Author: azeeadmin

In an interview with Reuters six days after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg infamously downplayed her company’s role in the day’s horrific events, which left five people dead.

“I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate and don’t have our standards and don’t have our transparency,” Sandberg said at the time, touting Facebook’s very recent and far from thorough efforts to remove QAnon, conspiracies and violent militias.

At Thursday’s hearing with the House Energy and Commerce committee, lawmakers circled back to Sandberg’s denial, but Facebook still didn’t have a good answer.

In his opening statements, Zuckerberg said that Facebook “did our part” to protect the U.S. election and placed the blame on the actions of former President Donald Trump.

“I believe that the former president should be responsible for his words and that the people who broke the law should be responsible for their actions,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Asked if Facebook “bears some responsibility” for spreading election misinformation and the Stop the Steal movement, Zuckerberg deflected, declining to answer directly.

“How is it possible for you not to at least admit that Facebook played a leading role in the recruitment, planning and execution of the attack on the capitol?” Rep Mike Doyle (D-PA) asked.

Pressed again, Zuckerberg passed the buck.

“I think the responsibility lies with the people who took the actions to break the law and do the insurrection,” he said. “Secondarily, also with the people who spread that content, including the President but others as well, with repeated rhetoric over time, saying that the election was rigged and encouraging people to organize, I think that those people bear the primary responsibility as well.”

Doyle wasn’t having it, arguing that Facebook “supercharged” the dangerous rhetoric, which spread like wildfire on the platform before the January 6 attack. As Doyle pointed out, the FBI showed that insurrectionists used Facebook during the “recruitment, planning, and execution” stages of the attack. 

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) brought up the Sandberg interview specifically, 

“My question for you is, will you admit today that Facebook groups in particular played a role in fomenting the extremism that we saw, and that led to the Capitol siege?” Schakowsky asked.

“The comment that Sheryl made, what I believe that we were trying to say and what I stand behind is what was widely reported at the time…” Zuckerberg began, before Schakowsky told him to get to the point.

“Certainly there was content on our services,” Zuckerberg said vaguely. “And from that perspective, I think that there’s further work we need to do to make our services and moderation more effective.”

Beyond the fact that the Stop the Steal movement swelled to enormous numbers in Facebook groups, insurrectionist leaders relied on Facebook to communicate and hunt for lawmakers on the day of the attack.

That shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the company: The militia members who hatched a plot to capture or kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer last year also relied on the platform to organize and communicate, according to FBI affidavits. 

Electric vehicle manufacturers are pushing back against a decision to delay penalty increases for automakers who fail to meet fuel efficiency standards.

A lobbying group representing legacy automakers – many of whom are now making substantial investments in zero-emissions vehicles – said the increase would have a significant economic impact during a time when the industry is facing mass disruption from the COVID pandemic. But new EV entrants say the penalty mechanism is a powerful performance incentive to decrease tailpipe emissions and encourage investment in lower- or zero-emissions technology.  

The decision, issued in January by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), postpones imposing a penalty increase from the beginning of model year 2019 to model year 2022. Tesla is petitioning the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to review the ruling, saying that the delay “inflicts ongoing, irreparable injury” on the company and creates an “uneven playing field” by reducing the consequences of non-adherence.

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) penalty has been increased just once – from $5 to $5.50 for every 0.1 mile per gallon that doesn’t meet the standard – since its instatement in 1975. Congress acted to rectify the effects of inflation on the penalty by raising it to $14 in 2015, but NHTSA and the courts have ping-ponged about the increase ever since. A decision from the Second Circuit last August seemed to settle the issue in favor of instating the higher penalty starting with model year 2019, but automakers last October successfully petitioned that the increase be delayed.

The CAFE penalty can be a huge boon for zero emissions automakers, who receive credits that they can then sell to other OEMs who fail to meet the fuel efficiency target. In a recent report to regulators, Tesla said it earned $1.58 billion from selling regulatory credits to other automakers in 2020, up from $594 million in 2019. Delaying the increase harms companies that have made economic decisions on the basis of an increase to the credit, Tesla said.  

EV start-ups Rivian and Lucid Motors told TechCrunch they also oppose any delay to increasing the CAFE penalty.

