Category: UNCATEGORIZED

How-to videos have been some of the most popular content on YouTube over the years, and now, to grow engagement and the pool of users that it appeals to, the upstart video app TikTok is getting in on the action, too.

After launching a dedicated “Learn On TikTok” hashtag (#LearnOnTikTok) earlier this summer with a slate of premium creators producing videos for it, multiple users and social media watchers (thanks Matt) are reporting sightings of a new menu item called “Learn.”

Featured prominently alongside “For You” and “Following” at the top of the homescreen, TikTok describes Learn as a place to discover how-to and informative videos posted by users that take viewers through making food, producing art, how scientific processes work, and more.

The Learn feed seems to have disappeared overnight: from what we understand it’s still being tested.

Image Credits: Lena Koppova (opens in a new window)(opens in a new window)In any case, its emergence coincided with the company yesterday launching a new promotional campaign for educational content discoverable through the #LearnOnTikTok hashtag.

(And in the original announcement for Learn On TikTok content, TikTok noted that it is “exploring additional ways to showcase the rich offering of instructional content that’s thriving on the platform,” which includes “building a creator learning portal that will provide insights, tools, and best practices on how to create quality content on TikTok,” so the Learn tab may have been a test of how that will look and work.)

These are not TikTok’s first or only efforts in the realm of education.

Aside from its self-referential audience-created educational videos — it’s the best platform for learning TikTok dances, for learning about the latest song-based memes, watching comedic mishaps as people try to explain something, etc. — the company has been cultivating an image as a go-to platform for learning more serious things, not just messing around.

It’s been pushing that even harder this year than ever, both as TikTok itself faces ire from authorities for having a more potentially harmful influence; and as more people turn to their screens during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This has included formal efforts like partnering up with institutions, and encouraging students to create educational content.

@cambridgeuniversityCan #cars talk to each other? #learnontiktok #cambridgeuniversity #cambridge #artificialintelligence #driverless♬ HAPPY SUMMER ADVENTURE – Sergey Wednesday

It’s also included dedicating $50 million specifically to a creator fund to promote educational videos; and reportedly a whopping $5 billion educational fund as part of a deal to keep from getting shut down in the US over national security concerns (Bytedance, the owner of TikTok, has disputed the idea of the fund).

This has also included soft diplomacy, where teachers are using TikTok as a way of being more relatable to their audience of TikTok-loving students.

At its heart, doing more in education is a natural move for TikTok. Video is a huge learning tool, as YouTube and many others have demonstrated, and it connects with the app’s younger audience while also creating more reasons for why others might also want to use it — but also somewhat opportunistic.

Education is a good look, and its push in India was coming at a time when the company was first starting to face backlash over its content (it didn’t help: it’s currently banned there).

Meanwhile, its US Creative Learning Fund and those reports of a $5 billion education fund — accurate or not — emerged just as the company was working on hammering out a deal — which might include its Chinese owner Bytedance ceding control of the app — to keep it from getting banned outright in the US over national security concerns. (That story is still ongoing.)

Learn On TikTok — which officially was announced this summer — is heavy on user-generated content from TikTok’s wider base, with videos ranging pretty widely, from pottery making to make-up tips, and learning pig Latin to folding origami pigs.

But alongside this, TikTok is now populating the hashtag with a lot of premium content. Working with publishers like Self and WWD, professional organizations, non-profit institutions, and influential personalities (Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson in the science arena, chef José Andrés, Lilly Singh and Tyra Banks), TikTok is also curating and cultivating content made specifically for TikTok to broaden people’s minds and experiences.

“I’m excited to partner with TikTok,” Nye said at the time that his deal was announced. “Looking forward to doing some science on the small screen— the real small screen— the one on your phone…”

All of this is to say that there is a lot of opportunity, but probably some more growing pains to come for TikTok and the people using it to teach and learn.

