Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Hey everyone, how are you? Are you doing well? Great. Or, condolences, depending.

Anyway, last week the Equity crew was discussing bankers, and how they love to talk up stuff.

The topic matters as there is a big impending transaction out there in the world, namely the shotgun sale of TikTok. And all sorts of folks are nattering about who might just be interested in making a bid for the Facebook competitor.

Danny did a blog about the situation. He said that TikTok is possibly worth “tens of billions of dollars,” but only if the social giant can “find a number of deep-pocketed buyers who are willing to bid the price up.” In short if only Microsoft rocks up with checkbook, TikTok could go on the cheap given that there would be precisely no one to counter-bid.

Danny then made an interesting point. What might a grievance of bankers do when they want to sell an asset, say, not for $5 billion, but for $10 billion? Astroturf some FOMO by adding more chatter and names to the mix, of course: (bolding: TechCrunch):

So what do the investment bankers at the heart of the deal do? They run the deal around to every corporate development department in the country, and they leak the information to reporters to try to drum up FOMO in other departments, all in the hope that a board member somewhere starts asking, “Hey, why aren’t we taking a deep look at this?” Heck, I’m sure even Oracle  is taking a look — they have data centers and “synergy” potential, and its CEO Safra Catz is a major Trump supporter as well, and could navigate the coming policy shenanigans.

And then later on CNBC reported that “Oracle is in talks to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations, challenging Microsoft” according to a source. And the FT wrote a piece entitled “Oracle enters race to buy TikTok’s US operations.”

So it’s time to put our little theory to the test with a wager. If Oracle buys TikTok then I, Alex Wilhelm, will convince my partner to let me take a train to New York, where I will eat Danny’s annoying Stanford sweatshirt that he always wears when we record the podcast.

Here’s Danny wearing it earlier today:

Photo via Danny “I Hate You” Crichton, and his lovely partner.

If Oracle does not buy TikTok, then, well, nothing. Good job Microsoft, we guess. But here’s a marker in the sand.

And just to be clear, this is nothing against Alex Sherman (whom I like and read) or the CNBC tech crew (which is is stacked with great folks). The FT was also great, back when I could read it.

The wager is good until TikTok gets the boot or sells to someone. Let’s go.

Commercial electric vehicle startup Xos Trucks has raised $20 million, funding it will use to ramp up production ahead of potential new demand fueled by a landmark emissions rule adopted by California that will require more than half of all trucks sold in the state to be zero-emissions by 2035.

The startup, which was formerly known as Thor Trucking, raised the funds from a group of investors including Proeza Ventures, a mobility-focused VC firm backed by Metalsa’s holding company, and BUILD Capital Group. Xos also gained a few new board members along with the capital. Rodolfo Elias Dieck of Proeza Ventures and Mark Lampert, a former Daimler executive who is now at Build Capital, have joined the board. Xos has beefed up its executive ranks as well, including hiring Kingsley Afemikhe as its CFO and Rob Ferber, employee number one and science director at Tesla, as its CTO.

“We’re excited to continue growing our operations to provide best-in-class last-mile electric vehicles for our customers,” said Dakota Semler, co-founder and CEO of Xos Trucks. “It’s our goal to provide reliable, affordable, and sustainable transportation as the volume of e-commerce demands are increasing, and have accelerated during the pandemic.”

Funding will be used to expand operations and scale up production of its electric skateboard chassis that is designed for Class 6 trucks, the medium-duty commercial vehicles that are often used in last-mile delivery in dense urban areas. This skateboard, known as the X-Platform, was designed to accommodate a variety of medium-duty bodies, wheelbases and range requirements up to 200 miles. Metalsa, the Mexico-based automotive supplier, helped Xos with the design and is providing components to the chassis.

Xos vehicles have been used by UPS on customer routes in the Los Angeles area for the past eight months, according to the company. Loomis, an existing customer of Xos, has order another 20 trucks following a pilot program in 2019.

TikTok is right in the jaws of a thorny situation with the U.S. Government regarding its ownership, but it’s sending a clear message today that it is not sitting on its heels with big deals. Yesterday, it announced a deal with UnitedMasters to allow artists on TikTok to distribute their songs directly to streaming services and other partners directly.

