Category: UNCATEGORIZED

As fintech investments soar to new heights, investors are looking at the bottom and top levels of the services stack to find the next billion-dollar startups.

That’s the word from seasoned investors like Andreessen Horowitz’s managing director, Angela Strange, who has invested in a number of successful financial services technology companies. For Strange and Chris Britt, co-founder and chief executive of financial services startup Chime Bank, the best opportunities are in customer-facing financial services and specific infrastructure opportunities that can support those  businesses.

For many large companies, financial services are already entering a twilight period. Markets like consumer and student lending, banking and financial management and business lending are becoming more crowded, and companies like Affirm, Betterment, Brex, Chime Bank, CommonBond, Kabbage, Robinhood, SoFi, Wealthfront and many others have raised hundreds of millions so they can take on established players in banking and finance.

Investments into financial technology companies in the U.S. exploded in 2019 with at least $12.7 billion flowing in the first half of the year alone. That figure — a 60% jump in dollars committed — came even as the number of deals remained relatively steady, according to data from Accenture.

Increasing capital commitments were even more pronounced in Europe and the United Kingdom, where a fintech boom has nearly doubled the amount of money committed to startups over the first half of 2019 from a year-ago period.

Alphabet -owned drone delivery spin-out Wing is starting to service U.S. customers, after becoming the first drone delivery company to get the federal go-ahead to do so earlier this year. Wing is working with FedEx Express and Walgreens on this pilot, and their first customers are Michael and Kelly Collver, who will get a “cough and cold pack,” which includes Tylenol, cough drops, facial tissues, Emergen-C and bottled water (do people who have colds need bottled water?).

The Collvers are receiving their package in Christianburg, Virginia, which is where Wing and Walgreens will run this inaugural pilot fo the drone delivery service. Walgreens gets a noteworthy credit in the bargain, becoming the first U.S. retailer to do a store-to-customer doorstep delivery via drone, while FedEx will be the first logistics provider to delivery a e-commerce drone delivery with a separate shipment.

Wing is also working with Virginia’s Sugar Magnolia, a retailer local to the state, and that part of the equation is focused on proving out how Wing and drone delivery can service last-mile e-commerce customers at their homes. Sugar Magnolia customers can get small items, including chocolates and paper goods, delivered directly to them via drone through the new pilot.

Wing was able to do this with a new Air Carrier Certificate from the FAA that clears it for expanded service, specifically allowing Wing’s pilots to manage multiple aircraft flying without any human pilot on board at the same time, while providing service to the public.

It’s a big milestone when it comes to U.S.-based drone delivery, and another sign that people should get ready for these services to start to be a more regular fixture. Earlier this month, UPS also secured FAA approval to operate a commercial drone delivery service, so the trials will probably come fast and furious at this point – though widespread service is probably still quite a ways off as both regulators and operators look to learn from their first limited deployments.

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1. Zuckerberg on Chinese censorship: Is that the internet we want?

The Facebook CEO spoke yesterday at Georgetown University, sharing his thoughts on speech and “how we might address the challenges that more voice and the internet introduce, and the major threats to free expression around the world.”

Among his arguments: China is exporting its social values, political ads are an important part of free expression and the definition of dangerous speech must be kept in check.

2. Atlassian acquires Code Barrel, makers of Automation for Jira

Sydney-based Code Barrel was founded by two of the first engineers who built Jira at Atlassian, Nick Menere and Andreas Knecht. With this acquisition, they are returning to Atlassian after four years in startup land.

3. Swarm gets green light from FCC for its 150-satellite constellation

Swarm Technologies aims to connect smart devices around the world with a low-bandwidth but ever-present network provided by satellites — and it just got approval from the FCC to do so. Apparently the agency is no longer worried that Swarm’s sandwich-sized satellites are too small to be tracked.

4. Nintendo Switch hits another sales milestone

Nintendo’s North American Switch unit sales have already surpassed the lifetime worldwide unit sales of the Wii U. The company announced Thursday that they had sold 15 million units of the popular handheld console in North America.

5. HBO Max scores all 21 Studio Ghibli films

WarnerMedia has been on a shopping spree for its HBO Max service. It bought the rights to “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory,” and now it’s using its outsized checkbook to bring beloved Japanese animation group Studio Ghibli’s films onto the web exclusively on its platform for U.S. subscribers.

6. Volvo creates a dedicated business for autonomous industrial and commercial transport

The vehicle-maker has already been active in putting autonomous technology to work in various industries, with self-driving projects at quarries and mines, and in the busy port located at Gothenburg, Sweden.

7. How Unity built the world’s most popular game engine

Unity’s growth is a case study of Clayton Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation. While other game engines targeted the big AAA game makers at the top of the console and PC markets, Unity went after independent developers with a less robust product that was better suited to their needs and budget. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

Harley-Davidson has resumed production and deliveries of its electric LiveWire motorcycle after determining an issue with charging was isolated to a single vehicle.