We will update this story as we learn more ourselves…

How-to videos have been some of the most popular content on YouTube over the years, and now, to grow engagement and the pool of users that it appeals to, the upstart video app TikTok is getting in on the action, too.

After launching a dedicated “Learn On TikTok” hashtag (#LearnOnTikTok) earlier this summer with a slate of premium creators producing videos for it, multiple users and social media watchers (thanks Matt) are reporting sightings of a new menu item called “Learn.”

Featured prominently alongside “For You” and “Following” at the top of the homescreen, TikTok describes Learn as a place to discover how-to and informative videos posted by users that take viewers through making food, producing art, how scientific processes work, and more.

The Learn feed seems to have disappeared overnight: from what we understand it’s still being tested.

Image Credits: Lena Koppova (opens in a new window)(opens in a new window)In any case, its emergence coincided with the company yesterday launching a new promotional campaign for educational content discoverable through the #LearnOnTikTok hashtag.

(And in the original announcement for Learn On TikTok content, TikTok noted that it is “exploring additional ways to showcase the rich offering of instructional content that’s thriving on the platform,” which includes “building a creator learning portal that will provide insights, tools, and best practices on how to create quality content on TikTok,” so the Learn tab may have been a test of how that will look and work.)

These are not TikTok’s first or only efforts in the realm of education.

Aside from its self-referential audience-created educational videos — it’s the best platform for learning TikTok dances, for learning about the latest song-based memes, watching comedic mishaps as people try to explain something, etc. — the company has been cultivating an image as a go-to platform for learning more serious things, not just messing around.

It’s been pushing that even harder this year than ever, both as TikTok itself faces ire from authorities for having a more potentially harmful influence; and as more people turn to their screens during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This has included formal efforts like partnering up with institutions, and encouraging students to create educational content.

@cambridgeuniversityCan #cars talk to each other? #learnontiktok #cambridgeuniversity #cambridge #artificialintelligence #driverless♬ HAPPY SUMMER ADVENTURE – Sergey Wednesday

It’s also included dedicating $50 million specifically to a creator fund to promote educational videos; and reportedly a whopping $5 billion educational fund as part of a deal to keep from getting shut down in the US over national security concerns (Bytedance, the owner of TikTok, has disputed the idea of the fund).

This has also included soft diplomacy, where teachers are using TikTok as a way of being more relatable to their audience of TikTok-loving students.

At its heart, doing more in education is a natural move for TikTok. Video is a huge learning tool, as YouTube and many others have demonstrated, and it connects with the app’s younger audience while also creating more reasons for why others might also want to use it — but also somewhat opportunistic.

Education is a good look, and its push in India was coming at a time when the company was first starting to face backlash over its content (it didn’t help: it’s currently banned there).

Meanwhile, its US Creative Learning Fund and those reports of a $5 billion education fund — accurate or not — emerged just as the company was working on hammering out a deal — which might include its Chinese owner Bytedance ceding control of the app — to keep it from getting banned outright in the US over national security concerns. (That story is still ongoing.)

Learn On TikTok — which officially was announced this summer — is heavy on user-generated content from TikTok’s wider base, with videos ranging pretty widely, from pottery making to make-up tips, and learning pig Latin to folding origami pigs.

But alongside this, TikTok is now populating the hashtag with a lot of premium content. Working with publishers like Self and WWD, professional organizations, non-profit institutions, and influential personalities (Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson in the science arena, chef José Andrés, Lilly Singh and Tyra Banks), TikTok is also curating and cultivating content made specifically for TikTok to broaden people’s minds and experiences.

“I’m excited to partner with TikTok,” Nye said at the time that his deal was announced. “Looking forward to doing some science on the small screen— the real small screen— the one on your phone…”

All of this is to say that there is a lot of opportunity, but probably some more growing pains to come for TikTok and the people using it to teach and learn.

We will update this story as we learn more ourselves…

Atlanta-based Kobiton, a mobile testing platform that allows developers and QA teams to test their apps on real devices, both on their own desks and through the company’s cloud-based service, today announced that it has acquired Mobile Labs, another Atlanta-based mobile testing service.

