Category: UNCATEGORIZED

Lightricks, the startup behind a suite of photo and video editing apps — including most notably, selfie editor Facetune 2 — is taking its retouching capabilities to video. Today, the company is launching Facetune Video, a selfie video editing app, that allows users to retouch and edit their selfie and portrait videos using a set of A.I.-powered tools.

While there are other selfie video editors on the market, most today are generally focused on edits involving filters and presets, virtually adding makeup, or using AR or stickers to decorate your video in some way. Facetune Video, meanwhile, is focused on creating a photorealistic video by offering a set of features similar to those found in Lightricks’ flagship app, Facetune .

That means users are able to retouch their face with tools for skin smoothing, teeth whitening, and face reshaping, plus eye color, makeup, conceal, glow, and matte features. In addition, users can tweak tools for general video edits, like adjusting the brightness, contrast, color, and more, like other video editing apps allow for. And these edits can be applied in real-time to see how they look as the video plays, instead of after the fact.

In addition, users can apply the effect to one frame only and Facetune Video’s post-processing technology and neural networks will simultaneously apply an effect to the same area of every frame throughout the entire video, making it easier to quickly retouch a problem area without having to go frame-by-frame to do so.

“In Facetune Video, the 3D face model plays a significant role; users edit only one video frame, but it’s on us, behind-the-scenes, to automatically project the location of their edits to 2D face mesh coordinates derived from the 3D face model, and then apply them consistently on all other frames in the video,” explains Lightricks co-founder and CEO Zeev Farbam. “A Lightricks app needs to be not only powerful, but fun to use, so it’s critical to us that this all happens quickly and seamlessly,” he says.

Users can also save their favorite editing functions as “presets” allowing them to quickly apply their preferred settings to any video automatically.

In a future version of the app, the company plans to introduce a “heal” function which, like Facetune, will allow users to easily remove blemishes.

The technology that makes these selfie video edits work involves Lightricks’ deep neural networks that utilize facial feature detection and geometry analysis for the app’s retouching capabilities. These processes work in real-time without having to transmit data to the cloud first. There’s also no lag or delay while files are rendering.

In addition, Facetune Video uses the facial feature detection along with 3D face modeling A.I. to ensure that every part of the user’s face is captured for editing and retouching, the company says.

“What we’re also doing is taking advantage of lightweight neural networks. Before the user has even begun to retouch their selfie video, A.I.-powered algorithms are already working so that the user experience is quick and interactive,” says Fabram.

The app also does automated segmentation of more complex parts of the face like the interior of the eye, hair, or the lips, which helps it achieve a more accurate end result.

“It’s finding a balance between accuracy in the strength of the face modeling we use, and speed,” Fabram adds.

One challenge here was overcoming the issue of jittering effects, which is when the applied effect shakes as the video plays. The company didn’t want its resulting videos to have this problem, which makes the end result look gimmicky, so it worked to eliminate any shake-like effects and other face tracking issues so videos would look more polished and professional in the end.

The app builds off the company’s existing success and brand recognition with Facetune. With the new app, for example, the retouch algorithms mimic the original Facetune 2 experience, so users familiar with Facetune 2 will be able to quickly get the hang of the retouch tools.

The launch of the new app expands Lightricks further in the direction of video, which has become a more popular way of expressing yourself across social media, thanks to the growing use of apps like TikTok and features like Instagram Stories, for example.

Before, Lightricks’ flagship video product, however, was Videoleap, which focused on more traditional video editing, and not selfie videos where face retouching could be used.

Facetune has become so widely used, its name has become a verb — as in, “she facetunes her photos.” But it has also been criticized at times for its unrealistic results. (Of course, that’s more on the app’s users sliding the smoothing bar all the way to end.)

Across its suite of apps, which includes the original Facetune app (Facetune Classic), Facetune 2, Seen (for Stories), Photofox, Video Leap, Enlight Quickshot, Pixaloop, Boosted, and others, including a newly launched artistic editor, Quickart, the company has generated over 350 million downloads.

Its apps also now reach nearly 200 million users worldwide. And through its subscription model, Lightricks is now seeing what Farbam describes as revenues that are “increasing exponentially year-over-year,” but that are being continually reinvested into new products.

Like its other apps, Facetune Video will monetize by way of subscriptions. The app is free to use by will offer a VIP subscription for more features, at a price point of $8 per month, $36 per year, or a one-time purchase of $70.

Facetune 2 subscribers will get a discount on annual subscriptions, as well. The company will also sell the app in its Social Media Kit bundle on the App Store, which includes Facetune Video, Facetune 2, Seen and soon, an undisclosed fourth app. However, the company isn’t yet offering a single subscription that provides access to all bundled apps.

As part of its continued preparations to begin its commercial passenger spaceflight operations, Virgin Galactic has revealed the final design the interior cabin of its VSS Unity spacecraft. The company unveiled the interiors during a virtual event today, and offered members of the press (myself included) a special tour of the interior in VR. The cabin is designed with customer experience top-of-mind, as you might expect for a trip that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to take.

Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity will offer up to six passengers an unparalleled trip to suborbital space, where they’ll experience weightlessness in zero gravity and have the chance to observe the curve of the Earth and the blackness of the cosmos beyond the atmosphere. The cabin is entirely designed around optimizing the safety, comfort and freedom of the paying private astronauts throughout the journey – from the flight up while attached to the carrier craft, to the high-G burn after the Unity separates from that carrier transport, to the free-floating in-space wander, and finally to the high-G return to Earth at a very different inclination from the initial atmospheric exit.