“The credit market is very beneficial for the entire EV industry, so every company that is looking to start building EVs, either as a startup or the existing manufacturers, when they build EVs it’s to their benefit to have robust credits,” Kevin Vincent, Lucid Motor’s Associate General Counsel, told TechCrunch. “A lot of existing manufacturers end up selling credits themselves, so it benefits the forward-thinking companies that are improving fuel economy.”

James Chen, Rivian’s VP of Public Policy and Chief Regulatory Counsel, said in a statement to TechCrunch that any rollback of the CAFE or other emission standard “only sets the U.S. backwards in terms of emission reductions ([greenhouse gas] and criteria pollutants), increased fuel efficiency, reduction of dependence on foreign oil, technology leadership and EV proliferation.” He added that the company “strongly supports efforts to bolster EV adoption that includes more stringent emission standards and higher penalties for failure to meet those standards.”

NHTSA postponed the increase on the grounds that the penalty should not be retroactively applied to model years that had already been manufactured. As manufacturers have no way to increase the fuel economy level in these vehicles, “it would be inappropriate to apply the adjustment to model years that could have no deterrence effect and promote no additional compliance with the law,” NHTSA said.

Automakers, in a petition filed by the lobbying group Alliance for Automotive Innovation and in supplemental comments, also cited economic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mercedes-Benz told NHTSA that the pandemic caused disruptions to its supply chain, workforce and production.

“We believe that retroactively applying an increased penalty rate in such a tenuous financial climate is unconscionable and inconsistent with this Administration’s efforts to promote regulatory relief in light of the economic consequences of COVID-19,” the automaker said.

Tesla maintained in its court filing that relying on the COVID pandemic “falls flat” in the absence of specific evidence as to why it warrants the delay.  

Attorney generals from 16 states, including California and New York, as well as environmental groups Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, have also objected to the delay.

The NHTSA decision was issued in docket no. NHTSA-2021-0001. Tesla filed with the second circuit under case no. 21-593.

The business world has a love-hate relationship with coaching. Founders are visionaries: They start with an idea, a talent, a dream, but not necessarily the business know-how. Because being an entrepreneur doesn’t require a license or training — Jeff Bezos is an engineer and computer scientist; Elon Musk is an economist and physicist, and so on.

In any other industry, when someone with raw talent — an athlete, a singer, an actor — furthers their career, the first thing they receive is a coach. And it doesn’t stop once they get their first Olympic gold or Grammy.

Coaches don’t leave their side until they hang up their gloves. Tiger Woods is famous for having worked with many coaches to switch up his tactics and keep exceeding in his performance.

Despite a culture that pushes founders to the edge of their physical, mental and personal limits as they build their company, we insist that they fly solo. They’re led to believe that reaching out for support is a sign of weakness.

That stigma is a huge part of the problem. We look up to business magnates, believing that they sailed from a college dorm to the C-suite without breaking a sweat. But we don’t see the vigorous kicking that goes on beneath the surface. As a client of mine once mused, even the best leaders are self-sabotaging themselves at least 30% of the time. I know for a fact that top Silicon Valley billionaires have nutrition, parenting, meditation and life coaches, but they — like half of my own clients — are reluctant to embrace this out in the open.

VCs know that they don’t invest in the business; they invest in the person. Record amounts of money are being funneled into mental wellness startups right now, but investors also need to direct that awareness toward their founders’ well-being. By offering access to a coach to all your portfolio founders, you’ll be tackling the real problems stopping them from pouring their energy into their business, and you’ll without a doubt improve your returns.

1. Business is not always a founder’s main problem

I coach founders and CEOs of startups, and more than half their main life challenges are not work related. They’re getting pulled in multiple directions — some have cancer, others are having an affair, a few are going through IVF, others still are dealing with past grief and traumas.

And when a problem is work related, it’s often a communication or psychological issue: How do I face my fear of failure? How do I lead a team of 50 for the first time? Should I trust my gut?

All this is happening in the midst of Series A raises, hiring and firing employees, acquisitions, and deciding whether to bridge or shut down the business. Imagine how much emotional energy and hours it takes for founders — or anyone, really — to face those intimate issues in isolation while putting on a brave face with investors or at board meetings.

