Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Walmart now has two tests for drone delivery running in the US.

Early Monday morning the company announced a new drone delivery program with Zipline, a startup that made its name delivering medical supplies across Africa.

The partnership with Zipline comes on the heels of another newly announced drone partnership with Flytrex, which started delivering packages to Walmart customers in North Carolina last week.

Zipline’s work with Walmart in Arkansas compliments a pilot delivery program that the company began in North Carolina earlier this year. Working with Novant Health, Zipline has been delivering medical equipment and personal protective gear via drone to regions of North Carolina since May.

The drone operation with Walmart will deliver health and wellness products initially, with the potential to expand to general merchandise.

A movement into the delivery of general goods would be something of a pivot for Zipline, which has touted its ability to handle medical supplies and equipment since the launch of its services across Africa in 2016.

Trial deliveries for the new service will begin in Northwest Arkansas and cover a 50-mile radius, according to a statement from Walmart.

Walmart’s forays into drone delivery come as its largest competitor, Amazon, also picks up activity in the drone aviation industry.

In late August, Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery fleet received approval from the FAA to begin trialing commercial deliveries. It’s similar to the certification that logistics companies like UPS received to test their own drone delivery networks.

Rather than operate its own drone fleet, Walmart seems content to partner with existing companies working in the space — for now.

TikTok may or may not be making a deal for its US operations, which the US government says it will  shut down over national security concerns on September 20th if its Chinese ownership is not resolved. But something that the US narrative has not really addressed is that the company is still growing like a weed in other markets. Today, TikTok announced that it had hit the 100 million month active user milestone in Europe, where it has officially launched in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Spain.

“We’ve been humbled to see how Europe has embraced TikTok during the time we’ve been here,” said Rich Waterworth, the company’s head of Europe, in a blog post today.  He also added that the Creator Fund for Europe, which was launched earlier this month with TikTok committing to pay out €250 million over the next three years to professional “creators” who are trying to make money producing video content for the app, has seen more than 40% of all eligible creators enrolling.

Notably, TikTok is putting this news out less than one month after it said it had reached 100 million users in the US.

The news comes at an interesting time for the company. It points to a kind of scale in the region that stands to become even more important for TikTok’s owner ByteDance, and specifically its future prospects in its biggest two markets: it’s not only facing some tough times ahead in the US, but it’s also weathering some significant storms in its second-largest market, India, where the app has been banned and seems currently to have no prospective buyers or champions to get it out of that predicament.

Currently in the US, the three options right now seem to be: the US might be shut down altogether; TikTok sells the business to another person in whole or part and relinquishes making money or using its creators and audience to fuel its viral video machine; or it somehow manages to take the Trump administration to court and win to keep things operating as is or with some modifications. All three are very painful in their own ways, making the growth and potential in Europe even more notable.

TikTok has been trying to take a “business as usual” approach to things despite all of this. In recent weeks, it has launched a number of new features both for consumers and for marketers in the US and elsewhere.

They have included an expansion of its marketing tools, to expand the variety and size of advertisers who use the platform to promote their brands. And new features like Stitch, which gives a way for users to sample content from other videos and then  “quoting” and sharing among users on the platform, adding in new ways to post more, and to create more viral videos.

The numbers also underscore an early thought experiment, too: What would TikTok life be like without input from the US market?

So far, it’s fair to say that the US TikTok explosion has been a major part of the global TikTok explosion: It has produced not just the biggest audience, but the app’s biggest stars. And if you take Facebook or any other social app as a benchmark, the US would stand to become TikTok’s biggest market for advertisers and revenues over time.

Still, it’s very notable that the 100 million milestone in Europe was put out today of all days. In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen conflicting reports about a possible buyer — Oracle — finally nearing a deal; as well as a report that the Chinese government is ready to shut down the whole process.

Putting out the European numbers so close timing-wise — less than three weeks apart — to posting about 100 million users in the US could be ByteDance’s way of saying that it might just have the last dance after all.

TikTok may or may not be making a deal for its US operations, which the US government says it will  shut down over national security concerns on September 20th if its Chinese ownership is not resolved. But something that the US narrative has not really addressed is that the company is still growing like a weed in other markets. Today, TikTok announced that it had hit the 100 million month active user milestone in Europe, where it has officially launched in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Spain.

“We’ve been humbled to see how Europe has embraced TikTok during the time we’ve been here,” said Rich Waterworth, the company’s head of Europe, in a blog post today.  He also added that the Creator Fund for Europe, which was launched earlier this month with TikTok committing to pay out €250 million over the next three years to professional “creators” who are trying to make money producing video content for the app, has seen more than 40% of all eligible creators enrolling.