To make this work, Virgin Galactic created carbon fibre and aluminum seats that combine 3D soft material weaves with metallic, rose gold accents and fabrics created in partnership with Under Armour (who also created the custom spacesuits passengers will wear) to ensure that all private astronauts flying on Unity are as protected and comfortable as possible during the parts of the flight where they’ll experience three times the normal gravity of Earth. These custom-fit seats are tailored in terms of sizing to each individual passenger, and feature thoughtful details like a channel in the centre of the headrest that can accommodate pony tails, for instance.

The five-point harness that’s build into the seats can be unfasten using a single clasp, whereupon the straps with the fastening hardware retract into the seat automatically to ensure they’re safely out of the way during the free-flight zero-gravity portion of the trip, but easy enough to find for when they need to strap back in for the return trip.

All the seats are also designed to do double duty as handholds during the free float – as is just about everything else in the passenger cabin. That’s also why the seats have a cantilevered mounting post that offers free space underneath each, which is more room for exploration once the Unity exits Earth’s atmosphere and concepts like up and down lose significance.

Throughout the cabin, Virgin used soft materials for this same reason, and there are a total of 17 windows throughout the interior (including three for the two-person crew), with each of the passenger-accessible windows rounded with a soft material ‘halo’ complete with a handhold edge and integrated camera. Virgin has put cameras throughout the cabin, in fact, and each provides high-quality photo capture tuned by imaging experts for the specific lighting conditions of the trip. The thinking here is that all the private astronauts should be guaranteed great documentation of their experience, without having to worry about actually capturing any of that themselves. Virgin says it’ll be providing some of this imagery pretty much immediately upon landing so that spacefarers can share to their social accounts right away.

Every seat is a window seat, with one to the side and one above, for taking in the breathtaking views. There’s also a large mirror that covers the entirety of the rear bulkhead separating the cabin from the rocket engine, which provides the astronauts with the ability to check out their zero-G antics.

The seats also change orientation and inclination based on which part of the journey is happening, from upright for those 3.5Gs on the rocket ride straight up, to a reclined position for the atmosphere-skimming 3G velocity-slowing re-entry. Each seat also has an information display that can provide data about what’s happening during the flight – though the pilot and co-pilot aren’t fully separated from the main cabin, so you can theoretically just ask them questions about the trip live as well.

Virgin Galactic also took the in-flight mood lighting that its airliner counterpart pioneered and translated it for space, with dynamic lighting reacting to each stage of the trip and emanating from various strategically placed and non-obvious cabin lights. Take a look below for more detailed photos of the cabin interior, including a configuration that allows three passengers but saves room on the other side of the cabin for experiments, one other way Virgin Galactic plans to monetize its service.

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The company still has some final preparations yet to do before it can begin flying its paying customers, but with the interior of VSS Unity complete, it’s closer than ever to its goal. This is definitely a unique offering, so it’s hard to judge the product without any available reviewers, but it’s clear that Virgin Galactic has put a lot of thought, consideration and expertise into developing a spaceship interior designed to work for everyone who can afford to take the trip.

GitHub today announced that it will start publishing a public roadmap to help its users understand when it will ship new features across its various versions of the GitHub code repository and products like GitHub Actions, its mobile app and its security tools.

“What we’re trying to do is provide a way for people to see what’s coming, join in that dialogue and give us feedback and be able to collaborate with us,” GitHub’s SVP of Product Shanku Niyogi told me.

He also noted that as the company’s enterprise business has grown, the need for customers to be able to prepare for what’s coming next has also increased. Until now, GitHub often provided this information to some of its larger customers directly (through good old slide decks), but that same information will now be available to all. To Niyogi, this is essentially about “building GitHub more the way that people build software on GitHub already.”

Unsurprisingly then, the roadmap lives in a GitHub repo. Everything will be tagged based on the feature, the product it affects and its development stage. Over time, GitHub plans to attach more artifacts to every item, including screenshots, for example.

The company is also using its own product to give users the ability to give feedback through GitHub’s recently launched Discussions feature, for example.

In its current iteration, the roadmap looks about a year ahead. “We’re not going to necessarily go throw things on here that we’re looking at five, six years ahead,” Niyogi said. “But as things start to kind of get into that horizon for us, we’ll have that. As happens with software development, you can always expect changes, so we want to be comfortable with that.”

Users can also sign up for notifications when anything on the roadmap changes.

The new roadmap is now live on GitHub.

 

 

Spotify announced today it’s updating its recently launched shared-queue feature, Group Session, to support remote usage.  Essentially a “party mode,” the feature first debuted in May, offering a way for participants contribute to a collaborative playlist in real-time and control what’s playing across everyone’s devices. Spotify explained at the time that, despite social distancing measures, the feature could still be useful to small groups, like families quarantining together, for example.

But today’s update brings Group Session into the COVID-19 era where people continue to spend apart.

Now, Premium users will be able to tune into the same playlist or podcast together at the same time, even if they’re not in the same place. Before, users would have to be in the same physical space for the feature to work. It had also involved a barcode users would scan with their own device to add to the party playlist.