One of the most recurring concerns founders share with me is that they feel alone.

VCs, when you choose to fund someone, you’re also marrying into their past, their family, their personal issues. The full package. Ask yourself — do you currently know the major distractions in the lives of all your portfolio founders? If you don’t, start with the assumption that something is going on in their life other than work and make coaching available to them at any time.

If you commit to helping founders manage their fears, limiting beliefs and blind spots, you’re committing to their potential as a company and industry leader. A healthy leadership is a healthy company.

2. Return on coaching (ROC)

As with elite soccer coaches, the benefits of business coaching are highly visible, without the million-dollar expense. Founders start to make better decisions the first time around. They hire the right talent, rather than hiring, onboarding and firing someone within a month.

They have more honest conversations with stakeholders, avoiding conflict and allowing more people to contribute meaningfully to the business’ growth. They have the proper mindset to fundraise, and their attitude matches the money they’re asking for.

That’s before getting to the physical improvements. My founders have lost weight, stopped smoking and drinking, and have more energy to build a business. If a founder works with chronic fatigue, which many are, it won’t be long before their body cracks. I get calls from clients caught in panic attacks before big meetings, struggling to steady their frayed nerves.

You can fund your founders’ well-being in a variety of ways. In the same way your firm might offer marketing or PR services to portfolio companies, coaching should be part of the package. Firms can make executive coaches available on retainer. You may choose to have a full-time resident coach, available whenever someone needs them.

At the very least, firms should make available a list of recommended coaches. Some coaches specialize in leadership coaching, female founders or health specifically, while others cover various personal and professional skills.

Investors will sometimes offer a handful of free sessions to their founders, but if they want to continue, they are then forced to decide between their personal health and the health of the business — which other people (including your firm) have staked millions of dollars on. It should never be a case of one or the other.

My hope is that in the future, VCs will set aside a percentage of their funds exclusively for mental wellness for founders and executives.

A few VCs have already taken a 1% pledge, but it’s the Europeans who are leading the charge here, with funds from Estonia to Ireland generously covering all founder coaching fees and other support programs. Those I know talk about how 10x growth is possible without burnout.

3. Cut through the stigma to enable founders to make the most of coaching

Founders are resistant to hiring a coach themselves because they’re worried about what their investors and board will think of them. They tell themselves: “If I were normal, and good enough, I wouldn’t need one.”

It’s not just their inner voice talking. When a client of mine joined a Silicon Valley startup, he asked his superiors if coaching could be part of his comp package. They wondered why he needed a coach.

In other industries, connecting someone with a coach is proof of their worth. That’s the conversation investors should be having: You’re good enough for us to give you money, so we’re going to give you someone to accompany you on your journey, so you don’t pretend you can figure it out at every step.

There’s also a negative connotation around the term “mental health” that we should be reframing. Those two words tend to make people think about depression, suicidal thoughts or addiction. Which is mental unhealth. Let’s talk more about mental wellness and founder well-being, which focuses us on the goal we’re working toward.

Eliminating the stigma can start with open conversations about well-being between investors and executives, as well as inviting a coach to talk to your founders about what these sessions entail, and why everyone has something to gain. By shattering the taboo, you’ll enable founders to make the absolute most of that experience, rather than hold back to keep up appearances.

If we start making coaching mainstream today, we might eventually see it as obligatory for all founders.

4. Lead by example

Finally, business leaders and investors need to set an example for the startup community, and especially people at the start of their journeys, that it’s OK to ask for assistance in bettering yourself.

Many VCs, like top CEOs, have coaches. If more simply owned it, they’d have so much power to normalize coaching, and even make #IHaveACoach fashionable. After all, we’re talking about the same industry that made meditation rooms trendy and kombucha an office feature.

Why not make coaching a central topic in future investor conferences, or, as a VC firm, publish a study on how portfolio founders who followed a coaching program saw greater business success?

For example: For years, Union Square Ventures has invested in providing value to their founders and has built a team whose responsibilities include developing leadership training, fostering mentorship circles and connecting founders to coaches. If you let founders see your commitment to human issues, it won’t occur to them that being human is being weak.

