to improve its recommendations. It notes that the favorite shows featured at the top of the screen will come from the full Netflix catalog, not just its original programming. For the title to appear in their row, a child must watch a show at least once, Netflix says. When selected, the background updates to reflect the chosen show, as well.

Younger kids often navigate Netflix visually. Even toddlers can be found using iPads or TV remotes, moving through Netflix like a pro, at times. And during the COVID era where parents were stuck at home trying to both entertain their little kids while homeschooling older ones and somehow also finding time to work, it makes sense to update one of the most popular “TV babysitter” apps to make it something that younger children could use on their own without parental assistance. The need to serve the overwhelmed parent was part of the thinking behind the upgrade, pitching how the update would give parents who “need 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to knock out some work” time to do so. (Uninterrupted time during the pandemic? What’s that?)

Netflix says the new profiles are rolling out now to TV devices globally, but will be tested on tablets and mobile devices in the coming months.

Workflow automation has been one of the key trends this year so far, and Zoho, a company known for its suite of affordable business tools has joined the parade with a new low code workflow product called Qntrl (pronounced control).

Zoho’s Rodrigo Vaca, who is in charge of Qntrl’s marketing says that most of the solutions we’ve been seeing are built for larger enterprise customers. Zoho is aiming for the mid-market with a product that requires less technical expertise than traditional business process management tools.

“We enable customers to design their workflows visually without the need for any particular kind of prior knowledge of business process management notation or any kind of that esoteric modeling or discipline,” Vaca told me.

While Vaca says, Qntrl could require some technical help to connect a workflow to more complex backend systems like CRM or ERP, it allows a less technical end user to drag and drop the components and then get help to finish the rest.

“We certainly expect that when you need to connect to NetSuite or SAP you’re going to need a developer. If nothing else, the IT guys are going to ask questions, and they will need to provide access,” Vaca said.

He believes this product is putting this kind of tooling in reach of companies that may have been left out of workflow automation for the most part, or which have been using spreadsheets or other tools to create crude workflows. With Qntrl, you drag and drop components, and then select each component and configure what happens before, during and after each step.

What’s more, Qntrl provides a central place for processing and understanding what’s happening within each workflow at any given time, and who is responsible for completing it.

We’ve seen bigger companies like Microsoft, SAP, ServiceNow and others offering this type of functionality over the last year as low code workflow automation has taken center stage in business.

This has become a more pronounced need during the pandemic when so many workers could not be in the office. It made moving work in a more automated workflow more imperative, and we have seen companies moving to add more of this kind of functionality as a result.

Brent Leary, principal analyst at CRM Essentials, says that Zoho is attempting to remove some the complexity from this kind of tool.

“It handles the security pieces to make sure the right people have access to the data and processes used in the workflows in the background, so regular users can drag and drop to build their flows and processes without having to worry about that stuff,” Leary told me.

Zoho Qntrl is available starting today starting at just $7 per user month.

Since ride-hailing companies like Uber and Bolt disrupted the transportation industry, one of the thorns on their sides has been traffic congestion and pollution. Research has shown that trips from ride-hailing cars have more emissions than those from personal cars.

To reduce their carbon footprint and solve the latter problem, both companies have floated the idea of ridesharing and other transportation models, like bike and scooter-sharing services. They also have toyed with integrating public transportation scheduling and providing drivers with incentives to switch to electric cars. However, these models have found little or no success.

So in 2018, Lyft decided to go a step further by promising to attain carbon neutrality. According to The Atlantic, the company planned to execute this by purchasing carbon credits from 3Degrees, a sustainability company based in San Francisco.

In 2019, Lyft said it had eliminated the amount of carbon that would take 2.4 million acres of trees to remove in a single year. It achieved this by purchasing 2,062,500 metric tons of carbon offsets, but the company reverted to its old ways in 2020.

But while the program made Lyft rides carbon neutral, it was an expensive process. The company claimed that net emissions from its rides would still increase in the long run. So Lyft promised to offer rides only in electric vehicles by 2030. This is the same with most car companies worldwide, each promising to attain carbon neutrality via electric cars in the future.

However, Planet, a car company based in South Africa wants to achieve carbon neutrality now, not later. But Planet42 isn’t a ride-hailing company. It offers a car subscription product that buys second-hand cars from dealerships and rents to customers via a subscription model.

Founded by Marten Orgna and Eerik Oja, Planet42 targets individuals in emerging markets but has a presence only in Africa. The company has bought nearly 3,000 cars in South Africa and plans to increase this number to 100,000 in the next few years — and 1 million cars globally by 2025.

So despite not being a ride-hailing company and having a huge positive social impact because it gives cars to people who otherwise would not have them, there is a limited negative environmental impact Planet42 has due to the emissions produced by its cars.

While most car companies seem lethargic toward becoming carbon neutral, Planet42, studying how it indirectly contributes to emissions, decided to act last year.