Now, groups of two to five people can join a remote Group Session by clicking on a “join” link sent out via messaging apps, SMS, or social media from the Group Session’s host. This link is accessed from the “Connect” menu in the bottom-left corner of the play screen in the Spotify app. From here, the host scrolls down to the option “Start a Group Session” to get the link to share with friends or family.

Invited participants can click the link or scan the Spotify code, as before, to join in the session.

Once in, hosts and guests can pause, play, skip and select tracks on the queue or add in their own choices. As one person makes a change to the Group Session, it’s immediately reflected on all participant’s devices.

Group Session had been spotted in development last year, well before the coronavirus outbreak arrived. It was originally envisioned as a feature that could tempt Spotify’s more social users – like party-goers or college roommates, for example — to upgrade to a Premium subscription in order to join in the fun of being able to add to and control the shared queue. But with social distancing measures still in place, few people have need for a party mode feature today.

Likely, Spotify saw the feature was under-utilized due to its requirement for users to be together in person, so expanded it to include remote usage.

However, the bigger limitation is that Group Session is limited to Premium subscribers.

In practice, that means many of the people who have time to sit around and (virtually) hang out with friends listening to music — often, young people on free accounts — can’t even try it. Instead, Group Session should allow free users the ability to participate on these collaborative playlists, but to a lesser extent than paid subscribers. That would allow all of Spotify’s users to try out the addition, but still deliver a push to upgrade to those who found the Group Session feature useful.

The company could even tie the Group Session to a paid video ad experience that allowed users to participate for a limited period of time, after first viewing a sponsor’s message.

The Group Session option continues to be in public beta, which means it’s still being tested and developed. Spotify says the feature is available globally to all Premium users today.

For the past 10 years, Disrupt has been a place for the tech community to come together to connect and learn. And while thousands of techies won’t be able to descend on the Moscone Center this year, the Disrupt show will most certainly go on.

On the conference’s 10th anniversary, we’re coming to you virtually. This makes Disrupt 2020 the most accessible Disrupt ever. But just because it’s virtual doesn’t mean that the fundamentals of the show will change. Disrupt attendees will, of course, have full access to the Disrupt stage and the Extra Crunch stage, as well as virtual networking, interactive Q&A, a digital Startup Alley, and more. We’ll also be delivering sessions focused on Europe and Asia that are friendly for their respective time zones. More to be announced on that soon!

Some things have changed. For one, the show is running for five days instead of three, and each day will be shorter, running from 9:00am PT to approximately 1:30pm PT. We’ve built networking time directly into the agenda, and as with past years, CrunchMatch (our system for matching investors with entrepreneurs and connecting all attendees) will be running throughout the whole show. New this year are sessions where venture capitalists evaluate and suggest fixes for Disrupt 2020 attendees pitch decks. More information about the Pitch Deck Teardown is found here.

We have some amazing speakers booked for this year, with more to be announced soon.

Today, we’d like to share with you a first look at the Disrupt 2020 agenda. More speakers will be added to this agenda, but we couldn’t resist giving you a peek under the hood.

Take a look!

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Monday, September 14

Love In The Time of COVID-19 with Whitney Wolfe-Herd (Bumble)

Whitney Wolfe Herd was on the founding team at Tinder before charting her own course with Bumble. The dating app, which currently has more than 100 million users, puts the brand front and center. In the past year, following a scandal at parent company Badoo, Wolfe Herd has taken the reigns of the entire Magic Lab corporation, which owns Badoo, Bumble, Lumen and Chappy dating apps. Hear from Wolfe Herd about the future of online dating and how she’s stayed down to earth during her meteoric rise to the top of the dating industry. Disrupt Stage 

How to Raise Money in a Dumpster Fire with Anu Hariharan (Y Combinator), Garry Tan (Initialized Capital), and Hans Tung (GGV Capital)

Garry Tan started his first company, Posterous in 2008, so the Initialized Capital co-founder knows a thing or two about economic crises and how they can affect fundraising. Hans Tung, GGV’s Midas-list dealmaker has seen downturns on three continents in his tenure investing in the US, China, and Latin America for the globe-spanning investment firm, while Anu Hariharan has spent the last decade putting companies through their paces at BCG, A16Z, and most recently, YC. They’ll be delivering the goods on how to get that gelt during this raging dumpster fire of a year. Extra Crunch Stage 

The Business of Quantum with Alan Baratz (D-Wave Systems), Peter Chapman (IonQ), and Itamar Sivan (Quantum Machines)

Quantum computing is having a moment. We now have limited but working hardware available from a number of vendors and there is a growing startup ecosystem that is creating a novel hardware approach and a new class of software tools to run these machines and program them. In this panel, we’ll talk about what’s next for quantum computing, the challenges ahead and the roles startups play in fulfilling the promise of this technology. Disrupt Stage

Planning for Your Startup’s Exit: The How’s and the When’s with Tracy Young (Coyote Family) and Michelle Zatlyn (Cloudflare)

When Cloudflare IPO’d last year it certainly wasn’t the end of its 10 year journey, and nor was it PlanGrid’s when it was acquired by Autodesk in 2018. Cloudflare’s Michelle Zatlyn and PlanGrid’s Tracy Young will guide us through both their respective company’s journey and their own as founders. Extra Crunch Stage 

Pitch Deck Teardown with Charles Hudson (Precursor Ventures) and Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures) 

Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage. Extra Crunch Stage 

Startup Battlefield Competition – Session 1

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Disrupt Stage

Zooming Into the Future with Eric Yuan (Zoom)

Zoom has not only replaced the office meeting room, but the family dinner table and local bar as well. Hear from Eric Yuan, Zoom’s founder CEO, about how his company has handled historic growth thanks to COVID-19, and what’s next for the popular enterprise, and consumer brand. Disrupt Stage 

How Things Get Built in the Middle of a Pandemic with Kate Whitcomb (Chrysalis Cloud), Steven Yang (Anker), and speaker to be announced

How has COVID-19 impacted how and where the stuff we use gets built? We’ll hear from Anker CEO Steven Yang and Chrysalis Cloud CEO/former HAX Partner Kate Whitcomb to learn more about how the world of manufacturing has had to adapt in 2020 and what might lay ahead. Extra Crunch Stage 

How to Scale a Tech-Powered Non-Profit with Tiffani Ashley Bell (The Human Utility)

We speak to Tiffani Ashley Bell, founder of The Human Utility, on what it took to build a platform that helps people pay their water bills and how tech-powered nonprofits should think about scaling for social impact. Extra Crunch Stage 

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Tuesday, September 15

Getting to $100M ARR with Vineet Jain (Egnyte), Sid Sijbrandij (GitLab), and Michal Tsur (Kaltura)

TechCrunch speaks with three private companies that have reached the $100 million ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) mark. We’ll explore what they had to break, and rebuild in their companies as they scaled, and what they learned as they left the early-stages of startup life and built companies that are nearly ready to go public. Extra Crunch Stage 

Looking into the Future with Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital)

Botha is the U.S. head of Sequoia Capital. It’s a powerful position but it also comes with great responsibility, including to help steer the company’s portfolio companies through the pandemic and its ripple effects. Hear how Botha is advising founders and why, even in trying times, he expects startup founders to reshape the world. Disrupt Stage 

How to Craft your Pitch Deck for 2020 with Ann Miura-Ko (Floodgate), Lo Toney (Plexo Capital), and speaker to be announced 

Today you might be pitching by email, audio, video, VR or IRL to all types of investors across the globe. How do you tell your story in a way that reaches the right people the right way without you diverting too much time from building your company? The traditional deck of powerpoint slides still has a place, but you need to manage many more opportunities for fundraising, too. We’ll talk through the latest tactics that founders are using around the world. Extra Crunch Stage 

Startup Battlefield Competition – Session 2

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000.  Disrupt Stage 

Pitch Deck Teardown with Niko Bonatsos (General Catalyst) and Megan Quinn (Niantic)

Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage. Extra Crunch Stage 

How to Raise Your First Dollars with Alexa von Tobel (Inspired Capital Partners), Hunter Walk (Homebrew), and Ted Wang (Cowboy Ventures)

Deciding how to go about getting your initial funding is always a tricky subject, as the wrong move could adversely impact your young company. In this session we’ll hear from experts who’ve shepherded multiple companies from the earliest to the latest fundraises. Extra Crunch Stage

The Next Generation of Media with Morgan DeBaun (Blavity) and Angie Nwandu (The Shade Room)

Blavity and The Shade Room have both demonstrated that Black audiences are looking for digital publishers who speak to their experiences and interests. We’ll talk to their founders about how they did it, how they’re building scalable businesses and how other publications can do a better job of reaching diverse audiences.  Disrupt Stage 

How to Find the Right Users as the World Burns with Brian Balfour (Reforge), Elliot Robinson (Bessemer Venture Partners), and Susan Su (Sound Ventures)

Users in 2020 are split across more and more platforms and splintered by geographies. They’re also jaded about marketing and have less money than before the pandemic. So how do you find the right customers and audience members to build a business with your limited time and budget? Hear from the experts on big growth marketing trends and cutting-edge tactics in key acquisition channels including SEO, social, email and more. Extra Crunch Stage 

In the Big Leagues with Delane Parnell (PlayVS)

In a few short years, PlayVS has put eSports leagues in high schools across the country, partnering with gaming giants and school systems. The startup has raised $96 million with founder Delane Parnell at the helm, now they’re looking to expand their ambitions. With traditional high school athletic programs likely to be deeply impacted by COVID-19, will eSports see even greater adoption? Disrupt Stage

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Wednesday, September 16

Making Bank with Mitchell Elegbe (Interswitch)

In 2002 Mitchell Elegbe founded digital finance startup Interswitch to connect Nigeria’s banking system. More than a decade later, his company is valued at over $1 billion and supports billions in digital payment activity across Africa. Interswitch is poised to become Africa’s first major fintech firm to list on a major exchange. Elegbe will discuss the future of digital finance and IPOs coming from Africa. Disrupt Stage 

The Changing Landscape of Property Tech with Connie Chan (Andreessen Horowitz), Merritt Hummer (Bain Capital Ventures), and Brendan Wallace (Fifth Wall)

Connie Chan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Merritt Hummer of Bain Capital Ventures and Brendan Wallace, co-founder and managing partner at Fifth Wall are at the center of these changes. These investors will discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in property tech as well as advice for startups in the industry. Extra Crunch Stage 