To finance the acquisition of its well-funded competitor, Kobiton raised a $14 million extension to its $5.2 million Series A from its existing investor BIP Capital and new investor Fulcrum Equity Partners.

As Kobiton CEO Kevin Lee told me, we shouldn’t take that as the acquisition price, but it’s probably a fair guess that the real price isn’t too far off. The companies declined to disclose the exact price, though. Mobile Labs, which was founded in 2011, had raised about $15 million before the acquisition, according to Crunchbase. The last time it raised outside funding was in 2014. Kobiton and Mobile Labs do not share any common investors.

Kobiton CEO Kevin Lee

It’s interesting that Kobiton, which launched in 2017 and which may seem like a smaller player at first glance, was able to acquire Mobile Labs. Lee argues that one of the reasons why Mobile Labs decided to sell is that while his company has long focused on using machine learning to help developers build the tests for their apps — and the open-source Appium testing framework — Mobile Labs had fallen behind in this area.

“They were a little slow to invest in [AI] and I think they realized — and rest of the market, I think will realize it — if you don’t invest heavily and early, you kind of get behind the eight ball,” Lee told me.

He also noted that there are a lot of obvious synergies between the two companies. Mobile Labs has a lot of clients in the gaming and financial services space, for example. A lot of those clients are relatively new to mobile, while Kobiton’s existing customer base is often mobile-first.

“They’ve been around for 10 years and [have] a lot of partners, a lot of stuff outside the US,” Lee noted. “They have mainly have focused on what I would call large established enterprises in regulated industries or industries that are really concerned about IP protection — so behind the firewalls — where they really succeeded well.”

Those Mobile Labs customers, Lee said, were also looking for AI/ML-based testing solutions and the acquisition will now allow the two companies to layers Kobiton’s technology on top of the Mobile Labs solution. There will be an upgrade path for these customers and they’ll be able to do so at their own pace. There’s no plan to sunset Mobile Labs’ existing services for the time being, though some of Mobile Labs’ individual brands may change names.

With this acquisition, Kobiton will more than double the number of its US-based employees, though that’s in part because a good portion of the company’s team is based in Vietnam.

Arriving seven years after the Xbox One first launched, the new Microsoft Xbox Series X console lands in a different world and a very different Xbox ecosystem. Microsoft is embracing subscription bundling with its Game Pass service and cloud-streaming with xCloud, nevertheless they are still committed to building huge metal boxes with tremendous power designed to carry new boundary-pushing gaming titles into consumers’ homes.

Right off the bat, I will say that the $499 Series X and $299 Series S were tough systems to review. Launch lineups for brand spanking new consoles always leave a little to be desired, but this generation has been particularly prone to launch title delays and a handful of the launch day Series X titles weren’t even available to reviewers ahead of launch. The former can be pinned on COVID-19 related delays impacting already aggressive timelines, but the latter seemed to be a bit of an unnecessary limit placed on reviewers.

Nevertheless, I’ll look to update this review next week when some more of these titles are able to be played.

This thing has a lot of specs behind it. It’s got lots of cores and lots of teraflops. There aren’t any futuristic/gimmicky features that Microsoft is pushing, there’s no bundled Kinect, there’s no VR headset. The Series X is just a giant black box that plays games better than any Xbox before it.

Quickly, here are the high level differences between the Series X and Series S, I’ll say that this review mostly focuses on the Series X.

Series X
Plays titles in 4K at up to 120fps, with eventual 8K support at up to 60fps* 
1TB storage
4K UHD Blu-ray drive
Very big

*developers decide how hard you can push their titles

Series S
Plays titles at up to 1440p at up to 120fps
512GB storage
No optical drive
Not nearly as big

This previous generation of hardware really shook up the idea of what a console generation actually was. In the past, mid-generation updates to hardware were largely cosmetic — slimmed down packages with the same power — but with the Xbox One S and One X, Xbox delivered mid-generation console upgrades that improved performance, breaking the rules in an aim to steal users away from PlayStation with the promise that they could make the most of their brand new 4K televisions.