These approaches are also important self-promotion for VCs positioning themselves as the next generation of ethical investors. With so many alternative funding options becoming available, founders are seeking VCs who give them more than just capital and who see wellness and diversity and inclusion as inextricable from success.

Founder health and startup health can’t be separated from each other. On some level, all investors know this. So let’s give the people shaping tomorrow’s world the tools to be more comfortable in their own skin and more masterful in leading teams to achieve greatness and incredible returns.

Augmented and virtual reality have been used for years in gaming, design and shopping. Now, a new battle for market share is emerging — inside vehicles.

Safety-glass windshields offer a new opportunity for suppliers, manufacturers and startups that are starting to adapt this technology: AR overlays digital information or images on what a user sees in the real world, while VR creates a seemingly real experience that changes as they move through it.

The potential for monetizing AR/VR is hamstrung by a number of factors: The long, expensive timelines required to develop, tool and test an automotive-grade product has constrained development to a small subset of startups and several large suppliers.

And despite all of the pomp and promises about the technology’s potential, there isn’t a clear understanding of market demand for bringing AR and VR to cars, trucks and passenger vans. Estimates of the global market range from $14 billion by 2027 to as much as $673 billion by 2025. That wide range shows just how nascent the market currently is and how much opportunity is present.

“At the vehicle manufacturer level, companies are witnessing a complete shift of emphasis of what their product offering is, to the user. Because of that change of emphasis, there’s a whole new paradigm of what the car is,” said Andy Travers, the CEO of Ceres, a Scottish company that specializes in creating holographic glass for AR applications. “There is a huge interest in AR and transparent displays because a car is no longer really differentiated by its engine size, especially as we get into electric vehicles. They are going to be identical skateboards. The question then becomes, how do you differentiate an electric car? You push it toward the user experience.”

It’s no surprise that the implementation of automotive AR (and in limited situations, VR) has been and will continue to be slow. It will largely lag the wider AR and VR market for a number of reasons. Vehicle systems — especially those using computing power and technology needed for AR and VR — must be robust enough to handle tremendous temperature swings, rough jostling and impacts over anywhere from three to 10 years, even if Tesla says that “it is economically, if not technologically, infeasible to expect that such components can or should be designed to last the vehicle’s entire useful life.”

These systems have to be nearly indestructible in extreme conditions for a very long period of time. They must also be compact and power-efficient, especially as electric vehicles become more prevalent. You don’t want your AR or VR system draining your battery and leaving you stranded.

As an example of just how much the automotive technology landscape differs from the consumer realm, consider how long it took for touchscreens to show up in vehicle cockpits. While Buick offered a rudimentary touchscreen in its 1986 Riviera, it was not the easy-to-use interface we’re used to today thanks to the advent of the iPhone.

This is partially due to the three- to seven-year iteration cycles most vehicle makers are on and because the technology simply wasn’t familiar enough to the consumer market to make widespread adoption profitable. In their current form, AR and VR have seen a far more successful uptake rate in industrial usage and application, in part because the technology is still so pricey.

It would be a mistake to exclude a discussion about the development of autonomous driving in this AR and VR conversation, too. The technology is instrumental in the development of fully autonomous vehicles, and while there are no full -autonomous vehicles on the road today, automakers are pushing to make them more than just vaporware.

The players

Many well-established brands like Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen already offer a suite of AR features in their top-end vehicles. Automotive suppliers like Continental, Denso, Visteon, ZF, Nvidia, Bosch, Panasonic and others are the biggest players in the AR and VR automotive space, supplying and making head-up displays (HUDs) and related components for a variety of established automakers.

Most of the AR features in these vehicles are focused on overlaying directional guides over camera images to help drivers navigate in unfamiliar territories or identify a particular building or landmark. Virtual reality, thus far, has been largely applied to the design, sales, demonstration and education of consumers about new technology and features in vehicles, although companies like Audi spinoff Holoride are working to offer passengers VR experiences that can help cut down on in-car motion sickness while simultaneously offering gaming, entertainment or business applications. Even ride-hailing companies are getting in on the AR and VR game, with Lyft and Uber exploring AR and VR options for riders.