Little Wires Everywhere with Kerry Washington 

Kerry Washington is perhaps best known for her work in Hollywood, but she’s been making a name for herself in tech over the last few years. An investor in The Wing, Community and teeth-straightening service Byte, Washington’s portfolio consists of products and services that aim to give people a voice or improve their quality of life. In this fireside chat, Washington will discuss what brought her into the tech industry, her investment strategy and the rise of streaming platforms. And, as an activist and someone who has spoken up about the lack of diversity in Hollywood, Washington will share her views on diversity, inclusion and equity in tech.  Disrupt Stage 

Building a Startup During the “Work From Home” Revolution with Sarah Cannon (Index Ventures), Sarah Guo (Greylock), and Dave Munichiello (GV)

We’re delighted to bring together a trio of the world’s best expert investors on the topic and explore this critical trend further. Sarah Cannon is a partner at Index Ventures where she has backed such team productivity tools as Notion, focused messaging app Quill, and Pitch. Next we have Sarah Guo, who is a general partner at Greylock where she has invested in Clubhouse, family benefits platform Cleo and several cybersecurity companies. Finally, Dave Munichiello will join. He is a general partner at GV who has backed Slack, GitLab, Plaid, and a whole lot of other well-known enterprise startups. Extra Crunch Stage 

CRISPR in the Post-COVID Era with Jennifer Doudna (UC Berkeley)

What has the global COVID-19 pandemic changed about the biotech industry in general, and CRISPR in particular? Dr. Jennifer Doudna, who co-discovered the revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique, joins us to discuss the immediate and lasting implications of the novel coronavirus and transformations in genetic science. Disrupt Stage 

Startup Battlefield Competition – Session 3

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Disrupt Stage 

Pitch Deck Teardown with Cyan Banister (Long Journey Ventures)

Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage. Extra Crunch Stage

How Voice Computing Conquered the World with Rohit Prasad and Toni Reid (Amazon)

Amazon’s Alexa creators and heads Rohit Prasad and Toni Reid will join us to discuss the voice assistant’s rise from curiosity to ubiquitous computing platform. The pair will discuss life beyond the smart speaker and where voice computing goes from here. Disrupt Stage 

How to Build a Service Marketplace with Andy Fang (DoorDash) and speaker to be announced 

Building service marketplaces require companies to serve all sides of the ecosystem, or at least have an understanding of the ecosystem as a whole. In this panel, we’ll explore how to deliver on the value proposition for your customers, business partners and delivery partners, if you have them. DoorDash is a perfect example of running a service marketplace, and its co-founder and CTO Andy Fang is here to tell you how. Extra Crunch Stage 

Daphne Koller’s Push to Marry Big Data to Big Pharma (Insitro)

Drug discovery and testing is a complex, fraught process that modern computing methods promise to reinvent — but only with the right data, the right tools, and the right people (and a lot of money). Coursera and Calico veteran Daphne Koller thinks she has all the right ingredients in her new company Insitro. Disrupt Stage 

The Black Founder Experience: Tactical Advice for Underrepresented Entrepreneurs with Michael Seibel (Y Combinator) and speakers to be announced

How does the startup experience differ for founders from underrepresented groups? What are the biggest ongoing challenges, and how can they be tackled? We’ll hear from Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel and two soon-to-be-announced YC founders on their experiences starting companies and raising money as Black entrepreneurs.  Extra Crunch Stage 

What’s Next for Atlassian with Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian)

Atlassian’s tools have become ubiquitous for software teams around the world, but in today’s world, its collaboration tools also play a wider role inside of many companies. We’ll talk to the company’s co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes about life after the company’s successful IPO and how he plans to stay ahead of the next set of trends in software development. Disrupt Stage 

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Thursday, September 17

Greenlighting a New Generation of Storytellers with Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Tyler Mitchell (Imagine Impact)

Yes, that Ron Howard. One of the world’s most successful actors, directors and producers and legendary producer Brian Grazer have created some of the most iconic films and television shows of the last 35 years (Empire, Arrested Development, and The Da Vinci Code to name a few). But entertainment — like tech — is all about disruption. So, to tap into how it will be created and delivered in the future, the pair have teamed up with Tyler Mitchell for Imagine Impact, Silicon Valley-style accelerators where promising writers connect with mentors to build their stories and take them to the next step — whatever that might be. Imagine Impact signed a deal in June with Netflix to expand that pipeline, so come hear about what else they have planned, and what the three of them think about YouTubers, TikTok and the future of the feature. Disrupt Stage

The Future of SaaS with Maha Ibrahim (Canaan Partners), David Ulevitch (Andreessen Horowitz), and Mike Volpi (Index Ventures)

In 2020 SaaS companies have seen their values drop sharply, and rebound even more quickly. TechCrunch is chatting with a few VCs with deep insight into the SaaS world to talk about which startups are accelerating, lagging, or breaking out. And we’ll explore what’s changed in terms of venture expectations for SaaS companies, and what makes them stand out from their peers when it comes to placing bets. Extra Crunch Stage

How Embedded Finance Represents the Future of Fintech with Hope Cochran (Madrona Venture Group), Ruth Foxe-Blader (Anthemis Group) and Zach Perret (Plaid)

The fintech industry has had a wild couple of years. Consumer fintech startups have been massively successful and managed to attract millions of customers. At the same time, enterprise companies have created the infrastructure that will make finance truly digital, from payments to API-driven integrations and risk assessment. In this panel, we’ll talk about what’s next for the fintech industry. Will tech companies all become fintech companies at some point with embedded financial products? Will new tech giants thrive by powering those embedded financial products? Extra Crunch Stage