HD halted production and delivery of its first electric motorcycle earlier this week after discovering what it described at the time as a “non-standard condition.” Harley-Davidson didn’t recall any of the LiveWire motorcycles already on the road. But it did stop production and deliveries and began additional testing and analysis.

At the time, HD didn’t explain what the non-standard issue was, but TechCrunch has since learned that it was a charging-related problem on one motorcycle.

“After completing rigorous analysis this week, we have resumed LiveWire production and deliveries,” Harley-Davidson said in a comment emailed to TechCrunch. “Customers may continue riding their LiveWire motorcycle and are able to charge the motorcycle through all methods. Temporarily stopping LiveWire production allowed us to confirm that the non-standard condition identified on one motorcycle was a singular occurrence.”

The company added that this incident shows that its quality assurance measures are working as designed.

The production stoppage put a damper on Harley-Davidson’s first foray into electrification just weeks after deliveries of LiveWire began to ramp up. The $29,799, 105 horsepower electric motorcycle was to be the first of a future line-up of EVs from Harley-Davidson spanning motorcycles, bicycles and scooters.

The LiveWire, which is meant to complement, not replace, Harley-Davidson’s premium internal-combustion cruiser motorcycles, went into production in 2019. Delivery to dealers began September 27.

Autonomous vehicles are often painted as a utopian-like technology that will transform parking lots into parks and eliminate traffic fatalities — a number that reached 1.35 million globally in 2018.

Even if, as many predict, autonomous vehicles are deployed en masse, the road to that future promises to be long, chaotic and complex. The emergence of ride-hailing, car-sharing and micromobility hints at some of the speed bumps between today’s modes of transportation and more futuristic means, like AVs and flying cars. Entire industries face disruption in this new mobility world, perhaps none so thoroughly as automotive.

Autonomous-vehicle ubiquity may be decades away, but automakers, startups and tech companies are already clambering to be king of the ‘future of transportation’ hill.

How does a company, city or country “own” this future of transportation? While there’s no clear winner today, companies as well as local and federal governments can take actions and make investments today to make sure they’re not left behind, according to Zoox CEO Aicha Evans and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who spoke about the future of cities on stage this month at Disrupt SF. 

Local = opportunity

Evolution in mobility is occurring at a global scale, but transportation is also very local, Evans said. Because every local transit system is tailored to the geography and the needs of its residents, these unique requirements create opportunities at a local level and encourages partnerships between different companies.

This is no longer just a Silicon Valley versus Detroit story; Europe, China, Singapore have all piled in as well. Instead of one mobility company that will rule them all, Evans and Granholm predict more partnerships between companies, governments and even economic and tech strongholds like Silicon Valley.

We’re already seeing examples of this in the world of autonomous vehicles. For instance, Ford invested $1 billion into AV startup Argo AI in 2017. Two years later, VW Group announced a partnership with Ford that covers a number of areas, including autonomy (via a new investment by VW in Argo AI) and collaboration on development of electric vehicles.

BMW and Daimler, which agreed in 2018 to merge their urban mobility services into a single holding company, announced in February plans to unify these services and sink $1.1 billion into the effort. The two companies are also part of a consortium that includes Audi, Intel, Continental and Bosch, that owns mapping and location data service company HERE.

There are numerous other examples of companies collaborating after concluding that going it alone wasn’t as feasible as they once thought.

Facebook just lost a battle in its war to stop a $35 billion class action lawsuit regarding alleged misuse of facial recognition data in Illinois. Today it was denied its request for an en banc hearing before the full slate of ninth circuit judges that could have halted the case. Now the case will go to trial unless the Supreme Court intercedes.

The suit alleges that Illinois citizens didn’t consent to having their uploaded photos scanned with facial recognition and weren’t informed of how long the data would be saved. Facebook could face $1000 to $5000 in penalties per user for 7 million people, which could sum to a maximum of $35 billion.

A three-judge panel of ninth circuit judges rejected Facebook’s motion to dismiss the case and its appeal of the class certification of the plaintiffs back in August. One of those judges said that it “seems likely” that the Facebook facial recognition data could be used to identify them in surveillance footage or even unlock a biometrically secured cell phone.

Nicholas Iovino spotted the announcement today that we’ve attained and embedded below. When asked for comment, a Facebook spokesperson responded “Facebook has always told people about its use of face recognition technology and given them control over whether it’s used for them. We are reviewing our options and will continue to defend ourselves vigorously.”

[Image Credit: Mike MacKenzie]

Bloomberg Beta, a San Francisco-based outfit that uses Bloomberg LP’s money to make bets on startups, has closed its third fund with $75 million, according to Roy Bahat, who’d previously run the online media company IGN and who operates the fund as an equal partnership with Karin Klein and James Chan. (Klein formerly ran Bloomberg’s new initiatives; Chan was formerly a principal with Trinity Ventures.)

