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Saturday, July 27, 2019
Geek Trivia: If You Want To Dig Through The Earth To Get To China, You’d Better Start In?
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Q&A with Satya Nadella on fostering Sony's success with Azure, the role of Xcloud in Microsoft's strategy to expand games beyond the living room, and more (Jonathan Vanian/Fortune)
Jonathan Vanian / Fortune:
Q&A with Satya Nadella on fostering Sony's success with Azure, the role of Xcloud in Microsoft's strategy to expand games beyond the living room, and more — Satya Nadella has never considered himself a “gamer,” but Civilization did manage to capture the attention of the Microsoft CEO for a stretch when he was younger.
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Source: TikTok owner ByteDance has acquired UK-based AI startup Jukedeck, whose software can autonomously compose music, for an undisclosed amount (Jane Zhang/South China Morning Post)
Jane Zhang / South China Morning Post:
Source: TikTok owner ByteDance has acquired UK-based AI startup Jukedeck, whose software can autonomously compose music, for an undisclosed amount — Deal raises potential for TikTok to make AI-powered music composition widely accessible around the world The initiative raises the potential …
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Benchling, which provides software for managing biotech research, raises $34.5M Series C led by Menlo Ventures (Jonathan Shieber/TechCrunch)
Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
Benchling, which provides software for managing biotech research, raises $34.5M Series C led by Menlo Ventures — In a field where the laboratory notebook is still considered the state of the art, it's no wonder a company like Benchling, which provides software for managing life sciences research was able to nab $34.5 million.
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Israel-based vCita, which is developing a business management app and CRM system for very small businesses, raises $15M (Uri Berkovitz/Globes Online)
Uri Berkovitz / Globes Online:
Israel-based vCita, which is developing a business management app and CRM system for very small businesses, raises $15M — The Israeli company has developed a business management app and CRM system for very small businesses. — Israeli business management app developer for small businesses vCita …
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Spectral MD, a Dallas-based startup developing an AI-powered burn and wound imaging system, raises $27M in research funding from the US Department of Health (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Spectral MD, a Dallas-based startup developing an AI-powered burn and wound imaging system, raises $27M in research funding from the US Department of Health — Spectral MD, a Dallas, Texas-based startup developing an AI-powered burn and wound imaging system, today announced that it's secured $27 million …
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Q&A with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on quarantining /r/The_Donald, a decision he says was intended to give the community a chance to change (Kara Swisher/Vox)
Kara Swisher / Vox:
Q&A with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on quarantining /r/The_Donald, a decision he says was intended to give the community a chance to change — /r/The_Donald was punished for hosting “violent content,” and Huffman isn't convinced the community's moderators are taking that problem seriously enough.
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How Famous Birthdays, which has 20M unique monthly users, became Gen Z's Wikipedia for new internet stars and a talent resource for the entertainment industry (Taylor Lorenz/The Atlantic)
Taylor Lorenz / The Atlantic:
How Famous Birthdays, which has 20M unique monthly users, became Gen Z's Wikipedia for new internet stars and a talent resource for the entertainment industry — Famous Birthdays has become a go-to database of teen culture—and is ushering in a whole new generation of stars.
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Inside Spotify's Project Magneto, its multiyear failed effort to create Spotify TV, a highly personalized video streaming service, and the hardware to run it (Variety)
Variety:
Inside Spotify's Project Magneto, its multiyear failed effort to create Spotify TV, a highly personalized video streaming service, and the hardware to run it — Spotify has made no secret of wanting to be the world's biggest audio platform, but it wasn't all that long ago that the Swedish streamer was eyeing video.
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Hit indie game Cuphead is headed to Tesla vehicles in August
Tesla’s games library is getting bigger, and the latest announced title is probably a familiar one to gaming fans: Cuphead. This indie game was released in 2017 for Xbox One and Windows after making a big debut in 2013, attracting a lot of attention thanks to its hand-drawn, retro Disney-esque animation style.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that Cuphead would be getting a Tesla port sometime in August, replying to a post in which Tesla announced its latest addition to the in-car arcade library: Chess. The game will run at 60fps on the in-car display, Musk added, noting that while 4K isn’t supported for Tesla’s screens, the game “doesn’t need” that high resolution.
Cuphead for Tesla coming out in August
— e^
(@elonmusk) July 27, 2019
Cuphead has since been released for both macOS and Nintendo Switch, and has gained critical acclaim for its challenging gameplay in addition to its unique graphic style. The game works with one or two players (which Tesla cars also now support via gamepad controllers for some other titles) and basically involves side-scrolling run-and-gun action punctuated by frequent boss fights.
Musk continued on Twitter regarding the Cuphead port that it will use a Unity port for Tesla’s in-car OS, which is already done, and currently they’re in the process of refining the controls. A limit of available onboard storage will be solved by allowing added game storage via USB, so that Tesla owners will be able to add flash drives to hold more downloaded games.
Earlier this month, Netflix announced that it would be developing an animated series based on Cuphead, and the game has sold over 4 million copies world-wide so far. Tesla launched Tesla Arcade last month as a dedicated in-car app to host the growing collection of games it’s brought to the car – and it’s worth noting that you can only access these games while in park.