Putting Robots to Work with Robert Playter (Boston Dynamics) 

In his first public speaking engagement since becoming the CEO of Boston Dynamics, Robert Playter will discuss the company’s transition from research robotics darlings to commercial production. As an employee for more than 25 years, Playter has unique insight into the company’s growth and plans to help robots become an increasingly important driver of our daily lives. Disrupt Stage 

Pitch Deck Teardown with Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital) and Susan Lyne (BBG Ventures)

Talk through the nuts and bolts of what makes a great deck (or not) with top investors as they go through your submitted pitches live on stage. Extra Crunch Stage 

Startup Battlefield Competition – Session 4

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Disrupt Stage 

How to Iterate Your Product with Oded Gal (Zoom), Eugene Wei, Tamar Yehoshua (Slack), and Julie Zhuo (Inspirit)

If getting insights on product development from current and former product heads at places like Facebook, Zoom, Slack, and Oculus doesn’t sound like something you’re interested in just get out of tech now. Leave. It’s over. Go work in an insurance company. Get your brokers license. Just do something else. Extra Crunch Stage

How to Build an Alternative Company with Seth Besmertnik (Conductor), Aniyia Williams (Zebras Unite), and Hays Witt (Driver’s Seat Cooperative)

Beyond raising traditional venture capital and beyond the pursuing-growth-at-all-costs strategy, there are people in the startup ecosystem that are finding success through less mainstream avenues. Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik, Driver’s Seat CEO Hays Witt and Aniyia Williams of Black & Brown Founders and Zebras Unite, are three of these people. These founders have all taken alternative approaches in their entrepreneurial journeys, whether that’s been forming as a cooperative, buying back a startup from a tech giant and then turning it into a majority employee-owned operation or converting into a cooperative fund that invests in startups tackling social issues. In this discussion, you’ll learn how to build a company that puts profits and users first, and VCs last. Extra Crunch Stage 

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Friday, September 18

The State of Venture with Dayna Grayson (Construct Capital), Renata Quintini (Renegade Partners), and Lo Toney (Plexo Capital)

All three of these VCs hail from among the most powerful investing firms in the country — Lux Capital, GV and NEA. Yet each made the bold choice to strike out on their own, adding to a growing and diverse landscape of investment vehicles across the globe. Hear about why they did it,  and learn about the trends that they’re funding as they build their businesses. Disrupt Stage 

Making Cents of EdTech in the Coronavirus Era with Mercedes Bent (Lightspeed Venture Partners), Jennifer Carolan (Reach Capital), and Ian Chiu (Owl Ventures)

Edtech has been thrown into the spotlight during COVID-19. But did a scramble to adopt and surge in usage impact the sector for better or for worse? In this session, we’ll hear from investors who have bets in the biggest edtech companies on how the landscape has changed during the pandemic, and what they’re most excited for ahead. Extra Crunch Stage  

Keeping Big Tech in Check with Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren 

Few know Silicon Valley better than one of its longest-serving lawmakers, Rep. Zoe Lofgren. Both as a defender and critic, Lofgren has led the effort to keep Big Tech in check, not just for her electorate but their internet users around the world. We’ll talk policy, privacy, and other hot-button issues affecting Silicon Valley, now and in the future. Disrupt Stage

How to Reinvent Your Sales Team in 2020 with Brian Ascher (Venrock), Pete Kazanjy (Atrium), and Jill Rowley (Stage 2 Capital)

We’re bringing together the smartest leaders on sales in the Valley to discuss tactics and more. Brian Ascher is a partner at Venrock where for more than two decades he has invested in B2B sales-driven companies like 6Sense, Socrates AI, and Dynamic Signal. Next, Pete Kazanjy is one of the leading startup authorities on sales through his written works like “Founding Sales” and community building while also founding sales performance platform Atrium HQ. Finally, we have Jill Rowley, who has spent decades advising startups on sales and was also an early employee at Salesforce and Eloqua. Extra Crunch Stage 

Startup Battlefield Competition – Final

TechCrunch’s iconic startup competition is back, as entrepreneurs from around the world pitch expert judges and vie for the Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Disrupt Stage

Building a Low-Code Unicorn with Howie Liu (Airtable) 

Low-code/no-code has been a buzzword for years now, but few companies have taken this idea to its logical conclusion the way Airtable has with its spreadsheet-like interface. With a valuation of over $1 billion, the company is now at the forefront of this movement. We’ll talk to Airtable co-founder and CEO Howie Liu about building a user-friendly low-code service, enterprise sales in the age of COVID-19, and what’s next for the no-code/low-code space. Disrupt Stage 

Pass prices for Disrupt are increasing this week – so if you want to get in on this action, get yours today and save up to $300.

Indonesia-based online travel portal, Traveloka, has picked up $250M in fresh funding to beef up its coronavirus-battered balance sheet.

The travel aggregator dubs the capital injection a “strong vote of confidence” in its strategy to adjust to what it couches as a ‘new normal’ for travel by retooling its focus on domestic and short hop excursions and activities. The funding round is led by an unnamed global financial institution. Traveloka also says “some” existing investors also participated (EV Growth being one it has named).