Augmented and virtual reality have been used for years in gaming, design and shopping. Now, a new battle for market share is emerging — inside vehicles.

Safety-glass windshields offer a new opportunity for suppliers, manufacturers and startups that are starting to adapt this technology: AR overlays digital information or images on what a user sees in the real world, while VR creates a seemingly real experience that changes as they move through it.

The potential for monetizing AR/VR is hamstrung by a number of factors: The long, expensive timelines required to develop, tool and test an automotive-grade product has constrained development to a small subset of startups and several large suppliers.

And despite all of the pomp and promises about the technology’s potential, there isn’t a clear understanding of market demand for bringing AR and VR to cars, trucks and passenger vans. Estimates of the global market range from $14 billion by 2027 to as much as $673 billion by 2025. That wide range shows just how nascent the market currently is and how much opportunity is present.

“At the vehicle manufacturer level, companies are witnessing a complete shift of emphasis of what their product offering is, to the user. Because of that change of emphasis, there’s a whole new paradigm of what the car is,” said Andy Travers, the CEO of Ceres, a Scottish company that specializes in creating holographic glass for AR applications. “There is a huge interest in AR and transparent displays because a car is no longer really differentiated by its engine size, especially as we get into electric vehicles. They are going to be identical skateboards. The question then becomes, how do you differentiate an electric car? You push it toward the user experience.”

It’s no surprise that the implementation of automotive AR (and in limited situations, VR) has been and will continue to be slow. It will largely lag the wider AR and VR market for a number of reasons. Vehicle systems — especially those using computing power and technology needed for AR and VR — must be robust enough to handle tremendous temperature swings, rough jostling and impacts over anywhere from three to 10 years, even if Tesla says that “it is economically, if not technologically, infeasible to expect that such components can or should be designed to last the vehicle’s entire useful life.”

These systems have to be nearly indestructible in extreme conditions for a very long period of time. They must also be compact and power-efficient, especially as electric vehicles become more prevalent. You don’t want your AR or VR system draining your battery and leaving you stranded.

As an example of just how much the automotive technology landscape differs from the consumer realm, consider how long it took for touchscreens to show up in vehicle cockpits. While Buick offered a rudimentary touchscreen in its 1986 Riviera, it was not the easy-to-use interface we’re used to today thanks to the advent of the iPhone.

This is partially due to the three- to seven-year iteration cycles most vehicle makers are on and because the technology simply wasn’t familiar enough to the consumer market to make widespread adoption profitable. In their current form, AR and VR have seen a far more successful uptake rate in industrial usage and application, in part because the technology is still so pricey.

It would be a mistake to exclude a discussion about the development of autonomous driving in this AR and VR conversation, too. The technology is instrumental in the development of fully autonomous vehicles, and while there are no full -autonomous vehicles on the road today, automakers are pushing to make them more than just vaporware.

The players

Many well-established brands like Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen already offer a suite of AR features in their top-end vehicles. Automotive suppliers like Continental, Denso, Visteon, ZF, Nvidia, Bosch, Panasonic and others are the biggest players in the AR and VR automotive space, supplying and making head-up displays (HUDs) and related components for a variety of established automakers.

Most of the AR features in these vehicles are focused on overlaying directional guides over camera images to help drivers navigate in unfamiliar territories or identify a particular building or landmark. Virtual reality, thus far, has been largely applied to the design, sales, demonstration and education of consumers about new technology and features in vehicles, although companies like Audi spinoff Holoride are working to offer passengers VR experiences that can help cut down on in-car motion sickness while simultaneously offering gaming, entertainment or business applications. Even ride-hailing companies are getting in on the AR and VR game, with Lyft and Uber exploring AR and VR options for riders.

Austin-based home lab testing kit startup Everlywell is expanding its scope considerably with two acquisitions, and a transformation that includes the establishment of a new parent company led by Everlywell CEO and co-founder Julia Cheek. The new entity, called Everly Health, will now offers services including at-home lab testing kits and education, population-scale testing through a U.S.-wide clinician network, telehealth and payer-supported/enterprise self-collected lab test.