A result of that is that this doesn’t immediately feel like a mind-bending upgrade over Microsoft’s previous release, the One X, it’s twice as fast teraflops-wise, but there isn’t a title that really showcases those internals. It feels ahead of its time, and I think consumers that buy the device on day one will have to wait quite a while before they can harness its full capabilities.

While I’m not convinced that users are going to be staring mouth agape at a launch title that blows their mind graphics-wise, I think that all of this power will eventually go a long way to eliminating some huge annoyances that have been accepted as commonplace in the world of console gaming.

The load-time reductions that are largely thanks to the new SSD storage are very substantial and are probably the biggest thing you’ll notice off the bat. Another advantage of barely meeting its potential out-of-the-box is that I barely heard a peep from the Series X when I got into the thick of a game, the console’s fans were whisper quiet. Another big quality-of-life improvement is Quick Resume, which allows users to quickly hop back into a game they were playing a while ago without reloading the entire game and wandering through start menus. This feature is killer, and is one that PlayStation 5 users are missing an equivalent for, at least for the time being.

With all of this in mind, I’d say that the reality is — and this is on paper — there also isn’t a ton separating the Series X and Sony’s PS5 consoles in terms of playability. Both are getting much better internals, SSDs that will drastically reduce loading times, better UIs and newer controllers.

They definitely look different. The Series X itself is quite large (though not quite as hulking as the PS5) and will require plenty of prospective owners to bust out the measuring tape and check if it can even fit horizontally in their media cabinet. It feels more like a well-designed gaming PC than a console. The chassis is very solid and dense, it’s one of the least fragile designs I’ve seen on a console. On the note of hardware, I will also say that while the Series X/S controllers are very similar to the previous-generation, I think that the subtle improvements, especially in regards to the feel and texturing of it, are going to be popular with users.

Most of the people reading this, I’m sure, already have a pretty solid idea whether or not they’re going to buy the Series X and many of those people will buy it simply because it is new and they know that regardless of whether they currently need the power or are able to harness it with their other gear, they are getting access to new titles and future-proofing themselves. That’s certainly not a bad reason.

Others might be on the fence about getting a Series X/S or a PlayStation 5. Much like American politics, I’m not so convinced there are quite as many undecideds here as is believed. People have a good idea of what franchises are PlayStation exclusives and what titles are only going to ship on Xbox. There have been decades to drill down the flavors that both Sony and Microsoft are pushing though Microsoft has been getting more aggressive about studio acquisitions over the past couple years so that list of exclusives is likely going to start getting longer more quickly as they seek to build up a huge library of titles for their Game Pass subscription service.

But, yeah, most of the people on the fence end up going for the system that is going to have the games on it that they really, really want to play. But it’s a little harder to tell that right now because chances are there isn’t a launch title for the PS5 or Series X that you’re dying to play, or at least one that couldn’t also be played on a previous-gen console, albeit in less optimized fashion. The promised Series X holiday showstopper Halo Infinite was delayed until 2021, and the reality is a game that really shows off this hardware probably won’t be coming around until late next year.

Really most people won’t be able to take full advantage of the Series X until next year anyway. There’s an overwhelming chance that your TV or AV receiver are not positioned to maximize what the Series X can offer, namely 8K gaming or high frame rate (120fps) 4K gaming. Hitting the high end requires a technology called HDMI 2.1 which only a select few newer TVs have adopted. It’s likely to be more standard across the board come next year, but for the time being there aren’t many of these TVs or AV receivers that are actually in people’s homes. With HDMI 2.0, which your 4K TV does support, you can play Series X titles at 4K resolution at up to 60fps, closer to what the previous-generation Xbox One X was capable of.

