Category: UNCATEGORIZED

The rumors are true. A week after word surfaced that Google planned to buy Fitbit, the companies have confirmed the purchase. The match could ultimately prove beneficial for both parties. Google has struggled to make much of a dent in the wearables category, leading the software giant to purchase a large chunk of IP from watchmaker, Fossil.

Fitbit, meanwhile, has had issues maintaining growth in recent years. The company, which first pioneered and then dominated the wrist-worn tracker space, struggled as smartwatches grew and ultimately dominated the space. While late to the category, the company has had luck with the Versa watch, the result of its own acquisition of Pebble, Vector and Coin, while working to pivot much of its focus into healthcare.

Developing…

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week Kate and Alex broke the discussion into two main themes. The first dealt with early-stage companies, and the second, as you can imagine, later-stage affairs. Don’t worry, we don’t get to SoftBank for quite some time.

Up top, we dug into Kate’s story about Quill, a formerly stealthy company that could be taking on Slack. That or something similar to Slack . Next, we turned to ManiMe, a startup in the beauty space that raised a smaller $2.6 million to take on a market that is valued in the billions.

After that it was time to leave the auspices of the early-stage market and move to, of all things, a public company. GrubHub reported earnings this week. It went poorly. Alex wanted to riff over the company’s earnings report and what it could mean for startups that are competing with GrubHub, a leader in the food delivery space that DoorDash and Postmates would prefer to lead themselves.

What impact GrubHub may have on the highly-valued on-demand companies isn’t clear yet, but will be pretty damn interesting to see when it does land.

Sticking to the later-stage markets, Alex dug into the problems at Wag which is struggling and looking for a sale despite raising a castle of cash from the Vision Fund. Kate followed that up with notes on problems at Katerra. The Information is reporting this week that the business is going through a number of layoffs and we’re wondering if it will suffer the same fate of some of SoftBank’s other investments.

And, finally, the changing face of things at SoftBank itself. The great money spigot is slowly cutting flow. How many unicorns that will strand isn’t yet clear. But surely it can’t be zero.

Chinese autonomous air mobility company EHang has filed with the SEC the paperwork required to go public in the U.S. on the NASDAQ exchange, with a $100 million initial public offering. The company, which has been flying demonstration flights with passengers on board for a while now, is gearing up to launch its first commercial service in Guangzhou after getting approval from local and national regulators to deploy its drones in the area.

At launch, EHang will be using its two-seater vertical take-off and landing craft (VTOL), which has room for two passengers on board. EHang doesn’t just build the aircraft, though – its goal is to build full, multi-aircraft (as many as ‘thousands,’ according to Forbes) autonomous transportation networks that it hopes will serve to alleviate and avoid congested ground traffic. Guangzhou, with an estimated population of over 13 million, suffers from considerable traffic.

EHang is also building out logistics and cargo transportation capabilities as well as passenger services. The company believes it can offers short designate cross-city transportation that can cut down on time by as much as 40 to 60 percent, and once it achieves scale, it also says that costs have the potential to be reduced by as much as 50 percent.

Founded in 2014, EHang last announced funding in 2015, when It raised $42 million in a Series B round led by GP Capital, with GGV Capital, ZhenFund, Lebox Capital, OFC and PreAngel also participating.

Calling all tech-minded students, nonprofit and government employees — this is your moment. Come and join us at Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December at a price you can afford — because great ideas and innovation come from every sector.

Apply for our discounted Innovator passes for students and nonprofit or government employees and enjoy all the early-stage startup goodness of Disrupt Berlin.

Here’s what comes with your Innovator pass: access to the full conference agenda and all stages — including the Startup Battlefield competition. Interactive workshops, more than 400 startups and sponsors in Startup Alley, networking events, access to the full attendee list (via TechCrunch Events Mobile App) and CrunchMatch, the attendee networking platform. You’ll also have access to exclusive video content after the conference ends.

Here’s how the discounts work and what you need to know to qualify.

Discounts for students: You must be enrolled in a grade school, high school, college or university program or have graduated within the last six months. Coding schools don’t qualify for a discount, sorry.