Notably, TikTok is putting this news out less than one month after it said it had reached 100 million users in the US.

The news comes at an interesting time for the company. It points to a kind of scale in the region that stands to become even more important for TikTok’s owner ByteDance, and specifically its future prospects in its biggest two markets: it’s not only facing some tough times ahead in the US, but it’s also weathering some significant storms in its second-largest market, India, where the app has been banned and seems currently to have no prospective buyers or champions to get it out of that predicament.

Currently in the US, the three options right now seem to be: the US might be shut down altogether; TikTok sells the business to another person in whole or part and relinquishes making money or using its creators and audience to fuel its viral video machine; or it somehow manages to take the Trump administration to court and win to keep things operating as is or with some modifications. All three are very painful in their own ways, making the growth and potential in Europe even more notable.

TikTok has been trying to take a “business as usual” approach to things despite all of this. In recent weeks, it has launched a number of new features both for consumers and for marketers in the US and elsewhere.

They have included an expansion of its marketing tools, to expand the variety and size of advertisers who use the platform to promote their brands. And new features like Stitch, which gives a way for users to sample content from other videos and then  “quoting” and sharing among users on the platform, adding in new ways to post more, and to create more viral videos.

The numbers also underscore an early thought experiment, too: What would TikTok life be like without input from the US market?

So far, it’s fair to say that the US TikTok explosion has been a major part of the global TikTok explosion: It has produced not just the biggest audience, but the app’s biggest stars. And if you take Facebook or any other social app as a benchmark, the US would stand to become TikTok’s biggest market for advertisers and revenues over time.

Still, it’s very notable that the 100 million milestone in Europe was put out today of all days. In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen conflicting reports about a possible buyer — Oracle — finally nearing a deal; as well as a report that the Chinese government is ready to shut down the whole process.

Putting out the European numbers so close timing-wise — less than three weeks apart — to posting about 100 million users in the US could be ByteDance’s way of saying that it might just have the last dance after all.

Dream Sports, the parent firm of fantasy sports app Dream11, has secured $225 million in a new financing round as the Mumbai-headquartered firm builds what it calls “end-to-end sports tech company” in the cricket-loving nation, which is also the world’s second largest internet market.

Tiger Global Management, TPG Tech Adjacencies (TTAD), ChrysCapital and Footpath Ventures financed $225 million in Dream Sports through primary and secondary investments, the Indian firm said.

The new round values Dream Sports at over $2.5 billion, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

Dream11 has cashed in on the popularity of cricket — a game that has attracted serious attention from several major firms including Disney and Facebook. Dream11 explores the fantasy part of it, allowing gamers to pick their choice of best players for an upcoming match. They can win cash prizes depending on how their selected team performs.

This year, Dream11 is also the title sponsor for the 2020 season of Indian Premier League cricket tournament, one of the most popular sporting events in the world. The startup won the rights, which was previously secured by smartphone vendor Vivo, by bidding $30 million for it. Vivo had to back out of the sponsorship amid geo-political tension between the two nuclear-armed nations.

The new season of IPL kickstarts later this week, after months of delay due to the coronavirus outbreak.

“The sports sector has high growth potential in India. There is a significant opportunity to enhance the fan experience and we are excited to partner with Dream Sports to leverage technology in ways that will deepen the connection between Indian fans and the sports they love,” said Akshay Tanna, Managing Director at TPG, in a statement.

In recent years, Dream Sports has expanded into additional categories such as merchandize. In a statement, Harsh Jain, chief executive and co-founder of Dream Sports, said the startup had amassed over 100 million users.

“As a homegrown Indian company, we are proud to continue adding value to our 10 crore Indian sports fans, investors, employees and the overall sports ecosystem in India. In the last two years, we have grown beyond fantasy sports to sports content, merchandise, streaming, experiences, and there is much more to come. Our vision is to ‘Make Sports Better’ for India and Indian fans through sports technology and innovation,” he added.

Avendus Capital was the financial advisor to Dream Sports on the transaction.

More to follow…

Dream Sports, the parent firm of fantasy sports app Dream11, has secured $225 million in a new financing round as the Mumbai-headquartered firm builds what it calls “end-to-end sports tech company” in the cricket-loving nation, which is also the world’s second largest internet market.

Tiger Global Management, TPG Tech Adjacencies (TTAD), ChrysCapital and Footpath Ventures financed $225 million in Dream Sports through primary and secondary investments, the Indian firm said.

The new round values Dream Sports at over $2.5 billion, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.