Being super early to a technology as a consumer often leads to tradeoffs, and that’s definitely the case with the Series X/S. While operating at the cutting edge of video standards will benefit the console’s longevity, it does mean that consumers might be in a less optimal spot for a bit if they don’t have the latest AV hardware. What will be more frustrating to day-one buyers is the generally light library of new content. There are some multi-platform hits that will be landing, but it doesn’t seem like there will be a must-play title that makes the most of its power. For consumers that are buying a system so focused on performance, that’s disappointing, but over time, I have few doubts that the Series X/S library will grow robust, the questions for consumers is whether all of the quality-of-life improvements are enough for them to take the plunge in 2020.

The UK’s data watchdog is facing a legal challenge after it took the decision to quietly close a complaint against the adtech industry’s high velocity background trading of personal data.

The legal challenge was reported earlier by Politico.

The original complaint — challenging the adtech industry’s compliance with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — was filed to the ICO in September 2018 by Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, and Michael Veale, a lecturer in digital rights at the University College London.

A series of RTB complaints have been filed with regulators across Europe over the past two+ years.

The crux of the complaints is that real-time-bidding (RTB) auction systems cannot comply with the GDPR’s requirements to provide adequate security for people’s data.

In a report last year the ICO voices its own “systemic concerns” about the adtech industry’s use of personal data in the RTB component of programmatic advertising.

Last December one of its deputy commissioners, Simon McDougall, further warned the industry of the need to reform, writing: “We have significant concerns about the lawfulness of the processing of special category data which we’ve seen in the industry, and the lack of explicit consent for that processing.”

So it’s not clear why the UK regulator has chosen to close the complaint when it still hasn’t issued a decision on the substance.

The ICO did not respond to specific questions TechCrunch put to it about this — but sent us this statement: “We are aware of this matter, which will be decided by the Tribunal in due course. Consideration of concerns we have received forms part of our work on real time bidding and the Adtech industry.”

Earlier this year the regulator said it would “pause” its ongoing investigation into RTB on account of the coronavirus pandemic. The probe appears to still be on ice — raising further questions as to why the ICO would choose a moment of self-imposed inaction to close the complaint now.

In a series of letters to the complainants’ legal team, which we’ve reviewed, the ICO writes that it believes it has investigated the matter “to the extent appropriate”, and further claims the probe has “assisted and informed the ICO’s broader regulatory approach to RTB since September 2018”.

“Please therefore consider this to be confirmation of the outcome of your client’s complaint in line with s.165(4)(b) of the Data Protection Act 2018,” it adds, reiterating its position that the complaint is now concluded.

Killock and Veale voiced concerns that the move is a tactic by the ICO to close down their ability to challenge any future action it may (or may not) take in the area of RTB.

The follow-on concern is that the regulator does not intend to take robust enforcement action against what RTB complainants have referred to as the biggest data breach of all time — and is instead seeking to clear the road of first-order objectors.

In a letter to the complainants, dated September 23, 2020, the ICO writes that it intends to “recommence our industry wide investigation into RTB in due course” — but gives no detail of when that might happen nor any hint of any ultimate outcome more than two years after the complaint was filed.

“We are taking legal action against the ICO, as we believe that data processing being too complex and illegal is more reason to uphold the law, not less. Individuals can’t currently opt out of online tracking — and the ICO shouldn’t be able to opt out of regulating,” Veale told TechCrunch.

“After the ICO produced a report in response to the complaint of Jim Killlock and myself illustrating just how illegal RTB was, they appear to have concluded the appropriate action was to hold some stakeholder meetings, use none of their powers, and claim that they have discharged their obligations to the complainants to uphold the law. RTB continues to be outrageously illegal.”

“They shut our complaint down without doing anything,” Killlock also told us. “They say they will still take action, yes, but they removed the obligation to do something by closing our complaint.”