Bring a valid student ID, proof of current enrollment or transcripts at registration, otherwise you’ll pay the full on-site price. Note: if you’re less than 21 years old, you may not have access to some venues. Your reduced Innovator pass costs €135 plus VAT. Tickets are non-refundable.

Discounts for nonprofit and government employees: You must be full-time employees of nonprofit organizations, federal, state or local government agencies, international government agencies or active military employees.

Nonprofit employees — you must provide your email address from your organization during the online registration process. Government and military employees — you must provide your valid .gov email address during the registration process.

At the Disrupt Berlin on-site registration check-in, you must show proof of current employment at your nonprofit (copy of 501c3 documentation) or government organization. Government contractors, including contractors working on government “Cost Reimbursable Contracts,” are not eligible for the government discount.

We accept the following forms of valid government ID:

• Government-issued Visa, Mastercard or American Express
• Government picture ID
• Military picture ID
• Federally Funded Research Development Corp (FFRDC) ID

If you don’t present valid nonprofit documentation or government ID at registration, you’ll have to pay the full on-site price. The discounted Innovator pass costs €295 + VAT, and tickets are non-refundable.

Students, nonprofits and government employees — Disrupt Berlin 2019 takes place on 11-12 December. Take advantage of these deep discounts and join us to learn, share and experience early-stage startup culture at its best. Apply for a discounted Innovator pass today.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt Berlin 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Accusonus, the Greece and U.S.-based AI company helping content creators improve the audio in their videos, has raised $3.3 million in Series A funding.

The round is led by Athens-based Venture Friends, with participation from Big Pi, IQBility, PJ Tech, along with a syndicate of U.S.-based investors led by Michael Tzannes, who is actually the co-founder of Accusonus (and the former CEO of Aware Inc.).

Launched in 2014, Accusonus has been using AI for various audio and music applications longer than most. The company’s first product was Drumatom, which allows recording engineers to control microphone leakage (also known as bleed or spill) in drum recordings. In 2017, Accusonus followed up with the release of Regroover, an AI software instrument that un-mixes audio loops into stems so that new beat making workflows are possible.

Its products are said to have been used by engineers working with musicians such as Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Goo Goo Dolls, Super Furry Animals, Wilco, Jennifer Lopez, and many others.

However, more recently the company has developed a suite of simple-to-use tools aimed at video content and podcast producers that need to repair or “clean up” audio in their creations. With the amount of content being created growing exponentially — often recorded on smartphones and other consumer equipment or turned around quicker than ever — the market beyond music production is huge.

The company’s thinking, explained co-founder and CEO Alex Tsilfidis, is that Accusonus wants to democratise access to high quality audio via AI-driven tools that remove the learning curve required by traditional audio software.

He says that inventing new algorithms and “painstakingly” fine-tuning the UX of Accusonus’ products has enabled it to offer audio tools that provide ease-of-use to entry-level users while simultaneously speeding up the workflows of audio and video professionals.

Specifically, the Accusonus Enhancement and Repair of Audio (ERA) tools are able to clean up audio recordings via turning a single “virtual” knob within the software. The ERA tools work as plugins and are compatible with major video and audio platforms. These include entry level editors, such as Audacity and Garageband, and more high-end offerings, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut, Avid Pro Tools, Apple Logic Pro, and Da Vinci Resolve.

Meanwhile, Tsilfidis says there is some advantage to serving both customer groups, too. The company’s professional users often provide feedback which then helps improve its non-professional targeted products (even if there is likely some overlap between the two groups).

Forecast, a Denmark-based startup that has developed “AI-powered” project management software, has raised $5.5 million in new funding.

The round is led by Crane Venture Partners, with participation from existing backers SEED Capital and Heartcore. Forecast has raised $10 million in total funding to date.

Founded in late 2016, Forecast describes itself as an AI-powered project management solution that automates manual project management tasks, and brings extra visibility and predictive capabilities to to project management. The idea is to help increase collaboration across teams with a better workflow and to improve planning.

Forecast claims that by using its project management software, customers reduce their administrative tasks by 20-40% and gain much better insights into “project risk, resource management and more”.