Prior to this latest raise, Traveloka had pulled in around $950M across five funding rounds since being founded back in 2012, according to Crunchbase. Back in 2017 it passed unicorn valuation after bagging $350 million from Expedia in exchange for a minority stake in the business. But, shortly afterwards, it lost one of its co-founders — who departed citing a clash of goals as the business switched to more of a commercial mindset, as he saw it.

Fast forward a few years and the pandemic is playing havoc with the travel industry as a whole. Since the pandemic landed to decimate ‘business as usual’ in the sector, Traveloka has responded by launching a number of initiatives in a bid to reassure and woo back customers — including flights that bundle COVID-19 tests; flexible open-date vouchers for hotels (aka, ‘Buy Now Stay Later’); online experiences; flash sale livestreams; and a big push around cleanliness with standardized hygiene protocols for vacation accommodation that can be booked via its platform.

Traveloka says the latest capital injection will be used not only to beef up its balance sheet but to boost efforts and deepen offerings in “select priority areas” — including building out what it describes as “a more robust and integrated Travel & Lifestyle portfolio” in key markets.

It also intends to expand financial services solutions it offers to ecosystem partners.

Commenting in a statement, Ferry Unardi, Traveloka co-founder and CEO, said: “Without a doubt, Traveloka has been profoundly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We have experienced the lowest business rate that we have ever seen since our inception. However, we always believed that the company will prevail by rapidly adjusting our strategy, working with our industry and ecosystem partners, as well as continuing to innovate for our users, our ultimate focus.”

Per Ferry, Traveloka’s business in Vietnam is “approaching” steady pre-COVID-19 levels, while he says its Thailand business is “on its way” to surpassing 50%.

“Indonesia and Malaysia are still in the early stage, but they continue to demonstrate promising momentum with strong week-to-week improvement, especially in accommodation with the emergence of shorter distance staycation behavior,” he added. “We acknowledge that the sector may go through further turbulence as it navigates new waves, but we feel we are prepared to take on the challenge and emerge on the right side of it.”

“The travel industry is facing unprecedented times, including Traveloka,” added Willson Cuaca, managing partner of EV Growth, in another supporting statement. “The leadership team has taken difficult yet commendable measures including restructuring and optimization to minimize financial health risks. We are confident that the company will emerge even stronger after this crisis.”

A lot has been written about increased interest around automation and robotics during the pandemic — I know because I’ve done a lot of the writing. Most of these discussions tend to revolve around things like logistics, delivery and food preparation. But there’s also a compelling case to be made for companionship. And for that reason, the Petit Qoobo crowdfunding campaign couldn’t have launched at a better time.

The smaller, more portable of the quirky cat pillow goes up on Indiegogo in the U.S. tomorrow, following a successful campaign in its native Japan that netted the project $125,000. This time out, Yukai Engineering is hoping to net an additional $50,000. Prices will range from $60 to $80, depending on tiers and all of the good stuff. It’s expected to start shipping in December, making it a pretty solid holiday gift for allergy-prone animal lovers.

“The crowdfunding success in Japan really goes to show how people are increasingly turning to robots for emotional comfort and how it’s becoming ‘normal’ to ‘adopt’ robots into their lives,” CEO Shunsuke Aoki said in a release. “People also seem to be embracing this new human-robot relationship more while in self-quarantine.”

The latest version of the robot cat pillow includes the standard wagging tail, which speeds us you pet it. It will also start wagging in response to voices and sound and offer a subtle heartbeat sensation. Robotic companions have, of course, been a phenomenon in Japan for some time, owing in part to an aging population. The long stretches of isolation brought up by social distancing could certainly prove to be another key driver in their adoption.

According to the company, sales of the original Qoobo are up up ~30-40% versus the same two-month period last year. Qoobo has been around for a few years now, so it seems entirely likely that much of that renewed interest has been driven by the intense sense of isolation social distancing can engender.

Twitter has temporarily frozen Donald Trump Jr.’s account after the president’s son shared a video making false and potentially life-threatening claims about the coronavirus pandemic.

The younger Trump’s account was restricted Tuesday morning after he shared a link to the viral video, tweeting “This is a much [sic] watch!!! So different from the narrative that everyone is running with.”

“The Tweet referenced was in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch. The company said that the tweet violated its rules against COVID-19 misinformation and must be deleted. Trump’s account was not suspended, but its functionality will be restricted for 12 hours.

The video was widely publicized by Breitbart News and features a number of people in lab coats who refer to themselves as “America’s Frontline Doctors.” In the video, the individuals push various false and dangerous claims, including the claim that masks don’t prevent the spread of the virus and yet another defense of the drug hydroxychloroquine, which hasn’t proven effective in treating the virus.

President Trump shared the video multiple times on Monday night in tweets that now appear as “no longer available” on his timeline. The now-removed tweets are wedged in between a number of remaining retweets that defend hydroxychloroquine as a “gold standard” and a “game changer” and attack White House pandemic advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci’s credibility.

Facebook and YouTube are also working to scrub instances of the video. On Facebook, the viral video collected more than 14 million views and became one of the platform’s most popular posts before being targeted for removal.

 

Gaming platform Roblox, which has seen a surge of use due to the coronavirus pandemic, now has over 150 million monthly active users, up from the 115 million it announced in February before the U.S.’s shelter-in-place orders went into effect. The company also said its developer community is on pace to earn over $250 million in 2020, up from the $110 million they earned last year.