“They think the Information Tribunal is a soft touch, and won’t listen to anyone seeking to challenge an ICO decision about a Complaint of this nature,” he added. “The Information Tribunal has in fact stated that it will only look at procedural matters relating to this kind of complaints. They are wrong to do this, and this is something we also address [in the challenge].”

The ICO has already faced months of criticizism from European privacy experts over the lack of regulatory action to enforce regional data protection standards around RTB.

And while the regulator has voiced concerns about the lawfulness of practices underpinning behavioral advertising — and urged industry reform — it’s been a bark that hasn’t been backed up with any bite.

The upshot in the UK is Internet users’ personal data continues to be processed at vast scale by the ad targeting industry with no way for people to know where their information might be ending up nor how exactly it’s being used.

Concerns about the mass surveillance of Internet users to power behavioral advertising have been stepping up for years. Personal data that’s being routinely traded for ad targeting via RTB has been shown to include highly sensitive data such as health information, sexual orientation and political affiliation.

On the flip side, government and public health websites in Europe have also been shown sharing data on users with ad trackers — as have commercial sites that offer help with sensitive issues like mental health.

Earlier this month the European Parliament called for tighter controls on microtargeting — in favor of less intrusive, contextual forms of advertising.

As well as the inherent insecurity of RTB systems broadcasting people’s information over the Internet, another objection in Europe concerns whether or not all the players in the adtech chain are obtaining legally valid consent to process people’s data for ad targeting — as they are supposed to under GDPR.

Last month preliminary findings by the Belgium data protection authority cast doubt on the legality of an industry standard tool for gathering Internet users’ consent to ad targeting — with an investigation finding that the IAB Europe’s Trust and Consent Framework (TCF) fails to comply with GDPR principles of transparency, fairness and accountability, and also the lawfulness of processing.

It also found the TCF does not provide adequate rules for the processing of so-called special category data (e.g. health information, political affiliation, sexual orientation etc) .

Data protection authorities in Ireland, meanwhile, are continue to investigate RTB — opening a probe into how Google’s online ad exchange is processing people’s data in May last year. Though Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is also under fire for regulatory inaction.

The complaint was filed there at the same time as in the UK — meaning it’s also over two years old and still no decision to show for it.

As we’ve seen, some startups are pivoting to re-model themselves for the radically different world of the COVID-19 pandemic. But others literally turned out to have a business model which, although they could never have realized it at the time, might have been (almost) tailored-made for this era.

A fascinating example of this is SaaS marketplace Juggle. Originally designed as a marketplace to allow executive-level women to re-enter the world of work in a flexible manner after having a family, it later expanded into a wider market for anyone wanting to work flexibly and for employers who need that kind of workforce. But now, with the world of work totally upended by the pandemic, ‘flexibility’ is literally now the name of the game.

It’s now disclosed its funding of $2.1 million from investors in the UK and the US. Investors include a number of the UK’s leading angels, and also includes Oxford Capital, Social Capital, and 7percent Ventures. The other investors are: Andrew Gault (who backed Oculus), Andreas Mihalovits (a serial investor), Andrew J Scott, (who backed Magic Pony), Charlie Kemper (backed Casper), Charlie Songhurst, Curtis Chambers (early Uber employee), Pip Wilson (entrepreneur and investor), Rajiv Kapoor (East coast investor).

With many businesses moving to flexible working arrangements, whether that means remote work, part-time, or shared roles, Juggle connects them with professionals that aren’t the typical ‘9-to-5’ type people. 

Flexibility at work can cover the time someone works, the location, or the pattern, such as a job share. Under the UK Employment Act of 1996, there is a statutory right for any eligible employee to request flexible working, for any reason, if they have been with the company for at least 26 weeks. So Juggle is pushing at an already open door. A 2019 report from Aviva found that one-fifth of UK employees won’t ask for flexibility because they are convinced it will be refused, and 35 percent aren’t comfortable asking their employer for more flexibility. But more than a fifth of workers have changed companies or departments to find greater flexibility, and almost half would consider switching if the new role was more accommodating to their work/life needs. So having a platform they can go to means Juggle is likely to pick up plenty of these professionals who don’t want to work in any other manner.