“Work is going more project-based… leading to an increased need for project management skills and expertise,” Forecast co-founder and CEO Dennis Kayser tells TechCrunch. “Plus, projects are getting more complex. Project management depends on many manual, ongoing updates to stay on time, on budget and on track. That’s why 66% of all projects fail due to human error”.

In addition, as projects become more complex and the data associated with a project increases exponentially, Kayser says the problem is getting worse, which, of course, is where machine intelligence can help. “We don’t learn from our mistakes because no one can keep track of every influencing factor to make crucial adjustments,” he adds.

To tackle this, Forecast uses AI to help keep projects on track and make project management more efficient. The software integrates with existing tools — such as Trello, Slack, Gdrive, Githum and Salesforce — and uses these various external data-points as key indicators for how well a project is running.

“[It pulls in] data from disparate systems and synthesizes it into something human-readable with powerful AI,” explains Kayser. “Everyone on your team can continue to use the tool they prefer without sacrificing dead-simple scheduling, reporting and collaboration for project managers and senior executives. With better insights and tools, project managers can be more efficient and gain insights from increasingly complex projects”.

The use of AI is proactive, too. This includes matching the best person and role to the task, automation of time registration, forecasting the size and duration of tasks, and being alerted before a project is in trouble.

With regards to target customer, Kayser says that Forecast is focused on helping IT & services, marketing, and computer software development companies that “rely on capacity being predictable and project delivery being successful”.

Forecast currently has “hundreds of customers” in over 40 countries. The software has helped customers manage more than 40,000 projects with more than 1,000,000 tasks created.

Facing increasing scrutiny from international and domestic regulators, the Altria Group has decided to write down its investment into the e-cigarette company JUUL by $4.5 billion.

That’s roughly one-third of the $12.8 billion that the tobacco giant had invested into JUUL a little less than one year ago.

What a difference a year has made.

JUUL, which has become synonymous with the vaping phenomenon that has swept the U.S., was once hailed as being at the forefront of a wave of companies that were making smoking obsolete and nicotine consumption safer for consumers.

The company began running into problems as its popularity increased exponentially (in part by allegedly turning to some of the same tactics big tobacco used to target underage consumers).

As the complaints began to roll in, and as JUUL was held responsible for an explosion in the use of tobacco products among underage Americans, the regulatory scrutiny also began to increase.

First the company was compelled to limit its sale of flavored tobacco products. Now it may be forced to pull all of its flavored products outright.

None of the company’s troubles have been helped by the wave of vaping related illnesses that have swept through the U.S. causing several deaths in users across multiple states.

Indeed, a new lawsuit against the company (filed two days ago) alleges that JUUL knowingly sold contaminated pods despite warnings from at least one employee.

First reported by BuzzFeed, the lawsuit was brought by Siddharth Breja, a former senior vice president of global finance at Juul from May 2018 to March 2019.

Breja alleges he was fired for complaining about the charge — a claim that a spokesperson for JUUL called “baseless”.

“[Breja] was terminated in March 2019 because he failed to demonstrate the leadership qualities needed in his role,”a spokesperson for JUUL wrote in an email. “The allegations concerning safety issues with Juul products are equally meritless, and we already investigated the underlying manufacturing issue and determined the product met all applicable specifications.”

The write down by Altria follows an announcement from JUUL that it intends to lay off around 500 people — or roughly 10% of its workforce.

Paidy, a Japanese financial tech startup that provides instant credit to consumers in Japan, announced today that it has raised a total of $143 million in new financing. This includes a $83 million Series C extension from investors including PayPal Ventures and debt financing of $60 million. The funding will be used to advance Paidy’s goals of signing large-scale merchants, offering new financial services and growing its user base to 11 million accounts by the end of 2020.

In addition to PayPal Ventures, investors in the Series C extension also include Soros Capital Management, JS Capital Management and Tybourne Capital Management, along with another undisclosed investor. The debt financing is from Goldman Sachs Japan, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. Earlier this month, Paidy and Goldman Sachs Japan established a warehouse facility valued at $52 million. Paidy also established credit facility worth $8 million with the three banks.