Dream11 has cashed in on the popularity of cricket — a game that has attracted serious attention from several major firms including Disney and Facebook. Dream11 explores the fantasy part of it, allowing gamers to pick their choice of best players for an upcoming match. They can win cash prizes depending on how their selected team performs.

This year, Dream11 is also the title sponsor for the 2020 season of Indian Premier League cricket tournament, one of the most popular sporting events in the world. The startup won the rights, which was previously secured by smartphone vendor Vivo, by bidding $30 million for it. Vivo had to back out of the sponsorship amid geo-political tension between the two nuclear-armed nations.

The new season of IPL kickstarts later this week, after months of delay due to the coronavirus outbreak.

“The sports sector has high growth potential in India. There is a significant opportunity to enhance the fan experience and we are excited to partner with Dream Sports to leverage technology in ways that will deepen the connection between Indian fans and the sports they love,” said Akshay Tanna, Managing Director at TPG, in a statement.

In recent years, Dream Sports has expanded into additional categories such as merchandize. In a statement, Harsh Jain, chief executive and co-founder of Dream Sports, said the startup had amassed over 100 million users.

“As a homegrown Indian company, we are proud to continue adding value to our 10 crore Indian sports fans, investors, employees and the overall sports ecosystem in India. In the last two years, we have grown beyond fantasy sports to sports content, merchandise, streaming, experiences, and there is much more to come. Our vision is to ‘Make Sports Better’ for India and Indian fans through sports technology and innovation,” he added.

Avendus Capital was the financial advisor to Dream Sports on the transaction.

More to follow…

What a whirlwind of a Monday morning. Shortly after news broke that Microsoft is out of the picture in bidding for TikTok’s U.S. operations, and rumors began circulating that Oracle is the winner, China’s state broadcaster CGTN reported that ByteDance will not sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to Microsoft or Oracle, citing sources.

ByteDance, the world’s most valuable startup credited with pioneering algorithmic content recommendation, won’t give its source code to any U.S. buyers, sources told CGTN. A source told the South China Morning Post earlier that the tech upstart decided not to sell or transfer the source code behind its popular video app.

ByteDance said it won’t comment on market rumors.

Beijing was ostensibly absent from ByteDance’s negotiations with Washington in the early days, but that seems to have changed as the deal’s deadline inches closer. First, the Chinese government revised its export rules that could block the transfer or sale of ByteDance’s artificial intelligence technologies, and now there’s the state report refuting rumors that Oracle has secured the deal.

This is an updating story.

Medefer, the U.K.-based virtual healthcare provider that, in its own words, is “reimagining” the outpatient system, is disclosing £10 million in new funding.

The round was led by private investment firm Nickleby Capital, and will be used to grow the team and invest in technology to “service new contracts, enable new product development and ensure scalable and robust growth”.

Founded in 2013 by NHS consultant Dr Bahman Nedjat-Shokouhi, and launched the following year, Medefer is a CQC regulated healthcare provider that has developed a digital platform that connects GPs, consultants, and patients, with the aim of delivering a more efficient outpatient system.

Described as an “outpatient operating system” coupled with a nationwide network of contracted NHS consultants working remotely, Medefer claims to manage the patient pathway — from referral to triage to investigation, diagnosis and discharge — without the need for unnecessary physical outpatient appointments.

Headline features include cases being reviewed by NHS consultants within 10 hours on average, compared to several weeks using traditional models. For NHS Trusts and CCGs using Medefer, the company claims that outpatient costs are cut by a third, and waiting lists reduced by 70%, in part due to being able to remove duplication in consultations, such as seeing a consultant only to be told that a test or scan is needed first.

That’s likely an oversimplification, yet anyone who has gone through the outpatient referral journey will know there are often inefficiencies simply due to non-optimal information sharing and an inflexible patient journey.

“The outpatient model has not changed since before the inception of the NHS, and has significant inefficiencies,” says Nedjat-Shokouhi. “With increasing patient numbers, the inefficiencies have resulted in growing waiting lists, and of course this has been significantly worsened by the pandemic”.

This has seen many healthcare providers going ‘digital’ and setting up video consultations instead of face-to-face consultations. However, paradoxically, this can worsen inefficiencies “because some of the patients who have a video consultation will need to be reviewed physically for examination as well, doubling the work”.

To remedy this and create further efficiencies and better patient care, Medefer says it reviewed all of the steps across the patient pathway, and reckons it has come up with a better way of working.