Professionals sign up for the service, and recruitment tools allow them to schedule and keep track of job applications, and coaching and support are available. Juggle also provides ‘smart matching’ and the necessary paperwork to allow for these flexible roles. Businesses using Juggle to find the right candidate are vetted in advance to ensure that they embrace flexibility, so both employers and employees know what they are getting.

Founded by former headhunter Romanie Thomas, a core mission for Juggle, she said, is to see women in 50 percent of business leadership roles by 2027. Since launching in 2017, Thomas said 62 percent of all placements made by Juggle have been female.

Thomas said: “As a successful former headhunter I was placing senior executives, and I saw exceptional employees leaving work to have a baby and struggling to get back in. Firms passed on perfect candidates because they were uncomfortable with bespoke arrangements… Employees aren’t asking for anything revolutionary, just to be able to work in a way that’s most efficient and productive for them. Flexibility enables people to maximize their energy and skills, and that’s a huge benefit for employers once they realize it.” 

Juggle has gathered a wide set of companies that are using its B2B platform, and clients now include Reallife Tech, Hopster, Hubble, and White-Hat.

Andrew Gault, Founding Partner at 7percent Ventures commented: “The current pandemic will have a lasting effect on the way we work. We were already on the brink of a serious shift, and Juggle was ahead of the curve. Now as more employers and workers look at flexible working arrangements, Juggle is perfectly poised to help match businesses with the right talent and provide its extensive knowledge to make a success of flexible work. Data shows that more flexibility is good for everyone, and could have a monumental impact on the gender gap, as more exceptionally talented women can be placed into senior roles.” 

Speaking to TechCrunch, Thomas added: “The whole company was born out of my personal frustration and lack of women in business leadership, which I saw firsthand as a headhunter. Companies seemed to have a revolving door of men. But flexible working is critical to achieving gender parity. With Juggle, the segment we’re talking about is non-technical which is generally untapped by tech platforms. There’s an opportunity for a product to create this experience where professionals can thrive in their flexible working careers. The issue is not really a female one it’s a human one. But if we just focus on women all we’re doing is entrenching gender roles.”

She said Juggle is going after the traditional recruitment industry which has not adapted to the modern workforce: “The problems that we’re facing for a future workforce… need to be solved through a technology platform, and not by not the legacy industries that have created [the problems] in the first place.”

I certainly don’t think we will see the end of startups attacking these incumbent industries left behind by the pandemic, or by outdated attitudes to gender and diversity.

SpaceX is set to launch the U.S. Space Force’s GPS III Space Vehicle 04 today from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This launch was all set to take off back at the beginning of October, but was scrubbed in the final seconds. Today’s launch window spans 15 minutes, and opens at 6:24 PM EST (3:24 PM PST), with a backup opportunity tomorrow, Friday November 6 at 6:20 PM EST (3:20 PM PST).

The launch today will use a Falcon 9 first-stage that hasn’t flown previously, and SpaceX will be attempting to recover it with a landing on its drone ship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ in the Atlantic Ocean. Because of the terms of its agreement with the U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC, which was previously housed under the Air Force), SpaceX has had to use new boosters for all missions that fall under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) umbrella, including this one.

That changed in September of this year, when SpaceX and the SMC agreed that Elon Musk’s launch company could use re-flown booster stages – which is what SpaceX does for just about every other launch it flies these days. Given SpaceX’s track record with refurbished first stages, it makes sense that SMC would change their position on use of the recovered rockets.

SpaceX already launched one GPS III spacecraft for the Space Force this year – the third such satellite in the constellation, which was delivered to orbit in June.

The launch webcast will begin above at around 15 minutes prior to the opening of the launch window, so at around 6:09 PM EST (3:09 PM PST).