This is a big move for Everlywell, which was found in 2015 (and which was a finalist in TechCrunch’s 2016 Disrupt SF Battlefield completion). The company has steadily iterated on its offerings, expanding its at-home testing from fertility products, to food sensitivities and allergies, and last year, to at home COVID-19 test collection.

Everly Health’s business now includes not only that kind of at-home consumer diagnostic and personal health education, but also many relationships through PWNHealth, which will rebrand to Everly Health Solutions, with health plans, employers and labs across the U.S.

Everlywell itself was actually a longtime partner of PNWHealth, which is what Cheek told me an in interview actually helped make the acquisition make so much sense to both companies. They’d been working together for years, and that collaboration had only deepened in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What we found over the last year, was we were collaborating on all these different enterprise partnerships to offer solutions, and so our cultures are really well aligned, and our teams have worked closely together,” she said. “And we both share this common ethos that we felt the urgent need to help people and to save lives, but also this discipline around consumer-friendly and enabled care, grounded in diagnostics.”

Overall, Cheek said that the decision to go out and acquire the pieces of the puzzle needed to deliver a more comprehensive care offering was partly driven by the pandemic, but that really just drove an acceleration of what Everlywell was already beginning to see before COVID-19. Freshly capitalized with the $175 million it raised last December, the startup was in a position to make some bold moves in order to make the most of the moment.

“Before the pandemic, but especially during and looking out to post-pandemic, we have just seen this massive acceleration of the need for consumer friendly testing services,” she said. “Our business has continued to grow exponentially, even since normal doctor’s appointments resumed, orders of magnitude, 300% growth. We sat back and said, since we believe healthcare is in a watershed moment post-pandemic, where do we think we need to actually be to be able to offer a full-service diagnostic solution as this entire space grows. So it’s Everlywell as a consumer friendly brand, but it’s also this massive enterprise need for home testing, and broader consumer diagnostics.”

The new acquisitions do add some complexity to Everly Health’s business, since its Everly Health Solutions also serves a number of customers that would be considered competitive with Everlywell. Cheek points out that both businesses have a demonstrated track record of security and data integrity, compliant with HIPAA standards, and says that they’re setting up a strict firewall that will result in “complete data independence” of Everly Health Solutions to ensure there’s no possibility of anti-competitive behavior.

The companies will however share customer experience, design and product resources, however, and the plan is to build a unified brand focused on high-quality customer engagement across the board.

Everly Health hasn’t released the financial details of the transaction, but it has shared shared that PWNHealth CEO Sanjay Pingle will be acting in a transitional role in the combined company for the time being, and will serve on the board of Everly Health. Investors in PWNHealth, including Spectrum Equity, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield corporate VC Blue Venture Fund will also retain an ownership stake in Everly Health.

Austin-based home lab testing kit startup Everlywell is expanding its scope considerably with two acquisitions, and a transformation that includes the establishment of a new parent company led by Everlywell CEO and co-founder Julia Cheek. The new entity, called Everly Health, will now offers services including at-home lab testing kits and education, population-scale testing through a U.S.-wide clinician network, telehealth and payer-supported/enterprise self-collected lab test.

This is a big move for Everlywell, which was found in 2015 (and which was a finalist in TechCrunch’s 2016 Disrupt SF Battlefield completion). The company has steadily iterated on its offerings, expanding its at-home testing from fertility products, to food sensitivities and allergies, and last year, to at home COVID-19 test collection.

Everly Health’s business now includes not only that kind of at-home consumer diagnostic and personal health education, but also many relationships through PWNHealth, which will rebrand to Everly Health Solutions, with health plans, employers and labs across the U.S.

Everlywell itself was actually a longtime partner of PNWHealth, which is what Cheek told me an in interview actually helped make the acquisition make so much sense to both companies. They’d been working together for years, and that collaboration had only deepened in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What we found over the last year, was we were collaborating on all these different enterprise partnerships to offer solutions, and so our cultures are really well aligned, and our teams have worked closely together,” she said. “And we both share this common ethos that we felt the urgent need to help people and to save lives, but also this discipline around consumer-friendly and enabled care, grounded in diagnostics.”