UnitedMasters is the un-record-label label — in fact a direct distribution company founded by former president of Interscope Records, Steve Stoute. The firm allows musicians (especially budding ones) to pay a competitive distribution rate to get access to Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, Apple Music and other services. It also gets them access to analytics, retargeting, CRM tools and individual deals that UM makes with brands like ESPN and the NBA.

Normally, the path between an artist being able to go viral on TikTok and be included in the next NBA 2k or before an official game on the air would be a long one involving a lot of knives out for pieces of the pie. UnitedMasters shortcuts all of this.

The simple scenario is this:

• An aspiring artist or songwriter puts out a song or riff on TikTok (likely one of many).
• This one has something and it catches on the algorithm and generates numbers.
• The creator opts in to participating in UnitedMasters’ program.
• They give up a cut close to 10% but get direct distribution into the major streaming buckets and potential A-grade partners.
• They can also market things like tickets, merch and more directly to fans using UM’s customer tools.

Which is why a tie up with TikTok makes a hell of a lot of sense. One of the biggest issues with viral social platforms has been the way that they reward creators. Twitter’s Vine, of course, squandered their opportunity there. Even YouTube has had major problems providing consistent revenue to many of its top creators, with a long trend towards big hitters monetizing off platform in order to earn consistent, durable money.

TikTok has already announced a creators fund with a significant purse, but it needs to go beyond that. We’ve seen over and over how young creators on the platform create viral waves of attention for TikTok and millions of re-enactments and remixes. Often, though, those creators are offered little recourse to monetize or benefit from their creations. Dance creators and musical talents, often young Black women, are literally crafting culture in real-time on TikTok and the pathways for them to benefit materially are very rare. Sure, it’s great when an originator gets called out by a Times reporter willing to do the work to trace the source, but what about the thousands of others being minted as a real voice on the platform every month?

It’s beyond time for the creators of The Culture to benefit from that culture. That’s why I find this UnitedMasters deal so interesting. Offering a direct pipeline to audiences without the attendant vulture-ism of the recording industry apparatus is really well aligned with a platform like TikTok, which encourages and enables ‘viral sounds’ with collaborative performances. Traditional deal structures are not well suited to capturing viral hype, which can rise and fall within weeks without additional fuel.

In terms of overall platforms, TikTok clearly has the highest concentration of incredible and un-tapped musical talent on the market. It’s just wild how many creators I see on there that are just flat out as good if not better than what you hear on the radio. Opera, rap, soul, folk, comedy, songwriting, it runs the gamut.

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer came to the company after a long stint at Disney ending with a very successful Disney+ launch. Almost immediately, he was dropped into a political firestorm between China and the U.S. government. Parent company ByteDance must sell within 90 days, says Trump, or get shut down. Microsoft might buy them. Other tech companies are circling. This deal is a pretty crisp forward-looking signal that TikTok sees a way through this and is not waiting to innovate on one of the trickier components of this era of user generated businesses.

And on top of that, it charts a course for how user generated platforms should look to service creators and keep them in their universe. All UGC plays garner significant value from the creative energies of their users, but few have found a way to make that relationship reciprocal in a way that feels sustainable.

This UnitedMasters deal feels different, and the start of a larger trend that could pay big dividends to platforms and, finally, creators.

If, like me, you can’t afford a full-sized Tesla because your life has been a series of bad investments (one day my early Fyre Festival backing will pay off) then Radio Flyer’s newest product might be just the thing for you. It’s a scaled down Model Y, designed for use by kids aged 18 months to four years old – but I can play pretend and yell ‘vroooommm’ just as well, if not better, than they can.

Dubbed ‘My First Model Y,’ this is a collaborative effort between the Tesla Design Studio and Radio Flyer’s product team. It’s a ride-on version, which is not true of the standard Model Y, and it includes a honking horn, as well as black induction wheels (an upgrade option on the real car) and a functional steering wheel, with a price point of $99. There’s only one trim level.

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Unlike the first collaboration between Radio Flyer and Tesla, the Tesla Model S for Kids, this one doesn’t have a built-in battery – it requires kid power to function. That means a lot more affordability, and makes it suitable for much younger kids.