It was 2013, and I’d been camping out in Uber’s San Francisco offices for weeks. Our team wanted to invest in the company on behalf of my private equity firm, but was utterly daunted by its “eye-popping” $1 billion valuation.

Back then, unicorns were a rarity and that was a far steeper price tag than we felt comfortable offering to a company in an as yet unproven market with no cash flow to speak of. After spending an additional two weeks in their offices conducting diligence sessions, the price tag rose even higher — to $3 billion. Despite our valuation concerns, we ended up making the investment. At the time, I never would have imagined that not only were we participating in the vanguard of a new industry — namely, ridesharing — but also, surprisingly, a transformation of the venture ecosystem.

Fast-forward a few years, and growth funds, defined as investments into companies that have achieved product-market fit and are primed to scale with further capital, have become significant forces in the tech ecosystem. They’ve invested in every major tech company that has gone public — Zoom, Slack, Uber and CrowdStrike, to name a few — as well as almost every single billion-dollar plus technology firm on its way to IPO. Given the current scale — growth funds poured $360 billion into startups in 2019 — it can be hard to comprehend that these funds were nascent only a decade ago.

Despite being relatively new to market, this investment category has quickly become one of the most active. It has also become one of the most confusing, as lines have blurred among early-stage VCs, private equity firms, hedge funds and dedicated growth-stage firms, all offering an abundance of capital and similar sounding value-add to high-growth startups. Based on my experience as a former private-equity-investor-turned-growth-stage VC, here’s a quick history on this young but massive industry, thoughts on where it’s going next, and suggestions for founders and startup executives seeking to understand the important but little understood nuances that will help them determine the right partner.

Reflecting back on any 10-year period in the capital markets can lead you to believe you’ve found new, unique, secular shifts in the way markets function. Zoom out 50 years and you’ll often find capital markets have a tendency to repeat themselves. Today, for example, later-stage funds, including those that primarily trade public stocks, are building teams to scout seed and Series A investments. Early-stage funds have assembled later-stage growth funds to double down on early-stage winners. While today lines are blurring across investment stages and funds, the reality is that private markets have seen similar trends before.

As an example, between the 1960s and 1980s, VCs moved later and ultimately invested nearly 90% of their capital in leveraged buyouts and late-stage financings before ultimately refocusing on early-stage bets in the 1990s at the dawn of the internet. As well-established funds cycled back and forth between early- and late-stage investing, “growth” emerged as a distinct asset class to target investments sitting in between early- and late-stage financings (roughly Series B to pre-IPO rounds).

This current growth cycle began in 2009 when Facebook accepted a $200 million check at a $10 billion valuation from DST. At the time, Facebook’s valuation shocked many investors, but then it went public in 2012 at a $100-billion-dollar valuation and is of course worth over $700 billion today.

But Facebook was only the start. There was also Uber and Airbnb. When I helped spearhead an investment in Airbnb in 2014, I was completely distraught over the “massive” $10 billion valuation. Of course, these big bets paid off — so much so that the entire growth category reoriented itself toward hypergrowth, capital-consumptive business models. The momentum clearly continues today.

Deciphering each firm type’s version of value-add

Companies now have a broad array of funds from which to choose when evaluating private market financings. Here are the four broad categories of funds most active in growth investing and the use cases in which they can provide the most value to their investments:

Dedicated growth firms

Funds like CapitalG came into their own in the 2010s and were built to support Series B to pre-IPO companies. These firms were created specifically to support high-velocity startups with the capital and resources to scale. Because many of these growth firms were built over the past decade, they typically have a relatively small number of funds under their purview and retain low partner-to-investment ratios, enabling each partner to focus on each company’s success.

Since companies in the growth phase tend to encounter familiar growing pains (e.g., maturing sales and customer success functions, building out new product lines and R&D centers of excellence), growth funds tend to invest heavily in in-house stage-specific marketing and sales; people and talent; and product and engineering resources in order to improve their portfolio companies’ odds of success.