“Our digital platform removes inefficiencies and duplication, resulting in a significantly streamlined and faster pathway,” says Nedjat-Shokouhi. “Furthermore, we enable NHS consultants to work in their own time. This provides additional clinical capacity back into the NHS that would have otherwise not been utilised”.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection proudly announced in a press release on Friday a seizure of 2,000 boxes of “counterfeit” Apple AirPods, said to be worth about $400,000, from a shipment at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

But the photos in the press release appear to show boxes of OnePlus Buds, the wireless earphones made by smartphone maker OnePlus, and not Apple AirPods as CBP had claimed.

Here’s CBP’s photo of the allegedly counterfeit goods:

(Image: Customs and Border Protection)

And this is what a box of OnePlus Buds looks like:

(Image: @yschugh/Twitter)

The resemblance is uncanny. We reached out to a CBP spokesperson for comment but did not hear back.

According to the press release: “The interception of these counterfeit earbuds is a direct reflection of the vigilance and commitment to mission success by our CBP Officers daily,” said Troy Miller, director of CBP’s New York Field Operations.

If only it was.

Today, in the first interview of Disrupt 2020, Human Capital’s Baris Akis and investor Michael Ovitz announced the winners of its Delta Fellowship program.

Human Capital launched in 2016 with a mission to become a talent agency for engineers in the same way that CAA, founded by Michael Ovitz, was a talent agency for entertainers.

Human Capital helps engineers find great positions at great companies, and fosters their careers well beyond that, including helping them switch jobs, ask for raises and promotions, and more. Human Capital also has an investment arm that seeds these same entrepreneurs with funding when they’re ready to start on their own project.

The fellowship program is an extension of Human Capital’s commitment to people over metrics, explained Michael Ovitz, who invested in the company earlier this year. Sixteen fellows were selected from more than 1,300 applications across 20 countries and more than 200 universities.

Interestingly, the Delta fellowship application process did not include a request for a business proposal, but rather evaluated the people themselves.

“We’re here to partner with founders,” said Akis. “We get to know the people behind the ideas. We consider ideas in the context of the people driving them.”

Delta Fellows include:

● Abu Qader, a Cornell junior who developed a low-cost mammography tumor detection platform after seeing the challenges of healthcare firsthand in Afghanistan as a teenager
● Katie Mishra, a Stanford junior who published three books by the time she was 16 and started a nonprofit to teach middle schoolers the design, logic, and engineering behind computer science
● Eeshan Tripathii, an MIT sophomore who built a prototype for a low-cost ductless air filtration system and reverse engineered a $20,000 prosthetic glove into a $550 working prototype

Ovitz and Akis walked us through the details of the fellowship program in an interview today, which you can watch from start to finish below.

Disrupt 2020 officially kicks off tomorrow at 9 am PT and there’s still plenty of time to register for a pass. Speakers include Dropbox’s Drew Houston, Kerry Washington, Jennifer Doudna, Roelof Botha and Kevin Hart. See you there!

Enterprise provider Oracle is said to have won the bidding war for the U.S. operations of TikTok, a chase in which Microsoft was booted out earlier today.

The Wall Street Journal writes that Oracle will be announced as TikTok’s “trusted tech partner” in the United States. Additionally, the Journal cites that a person familiar with the matter says the deal is “likely not to be structured as an outright sale.”

Oracle’s alleged purchase of TikTok’s U.S. operations would put an end to the unclear fate of the app within the country. The reported buy comes days before September 20, the day that the Trump administration set for a ban on TikTok’s operations if the company doesn’t reach an agreement with a buyer.

On Sunday, Microsoft said its bid for the U.S. operations of TikTok has been rejected by the app’s parent company, ByteDance.

“We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests,” the statement read, stating that Microsoft would make “significant changes” around security, privacy, online safety, and disinformation.

“We look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas,” the statement ended.

Issues and fears around TikTok’s security has been a flagship issue for the app. TikTok was banned in India, along with 58 other apps, due to “national security and defence” issues. India was TikTok’s biggest overseas market. In addition to Microsoft, a number of prominent tech companies have rumored to be in the market for TikTok’s U.S. operations such as Twitter, Google, and Walmart. But, as our Ron Miller pointed out, there’s some reason toward why a company like Oracle would crave an app like TikTok: marketshare.

Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, told TechCrunch that if Oracle could scoop TikTok as an anchor client, thus bringing a huge load onto its infrastructure service.

“TikTok will add plenty of load to their infrastructure service. That’s what matters to them with viral loads preferred. If Microsoft gets TikTok it could boost their usage by between 2% and 5%, while for Oracle it could be as much 10%,” he said.

Oracle’s reported buy, thus, could be a boost that actually makes sense. But a dramatic one, nonetheless.