Category: UNCATEGORIZED

As a lot of us continue to stay indoors, Facebook has become a go-to platform for many people to check in with their friends, family and neighbours during the current coronavirus pandemic. Today, to give us another way of showing support and presence in its apps, the company said it would add a new reaction for “care” — in the forms of an emoji face hugging a heart, and a pulsing heart — that will appear alongside the “thumbs up” for like, the basic heart, and the laughing, shock, sadness, and anger emojis.

This makes “care” the first addition to the list of reactions since it was expanded from a simple “like” button back in 2015 to give people more empathetic, quick responses to posts.

Starting next week, the care emojis will start appearing on Facebook’s main app (the emoji face embracing the heart), while the new reaction will appear on Messenger (in the form of a pulsing heart) from today. You can see the new heart by pressing on an existing reaction to change it, or by creating a new reaction to a chat.

“We hope these reactions give people additional ways to show their support during the #COVID19 crisis,” a spokesperson noted about the new emojis earlier today. “We know this is an uncertain time, and we wanted people to be able to show their support in ways that let their friends and family know they are thinking of them.”

Ahead of today, it looks like Pedja Ristic, a product designer at Facebook, was testing the reaction on his own posts, another hint it was coming.

This is in some ways a pretty small gesture: offering up an emoji in response to a post is not putting food on the table (nor shopping for it, which has become a challenge in itself), giving someone a guarantee of income, making sure that a person is not being misinformed about the scope of the  novel coronavirus and how best to deal with that, nor indeed curing anyone who happens to get sick from this awful thing.

But in the scope of Facebook being a crucial part of many people’s support networks, ever more important as people live in isolation, it’s another way to make it more useful and more tuned to the kind of empathy we all need right now.

Facebook has been working on a number of levels to do something useful in the current health crisis. Its work has ranged from making stronger efforts to ferret out and remove misinformation, provide grants to those in media that are working to report the news well, separate grants to small businesses, supporting public health initiatives to get more important messages out, and like many others also donating masks to those in need.

As India scrambles to keep its citizens safe from the coronavirus, local ride-hailing giant Ola has stepped up to help. The Indian firm has made its technology platform — which is capable of, among other things, conducting real-time tracking and navigation and managing crowds — available to the federal and state governments at no cost.

Ola, which is already working with the state government in Punjab, said its technology platform can be refashioned to help the government and public service organizations manage their real-time war rooms.

The platform offers the ability to track millions of vehicles and people, and also comes with a feature that can verify via a selfie picture whether people are wearing masks. Ola uses the latter to authenticate whether the person in the driving seat is the registered driver partner. The company emphasized that it is “ensuring highest level of data privacy and security.”

In the Indian state of Punjab, Ola said the government is using the firm’s technology to track and manage over 1.7 million farmers’ produce and their vehicle movement in vegetable markets to ensure they followed the social distance protocol.

These capabilities could come in handy to state governments as several cases of large crowds formation in vegetable markets and outside the grocery stores in many parts of the country have emerged in recent weeks, according to local media reports.

In Punjab, Ola’s technology platform is also being used by the state government to issue travel passes digitally. State governments in India are issuing passes to medical professionals and others who genuinely need to leave their houses to attend urgent work.

“Ola CONNECTS is a powerful platform that stakeholders across the government can quickly deploy to benefit citizens at large amidst the ongoing crisis,” said Ravi Bhagat, Secretary Punjab Mandi Board and Special Secretary for Governance Reforms, in a statement.

The launch of Ola Connects, the name of the initiative, is the latest effort from the Indian ride-hailing giant to help in the time of crises. In recent weeks, Ola has waived off lease rental for its driver partners, and committed to offer a few hundred dollars to driver partners and their families who test positive with Covid-19.

“All of Ola’s innovations across AI, tracking technologies, allocation and flow management are part of the CONNECTS platform. We are committed to serving the nation in every way possible and are offering this platform free of cost, dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of doctors, healthcare professionals and frontline staff leading our fight against COVID-19,” said Pranay Jivrajka, co-founder of Ola, in a statement.

Schools have been closed for the past month in France. That’s why French startup Molotov is leveraging its over-the-top TV service to offer content for children of all ages. In particular, the company has partnered with SchoolMouv, a company that offers videos, exercises and more.

Dubbed “Molotov for School”, the new section lets you find videos that are appropriate for your kid. It aggregates all TV content related to education from France 4, Arte, TF1, M6, etc.