We talked with Bahat briefly last night about the new vehicle to ask how its capital will be deployed. Bahat stressed that the idea is to continue on the firm’s current path, which is to write checks of between $500,000 to $1 million initially; to loosely target ownership of around 10 percent in the startups it backs; and to fund companies that are focused on the future of work, which has long been an area of interest for Bahat and his colleagues.

That can mean an instant messaging platform like Slack, in which Bloomberg Beta had and continues to have a small stake, following its direct offering. It can also mean backing a company like Flexport, a San Francisco-based freight forwarding and customs brokerage company that appears to be among Bloomberg Beta’s biggest bets. (According to Crunchbase, the outfit has backed Flexport —  valued most recently at $3.2 billion — at its seed, Series A, and Series B rounds.)

Others of Bloomberg Beta’s portfolio companies include the augmented writing platform Textio; the insurance broker Newfront Insurance; the continuous delivery platform LaunchDarkly, and Netlify, a cloud computing company that sells hosting and serverless backend services for static websites.

What it won’t back: financial tech startups. Given where its money comes from, it’s “too close to home,” says Bahat.

In late August, California Governor announced that Bahat would be part of his Future of Work Commission, which will be “tasked with making recommendations to help California leaders think through how to create inclusive, long-term economic growth and ensure workers and their families share in that success.”

As part of his role on that commission, and as an investor in some companies that cater to independent contractors, we asked Bahat what he makes of AB5, the new California law for contract workers that aims to address inequality in the workplace but has been met with resistance from numerous industries and players. Uber, Lyft and DoorDash are even preparing to file a ballot initiative to exempt themselves from the law.

Bahat suggested he’s not sure what to think quite yet, either. “How workers get classified is one of live issues” that the commission will be studying, he said.

“We haven’t figured out how to make it all work; this story is still unfolding.”

YellowHeart is trying to solve a problem that should be familiar to anyone who’s ever tried to buy a ticket to a popular concert: Those tickets will often get snatched up by scalpers, who then resell them at a much higher price.

In fact, the startup’s CEO Josh Katz said he founded the company because he’s a music “megafan” himself, and  he was “just tired of getting ripped off by scalpers.” At the same time, he said this isn’t just a problem for concertgoers. Instead, he painted it as a “lose-lose for the fan and the artist,” because the musicians aren’t sharing in the profits from the marked-up tickets either.

So YellowHeart can allow a musician, concert venue or other “event initiator” to set up rules for how their tickets are resold. Katz said he’s hoping that some brave artists will simply say that tickets can’t be sold at a marked-up price, but he predicted that many more will set price ceilings and dictate that any resale profits are then split between the seller, the artist and/or a charity of the artist’s choosing.

“No matter where the tickets are sold, they have to abide by those rules,” Katz added. That’s because the ticket sales run a public blockchain, and “all transactions go through YellowHeart, all the revenue flows through YellowHeart.”

The plan is to launch the ticketing platform in the second quarter of next year. Katz said users should be able to sell their tickets on any marketplace that works with YellowHeart’s smart contracts — but he also acknowledged that it will take some time to bring partners on-board and for those integrations to go live.

Katz argued that the blockchain approach has other benefits, like the fact that each ticket will have “a unique key that is tied to a user’s identity and sits in their virtual wallet,” which should eliminate forgery. (The ticketing process, by the way, will be “fully digital end-to-end,” except that venues will have the option to print tickets at the box office.)

Katz has a background in the music industry, having previously founded El Media Group, which creates custom playlists for hotels, restaurants and other clients. He founded YellowHeart with The Chainsmokers, along with their manager Adam Alpert, who’s also CEO of Disruptor Records.

“With The Chainsmokers, we’ve been outspoken about the issue of scalpers for years, and are excited to partner with YellowHeart to provide a smart and effective solution that gives control back to artists and fans,” Alpert said in a statement.

And Katz suggested that YellowHeart’s platform could eventually be used in any other kind of event ticketing.

“I am anticipating this being a great platform for sports and theater as well,” he said. “Myself and Adam and Drew [Taggart] and Alex [Pall of The Chainsmokers] come out of music, so that’s where we’re starting.”

Hardware startups are expanding from the world of consumer tech; global hardware accelerator HAX knows this better than most and details the latest trends in its yearly report. One of the most active early-stage hardware investors, the group today released exclusively to TechCrunch its yearly report with insights on hardware startups.

The report highlighted several vital insights: hardware companies are increasingly entering the public market, and more privately-held hardware startups are exceeding a valuation of $1 billion. Of those unicorns, more than 50% are Chinese hardware companies.