“Few people would argue that becoming carbon neutral is not a worthwhile goal, but it seemed to us that the world is not moving towards carbon neutrality fast enough,” Oja told TechCrunch. “So instead of introducing a vacuous grand plan of becoming carbon neutral by 2040 or something like that, we decided to become carbon neutral now.”

Because there are hardly any electric vehicles in Africa for mass consumption and planting trees can be costly, how has the company gone about it?

Before helping Lyft embark on its tree-planting project, 3Degrees engaged in a couple of wind farms and captured greenhouse gases from landfill projects. Planet42 chose to neutralize its carbon emission through the former; however, it works with local companies in South Africa to reach this.

Its first project is a wind farm in Northern Cape, South Africa; with the money from carbon offset credits, Planet42 has been able to finance the farm for months. The power produced from wind turbines offsets other, more harmful energy production methods like burning coal and supporting a low carbon global economy.

“We are offsetting this negative impact by investing into carbon offset projects in the markets we operate in. To put it another way, the investments we make into carbon neutrality represent a self-imposed tax. We are leading by example and hope that companies in Africa and beyond will follow us.”

When the company, which has raised $20 million in debt and equity, first launched, attaining carbon neutrality wasn’t even an afterthought. But now, not only is it certified as a carbon-neutral company by Natural Capital Partners, its investors feel enthused about the project.

Oja says what’s next for the company will be to achieve carbon neutrality via electric cars ultimately. However, that might be a reach. The adoption of electric vehicles in Africa faces additional problems different from what the U.S., Europe and even other emerging markets face. Top of mind is the dire power situation where unreliable power supply is provided at high electricity prices. Then there is a general lack of tax incentives, subsidies and policies, and the sole fact that they are too expensive for the average African car owner.

For instance, there are more than a million electric vehicles on U.S. roads and over 317,000 on U.K. roads. In South Africa — Planet42’s main market and Africa’s top electric car market, this number is just about 1,000. So, until electric cars become mainstream, wind farms will remain vital to the company’s carbon-neutral efforts.

“Ideally, what we could be doing is for our cars to be electric, and that’s what we’re planning for the future. When we do that, there wouldn’t be any need for offsets on a day to day side but we’re not there right now. Everyone understands that ultimately electric cars will be ideal; however, that future is not now and we need to act right now,” the CEO said.

When you’re not feeling well and your doctor asks you to get labs drawn, you know that can increase the time between a diagnosis and care. But Getlabs, a company that brings the lab to you with its at-home, blood-drawing service, is aiming to eliminate that friction, and today announced a $3 million seed round led by PivotNorth Capital. The funding will be used to launch in Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Dallas, all of which have been soft launches so far.

“Seventy percent of all medical decisions are based on lab results, yet 30% of patients are non-compliant and skip their lab orders,” Getlabs said in a statement. For many, getting their labs drawn is just one more tedious step in getting the care they need.

With Getlabs, once a phlebotomist draws your blood, it can get processed in any lab of your choice, though the company has partnerships with Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics.

The company charges for drawing the labs, but insurance pays for the blood work to be processed, as it normally would. To get your blood drawn at home, Getlabs charges the patient between $29-$49, and it’s based on when you want them to come to you. 

“[Brick and mortar] labs usually charge a $25 blood drawing fee, which isn’t covered by insurance, so the $29 fee charged by Getlabs is only a couple more dollars,” Kyle Michelson, Getlabs founder and CEO, told TechCrunch.

Getlabs is the result of a challenge Michelson himself faced.

“I needed my labs done all the time while I was in Y Combinator [for another idea],” he said. “I was there for three months, and you’re scrambling to build a business, and I had no time, and the little time I had I spent driving to the lab and waiting for an hour. So it was just a miserable experience,” he said.

“I started looking into why people didn’t get their labs done, and the top reason was inconvenience,” he added.

Getting healthcare today often includes four trips: going to the doctor, the lab, back to the doctor and then the pharmacy. But with the massive growth of virtual care and with companies like Capsule, Amazon Pharmacy and PillPack (owned by Amazon) offering prescription delivery to your door, Michelson saw a gap in the market for a more convenient lab service, too.

Getlabs, which is fully remote and has 37 employees, plans to use the funding to expand to Phoenix, Philadelphia and Dallas and also to expand to other verticals of home health. Other investors in the round include Tusk Venture Partners, Rosecliff Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, CityLight Capital, Karlin Asset Management and angel investor Matthew Dellavedova.

“I believe Getlabs is the final step in delivering at-home healthcare that will be so crucial as more organizations and individuals see the benefits of telemedicine,” said Tim Connors, founder and managing partner at PivotNorth Capital.

While not all ailments can be treated virtually, when possible, “The end goal for Getlabs is to fully partner with telemedicine services so patients never have to leave the home,” the company said. 

According to Edvard Engesaeth, co-founder of Nurx, “Getlabs could play an important part for healthcare companies like Nurx to treat more complex conditions where in-person blood draws are required by providing remote care in the home.”