In addition to that curation effort, users can browse SchoolMouv videos from the app. There are around 1,000 lessons that cover all grounds in middle school and high school. SchoolMouv usually charges €30 per month for its service (currently on sale at €15).

Molotov is offering SchoolMouv videos for free until May 15. You can’t access interactive exercises but you can still view all of the company’s videos for the next month. You don’t have to enter your credit card information.

Finally, Molotov also offers a selection of documentaries about historical events and science topics. While many parents spend a lot of time interacting with teachers to make sure that their children stay on track, Molotov could be useful when parents are just too busy.

Molotov is using this opportunity to report that it now has 10 million registered users. Last year, when Altice announced that it would acquire a majority stake in Molotov, the startup had 7 million registered users. The deal with Altice fell through and Molotov remains an independent company.

In the US, Robinhood has led the charge in upending the stock investing model through its mobile-first, minimal-step, commission free trading platform. Now, a startup out of Germany built on a similar premise is announcing a big round of funding from some top investors to continue its growth.

Trade Republic — which lets people buy and sell shares, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and derivatives by way of a mobile app, paying just €1 ($1.09) in fees (no commission) — is today announcing the it has closed €62 million ($67 million at today’s rates) in funding to expand its business into more markets in Europe and to move into adjacent business lines in the near future.

The Series B is being co-led by Accel and Founders Fund, and is brings the total raised by the Berlin-based startup to just over €80 million. (Its Series A last year was led by Creandum.) It’s not disclosing valuation right now.

This is one of the largest Series B rounds for a fintech startup in the region, and comes on the heels of the company’s commercial launch last year. It has picked up more than 150,000 customers in that time collectively managing more than €1 billion through the app. It’s currently available in Germany and Austria, with plans to add more countries soon.

“We want to be the one-stop shop for trades and we want to grow that as a safe space,” said Christian Hecker, co-founder and CEO of Trade Republic, in an interview this week. “We plan to introduce a sequence of savings features in the next couple of months. We see saving as our biggest growth path in the years to come.”

Even without the milestone of this being a big Series B, this is a significant round of funding for another reason.

Everyone is watching how tech startups, fintech, and investing overall — remember, stock markets the world over have taken a nosedive in the wake of COVID-19, catching their own form of the virus — will fare right now. With everyone staying indoors, some losing jobs, and many businesses being asked to remain closed to contain outbreaks, the measures have led to a slump in the economy, and it’s hard to see right now how much of that effect will be temporal or permanent.

This round, in that context, is a vote of confidence for Trade Republic that speaks to what shape fintech and how we as consumers interact with it might take in the years to come.

There has long been a theme in European startup land around the idea of “clones.” These are businesses that are founded more or less based very closely or even exactly on the same model as a slightly older and successful US counterpart, sometimes built with the aim of creating a regional leader that the US counterpart might eventually even acquire to save itself the hassle of organic international expansion.

There was even a “startup factory”, Rocket Internet, led by the Samwer brothers, set up to found and grow multiple companies on this principle. (They succeeded to some extent, selling companies to Groupon, eBay and others over the years.)

I’d argue that fintech, and Trade Republic, is not quite in that category, though. The company was founded five years ago and spent the first four of those in stealth, obtaining licenses to trade and operate as a bank, and building its platform.

It’s very squarely focused on European growth and doing so in a way that will not fall afoul of strict financial regulations. Expanding into new countries is one of the toughest things for a fintech to do, and that may well be compounded in cases where the platform is potentially leading to billions of dollars of trading.

“On paper the offering might look similar but the positioning is very different,” Hecker said, pointing to the stable asset classes that Trade Republic focuses on, and the fact that it will be moving into savings. Also, there are no plans for crypto-trading, he added. “We focus on more mature and secure asset classes.”

There is also a bit of open water right now. Notably, Robinhood has not expanded outside the US and seems to have pushed back its plans for its UK launch, which would have been its first international move. (It launched a waiting list for the service last year.) It’s not the only company in this area, though: Revolut, another fintech leader out of Europe, also launched trading in a limited release last August.

The opportunity is ripe for the taking, and investors believe startup’s bid to be one to take it is a viable one.

“Trade Republic’s team impressed us with its vision, beautiful product, strong traction, and clear potential to become the European leader for mobile smart investing,” said Luca Bocchio, a partner at Accel, in a statement. “We are particularly excited about the strong focus on long-term savings and better access to the capital markets, which Trade Republic makes easier and more affordable.”

Peter Thiel, the storied investor that backs Founders Fund, is a prolific supporter of fintech startups, stretching back to his early days as part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, so his support also signals a strong play.