These metrics and other company news were announced over the weekend at RDC, Roblox’s annual developer conference that was held virtually for the first time because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roblox, to be clear, doesn’t build the games that run on its platform. Instead, offers the platform for developers to build upon, similar to the App Store. Many of its most popular games are free, monetizing as players spend on in-game items using virtual cash called Robux. Some of the company’s larger individual games, before the pandemic, would average over 10 million monthly users. And over 10 games as of February claimed more than 1 billion total visits.

 

Thanks to the pandemic, however, these gaming milestones have significantly increased in size.

During the first part of the year, the Roblox game Adopt Me! reached 1.615 million concurrent users and over 10 billion visits. A new game called Piggy, launched in January 2020, now has over 5 billion plays. Jailbreak surpassed 500,000 concurrent users during a live event held in April 2020.

In total, there are now 345,000 developers on the Roblox platform who are monetizing their games, and over half of Robux being spent in catalog is now being spent on user-generated content (UGC) items, in less than 12 months after the UGC catalog program began.

The more than doubling of Roblox developers’ earnings year-over-year is related to a combination of factors, including the platform’s growing game catalog, new development tools, international expansions, and of course, a pandemic that has locked kids indoors away from their friends, forcing them to go online to connect.

On notable factor driving the increased developer earnings, however, was Roblox’s recent introduction of Premium Payouts, which pays developers based on the engagement time of Premium subscribers in their game. Through this system, launched earlier this spring, developers earned $2 million in June 2020 as part of this program alone.

During the RDC event, Roblox also detailed its plans for expanded developer tools and platform updates. This includes new collaboration tools for larger development teams, which will allow developers to grant permissions to team members and contractors to work only on a certain part of their game. It will also launch a talent marketplace by the end of the year to help developers find people and resources to help with game development.

Roblox also said it will begin rolling out automatic machine translation for all supported languages, languages including Brazilian Portuguese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Spanish. This feature will help developers more easily reach international users with localized versions of their games.

Later this summer, Roblox said it will launch “Developer Events,” a new service that will help developers find one another in their local communities. Initially, these events will be held virtually, but will transition to in-person events when it’s safe to do so.

The company also signed its first music label partnership with Monstercat, an indie electronic music label known for its collaborations with gaming titles and artists, including Marshmello and Vicetone. The partnership has initially yielded 51 tracks for developers to use, free of charge, in their games. These include songs from a variety of EDM genres, such as Drum & Bass, Synthwave, Electro, Chillout, Electronic, Breaks, Future Bass, and more. More tracks will be added over time, Roblox says.

“The accomplishments of our developer community have eclipsed even our loftiest expectations; I am incredibly impressed by the unique and creative experiences being introduced on the Roblox platform,” said David Baszucki, founder and CEO, Roblox. “Our focus is to give developers the tools and resources they need to pursue their vision and create larger, more complex, more realistic experiences and collectively build the Metaverse.”

Roblox raised an additional $150 million in Series G funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz’s late-stage venture fund, just before the COVID-19 health crisis hit the U.S., valuing the business at $4 billion. Ahead of this, Roblox had been working to take its platform further outside the U.S. and into China, through a strategic partnership with Tencent focused on bringing its coding curriculum to the region and through added support for Chinese languages, among other things. Also with the additional funding, Roblox said it planned to help further its expansion effects, and build out more tools and its developer ecosystem.

Low-code is a hot category these days. It helps companies build workflows or simple applications without coding skills, freeing up valuable engineering resources for more important projects. Paragon, a member of the Y Combinator Winter 2020 cohort, announced a $2.5 million seed round today for its low-code application integration platform.

Investors include Y Combinator, Village Global, Global Founders Capital, Soma Capital and FundersClub.

“Paragon makes it easier for non-technical people to be able to build out integrations using our visual workflow editor. We essentially provide building blocks for things like API requests, interactions with third party APIs and conditional logic. And so users can drag and drop these building blocks to create workflows that describe business logic in their application,” says company co-founder Brandon Foo.

Foo acknowledges there are a lot of low-code workflow tools out there, but many like UIPath, Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere concentrate on Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate certain tasks. He says he and co-founder Ishmael Samuel wanted to focus on developers.

“We’re really focused on how can we improve developer efficiency, and how can we bring the benefits of low code to product and engineering teams and make it easier to build products without writing manual code for every single integration, and really be able to streamline the product development process,” Foo told TechCrunch.

The way it works is you can drag and drop one of 1200 predefined connectors for tools like Stripe, Slack and Google Drive into a workflow template, and build connectors very quickly to trigger some sort of action. The company is built on AWS serverless architecture, so you define the trigger action and subsequent actions, and Paragon handles all of the back-end infrastructure requirements for you.

It’s early days for the company. After launching in private beta in January, the company has 80 customers. It currently has 6 employees including Foo, who previously co-founded Polymail and Samuel, who was previously lead engineer at Uber. They plan to hire 4 more employees this year.

With both founders people of color, they definitely are looking to build a diverse team around them. “I think it’s already sort of built into our DNA. As a diverse founding team we have perhaps a broader viewpoint and perspective in terms of hiring the kind of people that we seek to work with. Of course, I think there’s always room for improvements, and so we’re always looking for new ways that we can be more inclusive in our hiring recruiting process [as we grow],” he said.

As far as raising during a pandemic, he says it’s been a crazy time, but he believes they are solving a real problem and that they can succeed in spite of the macro economic conditions of the moment.