I might pick up one of these instead of just continuing to scrawl “Tesla” in block letters on the rear window of my 1998 Toyota Camry in grease pencil.

Reliance Retail has bought a 60% stake in pharma marketplace Netmeds for about $83.2 million, it said today as India’s largest retail chain looks to expand into new categories and compete more closely with American e-commerce group Amazon.

The all-cash deal valued Netmeds, which serves 5.7 million customers in more than 670 cities and towns and online, at about $134 million. Consumers get access to more than 70,000 prescription drugs for chronic and recurring ailments as well as enhanced lifestyle drugs and thousands of non-prescription goods for wellness, health, and personal care through Netmeds.

“This investment is aligned with our commitment to provide digital access for everyone in India. The addition of Netmeds enhances Reliance Retail’s ability to provide good quality and affordable health care products and services, and also broadens its digital commerce proposition to include most daily essential needs of consumers,” said Isha Ambani, Director of Reliance Retail, in a statement.

Reliance Retail, like its sister telecom venture Jio Platforms, is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, the most valued firm in India. Reliance Industries is run by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man.

The announcement late Tuesday evening (local time) comes days after Amazon struck a deal with NetMeds, 1mg, PharmEasy and Medlife to sell medicines online in Bangalore. It was the first time Amazon had expanded into this category, it said. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the adoption of telemedicine and pharma marketplaces in the country, analysts said.

Online sales of medicine in India, for which New Delhi currently does not have clear regulations, presents yet another major opportunity for Reliance Retail, which has expanded its new e-commerce venture to more than 200 cities and towns in the recent quarters.

More to follow…

Google Maps is getting a significant update that will bring more detail and granularity to its map, with changes that encompass both natural features and city-level details alike. For the former, Google says it’s leveraged computer vision techniques to analyze natural features from satellite imagery, then color-coded those features for easier visual reference. Meanwhile, select cities including New York, San Francisco and London, will gain more detailed street information, like the location of sidewalks, crosswalk and pedestrian islands, for example.

These additions will help people better navigate their cities on foot or via alternative modes of solo transportation, like bikes and scooters, which some have opted for amid the pandemic in greater numbers. The supported cities will also show the accurate shape and width of a road to scale to offer a better sense of how wide or narrow a street is, in relation to its surroundings.

Image Credits: Google (before: left, after: right)

While the added granularity won’t include more accessibility features, like curb cuts for example, Google says that having the crosswalks detailed on the map will help in that area. The company also notes that Google Maps today displays wheelchair accessible routes in transit and wheelchair attributes on business pages.

The updated city maps won’t show up immediately in the Google Maps app, we understand. Instead, Google says the new maps will roll out to NY, SF and London in the “coming months.” The vague time frame is due to the staged nature of the release — something that’s often necessary for larger apps. Google Maps reaches over a billion users worldwide, so changes can take time to scale.

The company notes that after the first three cities receive the update, it plans to roll out more detailed city maps to additional markets, including those outside the U.S.

Meanwhile, users both inside and outside big cities around the world will benefit from the changes to how natural features are presented in Google Maps.

Image Credits: Google

Google utilized a color-mapping technique to identify natural features from its satellite imagery, looking specifically at arid, ciy, forested, and mountainous regions. These features were then assigned a range of colors on the HSV color model. For instance, a dense forest will now appear as a dark green while patchier shrubs may appear as a lighter green. You’ll be able to differentiate between beaches and greenery, see where deserts begin and end, see how much land is covered by ice caps, see where snowcapped mountain peaks appear, or view national park borders more easily, among other things.

These changes will reach all 220 countries and territories that Google Maps supports — over 100M square kilometers of land, from bigger metros to rural areas and small towns.

Image Credits: Google

The update comes at a time when Google’s lead as everyone’s default mapping app is being challenged on iOS. While Apple Maps started out rough, a 2018 redesign and subsequent updates have made it a somewhat more worthy rival. It even took on Google’s Street View with its higher-resolution 3D feature Look Around that particularly targets big city users. More recently, it introduced a clever feature that allows you to raise your phone and scan the skyline to refine your location. It’s also battling Google Maps’ explore and discovery features through curated guides.

Google says the updates will roll out across Android, iOS and desktop in the months ahead.