“Trade Republic’s rapid growth in Germany testifies to the superiority of its technology platform over legacy offerings,” said Peter Thiel, partner at Founders Fund, in a statement. “The company is poised to become a major player in European finance.”

That NASA intends to collect a sample from Mars and return it to Earth is well known — they’ve said so many times. But how would they go about scooping up soil from the surface of a distant planet and getting it back here? With a plan that sounds straight out of sci-fi.

Described by the project’s lead scientist in a virtual meeting reported by Nature, NASA and the European Space Agency’s proposed Mars sample retrieval program is perhaps the most ambitious interplanetary mission ever devised. (I’ve asked NASA for more details and will update this post if I hear back.)

The first part of the plan is already public: It relies on the Mars Perseverance rover, which is currently being prepared, despite the pandemic, for its launch in July. Perseverance will perform sampling using a drill and soil scoop, filling 30 small tubes with the results of its Martian delvings and storing them on board.

The next step is where things start to get wild.

A second spacecraft will travel to Mars, launching in 2026 and arriving in 2028, and land near Perseverance in Jezero crater. It will deploy a second rover, which will roll over to Perseverance, collect the sample tubes, and deposit them in the “Mars ascent vehicle” that also came with it. This small rocket will launch itself and the samples into orbit — the first time a spacecraft will have taken off from the surface of Mars.

At this point, a third spacecraft waiting nearby will synchronize its orbit with the sample retrieval craft, collect it, and return to Earth with it, where it will make its — controlled, one hopes — reentry in 2031.

“This is by no means a simple task,” said head of NASA’s Mars exploration program Jim Watzin in the meeting, uttering perhaps the greatest understatement of the 21st century so far. “But we have kept it as simple as possible.”

Indeed, it is hard to think of a simpler process given the restrictions of travel to Mars. Naturally Perseverance can’t shoot the samples back on a ballistic trajectory itself for a variety of reasons. That necessitates a second surface vehicle. And engineering that vehicle to fill the roles of outbound spacecraft, lander, rover, ascent vehicle, and return spacecraft may simply be impossible. So a third spacecraft is needed as well.

Keep in mind that this is the mission profile, but the actual spacecraft don’t exist yet, and likely won’t for years to come. Still, it’s a mind-blowing plan that NASA has just revealed.

Uber is walking back its guidance for what was supposed to be a milestone year for the ride-hailing company that included reaching an operating profit by the last quarter.

Uber said Thursday it was withdrawing its 2020 guidance for gross bookings, adjusted net revenue, and adjusted EBITDA, which were provided on February 6, 2020 during the company’s earnings call.

“Given the evolving nature of COVID-19 and the uncertainty it has caused for every industry in every part of the world, it is impossible to predict with precision the pandemic’s cumulative impact on our future financial results,” Uber said in a statement.

After a disappointing initial public offering in May 2019 and several months in retreat, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi set out to reduce costs by cutting its workforce and selling its food delivery service in India to competitor Zomato . It appeared that the cost-cutting was working and Khosrowshahi moved up guidance, saying that Uber planned to make an operating profit by the final quarter of 2020. The company had previously targeted 2021 to reach an operating profit.

Uber also warned that it expected an impairment charge of between $1.9 billion and $2.2 billion because of declines in value on some of its minority equity investments. Uber has minority stakes in Didi, Grab, Yandex.Taxi and Zomato, according to its latest annual report. The one-time charge is not expected to impact Uber’s first quarter adjusted net revenue, adjusted EBITDA, cash and cash equivalents, or short-term investments, the company said.

Uber also used Thursday’s change in guidance to highlight initiatives it launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including a financial assistance program for drivers and delivery people.

Uber said it plans to account for this program as Contra Revenue, which will likely reduce GAAP revenue by an estimated $17 million to $22 million in the first quarter and an estimated $60 million to $80 million in second quarter. Uber will exclude the impact of certain COVID-19-specific expenses from Adjusted Net Revenue and from Adjusted EBITDA to “help investors assess the impact of COVID-19 on our financial position.”

The company has scheduled its first quarter earnings call for 1:30 pm PT May 7.

Food-delivery platforms are on the front lines during the coronavirus crisis, with major spikes in demand as communities are confined at home, likely with more time to cook than usual. And while some restaurants have opted to shut down, others have turned to takeout as a lifeline. Yet physical contact between suppliers, couriers and customers must be more tightly managed than ever to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.