This is the largest investment to date in the Japanese financial tech industry, according to data cited by Paidy and brings the total investment the company has raised so far to $163 million. A representative for the startup says it decided to extend its Series C instead of moving onto a D round to preserve the equity ratio for existing investors and issue the same preferred shares as its previous funding rounds.

Launched in 2014, Paidy was created because many Japanese consumers don’t use credit cards for e-commerce purchases, even though the credit card penetration rate there is relatively high. Instead, many prefer to pay cash on delivery or at convenience stores and other pickup locations. While this makes online shopping easier for consumers, it presents several challenges for sellers, because they need to cover the cost of merchandise that hasn’t been paid for yet or deal with uncompleted deliveries.

Paidy’s solution is to make it possible for people to pay for merchandise online without needing to create an account first or use their credit cards. If a seller offers Paidy as a payment method, customers can check out by entering their mobile phone numbers and email addresses, which are then authenticated with code sent through SMS or voice. Paidy covers the cost of the items and bills customers monthly. Paidy uses proprietary machine learning models to score the creditworthiness of users, and says its service can help reduce incomplete transactions (or items that buyers ultimately don’t pick up and pay for), increase conversion rates, average order values and repeat purchases.

Just around 9:45 a.m. Pacific Time on February 28, 2017, websites like Slack, Business Insider, Quora and other well-known destinations became inaccessible. For millions of people, the internet itself seemed broken.

It turned out that Amazon Web Services was having a massive outage involving S3 storage in its Northern Virginia datacenter, a problem that created a cascading impact and culminated in an outage that lasted four agonizing hours.

Amazon eventually figured it out, but you can only imagine how stressful it might have been for the technical teams who spent hours tracking down the cause of the outage so they could restore service. A few days later, the company issued a public post-mortem explaining what went wrong and which steps they had taken to make sure that particular problem didn’t happen again. Most companies try to anticipate these types of situations and take steps to keep them from ever happening. In fact, Netflix came up with the notion of chaos engineering, where systems are tested weaknesses before they turn into outages.

Unfortunately, no tool can anticipate every outcome.

It’s highly likely that your company will encounter a problem of immense proportions like the one that Amazon faced in 2017. It’s what every startup founder and Fortune 500 CEO worries about — or at least they should. What will define you as an organization, and how your customers will perceive you moving forward, will be how you handle it and what you learn.

We spoke to a group of highly-trained disaster experts to learn more about preventing these types of moments from having a profoundly negative impact on your business.

It’s always about your customers

Reliability and uptime are so essential to today’s digital businesses that enterprise companies developed a new role, the Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), to keep their IT assets up and running.

Tammy Butow, principal SRE at Gremlin, a startup that makes chaos engineering tools, says the primary role of the SRE is keeping customers happy. If the site is up and running, that’s generally the key to happiness. “SRE is generally more focused on the customer impact, especially in terms of availability, uptime and data loss,” she says.

Companies measure uptime according to the so-called “five nines,” or 99.999 percent availability, but software engineer Nora Jones, who most recently led Chaos Engineering and Human Factors at Slack, says there is often too much of an emphasis on this number. According to Jones, the focus should be on the customer and the impact that availability has on their perception of you as a company and your business’s bottom line.

“It’s money at the end of the day, but also over time, user sentiment can change [if your site is having issues],” she says. “How are they thinking about you, the way they talk about your product when they’re talking to their friends, when they’re talking to their family members. The nines don’t capture any of that.”

Robert Ross, founder and CEO at FireHydrant, an SRE as a Service platform, says it may be time to rethink the idea of the nines. “Maybe we need to change that term. Maybe we can popularize something like ‘happiness level objectives’ or ‘happiness level agreements.’ That way, the focus is on our products.”

When things go wrong

Companies go to great lengths to prevent disasters to avoid disappointing their customers and usually have contingencies for their contingencies, but sometimes, no matter how well they plan, crises can spin out of control. When that happens, SREs need to execute, which takes planning, too; knowing what to do when the going gets tough.