Overall, Cheek said that the decision to go out and acquire the pieces of the puzzle needed to deliver a more comprehensive care offering was partly driven by the pandemic, but that really just drove an acceleration of what Everlywell was already beginning to see before COVID-19. Freshly capitalized with the $175 million it raised last December, the startup was in a position to make some bold moves in order to make the most of the moment.

“Before the pandemic, but especially during and looking out to post-pandemic, we have just seen this massive acceleration of the need for consumer friendly testing services,” she said. “Our business has continued to grow exponentially, even since normal doctor’s appointments resumed, orders of magnitude, 300% growth. We sat back and said, since we believe healthcare is in a watershed moment post-pandemic, where do we think we need to actually be to be able to offer a full-service diagnostic solution as this entire space grows. So it’s Everlywell as a consumer friendly brand, but it’s also this massive enterprise need for home testing, and broader consumer diagnostics.”

The new acquisitions do add some complexity to Everly Health’s business, since its Everly Health Solutions also serves a number of customers that would be considered competitive with Everlywell. Cheek points out that both businesses have a demonstrated track record of security and data integrity, compliant with HIPAA standards, and says that they’re setting up a strict firewall that will result in “complete data independence” of Everly Health Solutions to ensure there’s no possibility of anti-competitive behavior.

The companies will however share customer experience, design and product resources, however, and the plan is to build a unified brand focused on high-quality customer engagement across the board.

Everly Health hasn’t released the financial details of the transaction, but it has shared shared that PWNHealth CEO Sanjay Pingle will be acting in a transitional role in the combined company for the time being, and will serve on the board of Everly Health. Investors in PWNHealth, including Spectrum Equity, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield corporate VC Blue Venture Fund will also retain an ownership stake in Everly Health.

Design and marketing consultancy R/GA is expanding its Venture Studios program with the launch of a new Coalition Venture Studio focused specifically on supporting Black-led and Black-owned startups.

The initiative is led by R/GA Entrepreneur in Residence Davyeon Ross, a Black entrepreneur who founded sports analytics company ShotTracker. The startup (which is backed by TechCrunch’s parent company Verizon, specifically Verizon Ventures) was part of R/GA’s Dodgers Accelerator, and Ross attributed much of ShotTracker’s success to connections made by the agency.

“From that perspective, I got this firsthand view of the power of R/GA Ventures,” Ross told me.

To participate in the Coalition Venture Studio, startups must be majority Black-owned or have a Black CEO, CTO or board chair. However, Ross said that it won’t be using a traditional application process, and it won’t be limited to a handful of startups.

“It’s going not going to be cohorts or batches of companies,” he explained. “The thought process is, it’s an ongoing initiative […] A big piece of this is, it’s not an application process, it’s a registration process. Once we work with R/GA to vet the companies, we can start positioning them for projects within the R/GA agency.”

In other words, assuming a company qualifies, they’ll become eligible for three main kinds of support through the Coalition program — creative capital (consulting, design, copywriting and other services), relationship capital (introductions to what Ross described as R/GA’s “network of incredible blue chip clients) and financial capital (which could come from a syndicate led by R/GA Ventures).

This launch comes after last year’s protests over the killing of George Floyd led to a broader conversation about race and representation in startups and venture capital. Ross said he’s encouraged by that conversation — but at the same time, only 1% of VC money was deployed with Black entrepreneurs last year, and there’s a risk that the industry could move on without addressing systemic issues.

“As a society, we tend to be very short term,” he said. “We say, ‘Oh my goodness, that happened,’ and then we go about our lives […] That’s why I was excited that R/GA reached out to make this commitment. Part of this is about accountability, part of this is about easy options for folks to get involved, part of this is about storytelling. A lot of companies made statements, so this is just providing them with vehicles to be able to help.”

To that end, Coalition has already signed up a number of partners, including several from the startup and VC world like Andreessen Horowitz’s TxO Initiative, Harlem Capital, Collab Capital, Ohub, Mac Venture Capital and Gingerbread Capital. R/GA’s parent company IPG is also a partner, as are the Dodgers and Elysian Park (home to Dodger Stadium).

Eligible startups can register on the Coalition website.