The gig economy has also come under renewed scrutiny due to a lack of worker protections that have left many facing a stark choice between earning a living or sheltering in place. In the best of times, operating a delivery platform is a balancing act — and these are certainly not the best of times.

We talked to Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Östberg to find out what he’s learned about managing a global logistics business in the midst of a pandemic.

The Berlin-based company operates a variety of delivery brands across more than 40 markets and 300+ cities globally, employing 22,000 people directly — with a much larger army of self-employed platform workers who hit the streets and make the actual deliveries.

Food remains a core focus — Delivery Hero says it has some 500,000+ restaurants on its platform, making it the largest global food network outside of China — though in recent years it has branched out into other areas, including groceries and pharmaceuticals. An expansion that’s proven to be timely.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TechCrunch: How is the coronavirus impacting your business?

Niklas Östberg: It has an enormous amount of impact in different ways and different regions. We are heavily impacted in some areas, in some a little bit less. In some we have positive impact and in some negative.

What goes for almost everyone except for those who are under complete curfew is that the number of new customers have significantly increased.

We have a lot of new customer segments who didn’t order food before — they now urgently need food and they’ve realized the value of food delivery. And of course there are some [existing] customers who have changed their behavior — now they might not need it as much as before. But definitely one thing that is true for almost every market is that we get a lot of new users and we get a lot of new restaurants.

On-demand mobility, when done successfully, strikes a balance between demand and supply while providing reliable service and making a profit. It’s a sweet spot that can be difficult, if not impossible, to find.

Autofleet, a startup that develops fleet optimization software to redirect underused vehicles into ride-hailing and delivery services, wants to solve that mission impossible. Now, the company founded by former Avis and Gett employees, has raised $7.5 million in seed and Series A funding to expand into international markets and grow its research and development team.

The Series A was led by MizMaa Ventures with participation from Maniv Mobility, Next Gear Ventures and Liil Ventures. Its seed financing was led by Maniv Mobility.

Autofleet developed a fleet management platform that can be used by rental car companies, car sharing operators and automakers to launch or better manage mobility services. The platform includes a booking app and integrations to delivery services, demand prediction, pooling and optimization algorithms as well as a driver app, and control center. The company also has developed a simulator tool that lets operators plan how a fleet will be deployed before a single vehicle hits the road.

For example, a rental company with abundant inventory and little demand for traditional multi-day contracts could use the platform to launch and then manage a car-sharing service. Autofleet already has partnerships with Avis Budget Group, Zipcar, Keolis and Suzuki .

That focus on managing supply side constraints is what attracted Maniv Mobility to invest in the seeding and Series A rounds, according the firm’s general partner Olaf Sakkers.

Autofleet’s biggest markets today are in Europe and the U.S., CEO Kobi Eisenberg told TechCrunch . The company is seeing early traction and fast growth in Latin America and Asia-Pacific. Eisenberg said they plan to double down on these markets. The company also expects to announce a partnership in Asia to accelerate growth in that region.

Autofleet is also looking for new opportunities for how vehicle fleets can be used, including ways to help micromobility companies improve their unit economics, according to Eisenberg.

In this age of COVID-19 — when asset-heavy businesses like rental car companies have seen their businesses upended — Autofleet has already discovered new uses for its platform. The platform is being used to help companies shift fleets to meet today’s demand for logistics and medical transportation. Autofleet is also selling its platform to companies looking to leverage their vehicle assets for their delivery services.

“We’re hearing from fleet partners around the globe who are experiencing dramatic drops in demand, and therefore significant portions of their fleet and drivers are un-utilized,” Eisenberg said. “At the same time, we have seen a sharp increase in demand for delivery services from businesses across all verticals: retail and supermarkets, restaurants.”

We’re excited to announce that Extra Crunch membership is now available for readers in Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa.

You can sign up here.

Extra Crunch is a membership program from TechCrunch that features market analysis, weekly investor surveys, and how-tos and interviews on growth, fundraising, monetization, and other work topics. Members can save time with access to an exclusive newsletter, no banner ads or video pre-rolls on TechCrunch.com, Rapid Read mode, and our List Builder tool.

Committing to an annual and 2-year plan will save you a few bucks on the membership price and unlock access to TechCrunch event discounts and Partner Perks. The Partner Perks program features discounts and savings on services from AWS, DocSend, Typeform, Zoom, and more.

You can sign up or learn more about Extra Crunch here.

Thanks to everyone that voted on where to expand next. If you haven’t voted and you want to see Extra Crunch in your local country, let us know here.