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Gatik’s self-driving vans have started shuttling groceries for Walmart
Gatik AI, the autonomous vehicle startup that’s aiming for the sweet middle spot in the world of logistics, is officially on the road through a partnership with Walmart.
The company received approval from the Arkansas Highway Commissioner’s office to launch a commercial service with Walmart. Gatik’s autonomous vehicles (with a human safety driver behind the wheel) is now delivering customer online grocery orders from Walmart’s main warehouse to its neighborhood stores in Bentonville, Arkansas.
The AVs will aim to travel seven days a week on a two-mile route — the tiniest of slivers of Walmart’s overall business. But the goal here isn’t ubiquity just yet. Instead, Walmart is using this project to capture the kind of data that will help it learn how best to integrate autonomous vehicles into their stores and services.
Gatik uses Ford transit vehicles outfitted with a self-driving system. Co-founder and CEO Gautam Narang has previously told TechCrunch that the company can fulfill a need in the market through a variety of use cases, including partnering with third-party logistics giants like Amazon, FedEx or even the U.S. Postal Service, auto part distributors, consumer goods, food and beverage distributors as well as medical and pharmaceutical companies.
The company, which emerged from stealth in June, has raised $4.5 million in a seed round led by former CEO and executive chairman of Google Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. Other investors include AngelPad, Dynamo Fund, Fontinalis Partners, Trucks Venture Capital and angel investor Lior Ron, who heads Uber Freight.
Gatik isn’t the only AV company working with Walmart. Walmart has partnerships with Waymo and Udelv. Both of these partnerships involve pilot programs in Arizona.
Udelv is testing the use of autonomous vans to deliver online grocery orders to customers. Last year, members of Waymo’s early rider program received grocery savings when they shopped from Walmart.com. The riders would then take a Waymo car to their nearby Walmart store for grocery pickup.
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Profile of Oliver Schusser, who spent 15 years at Apple building iTunes' worldwide operations from the ground up and took charge of Apple Music 15 months ago (Micah Singleton/Billboard)
Micah Singleton / Billboard:
Profile of Oliver Schusser, who spent 15 years at Apple building iTunes' worldwide operations from the ground up and took charge of Apple Music 15 months ago — “You hear Tim talk a lot about humanity — how we're at the crossroads between the liberal arts and technology," says Oliver Schusser.
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Bellingcat journalists targeted by failed phishing attempt
Investigative news site Bellingcat has confirmed several of its staff were targeted by an attempted phishing attack on their Protonmail accounts, which the journalists and the email provider say failed.
“Yet again, Bellingcat finds itself targeted by cyber attacks, almost certainly linked to our work on Russia,” wrote Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative news site in a tweet. “I guess one way to measure our impact is how frequently agents of the Russian Federation try to attack it, be it their hackers, trolls, or media.”
News emerged that a small number of Protonmail email accounts were targeted during the week — several of which belonged to Bellingcat’s researchers who work on projects relating to activities by the Russian government. A phishing email purportedly from Protonmail itself asked users to change their email account passwords or generate new encryption keys on a similarly named domain set up by the attackers. Records show the fake site was registered anonymously, according to an analysis by security researchers.
In a statement, Protonmail said the phishing attacks “did not succeed” and denied that its systems or user accounts had been hacked or compromised.
“The most practical way to obtain email data from a ProtonMail user’s inbox is by compromising the user, as opposed to trying to compromise the service itself,” said Protonmail’s chief executive Andy Yen. “For this reason, the attackers opted for a phishing campaign that targeted the journalists directly.”
Yen said the attackers tried to exploited an unpatched flaw in third-party software used by Protonmail, which has yet to be fixed or disclosed by the software maker.
“This vulnerability, however, is not widely known and indicates a higher level of sophistication on the part of the attackers,” said Yen.
It’s not known conclusively who was behind the attack. However, both Bellingcat and Protonmail said they believe certain tactics and indicators of the attack — and the fact that the targets were Bellingcat’s researchers working on the ongoing investigation into the downing of flight MH17 by Russian forces and the release of nerve agent in the U.K. — may point to hackers associated with the Russian government.
Higgins said in a tweet that this week’s attempted attack likely targeted a number of people “in the tens” unlike earlier attacks attributed to the Russian government-backed hacker group, known as APT 28 or Fancy Bear.
Bellingcat in the past year has gained critical acclaim for its investigations into the Russian government, uncovering the names of the alleged Russian operatives behind the suspected missile attack that blew up Malaysian airliner MH17 in 2014. The research team also discovered the names of the Russian operatives who were since accused of poisoning former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in a nerve agent attack in Salisbury, U.K. in 2018.
The researchers use open-source intelligence and information gathering where police, law enforcement and intelligence agencies often fail.
It’s not the first time that hackers have targeted Bellingcat. Its researchers were targeted several times in 2016 and 2017 following the breach on the Democratic National Committee which saw thousands of internal emails stolen and published online.
A phone call to the Russian consulate in New York requesting comment was not returned.
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Startups Weekly: SoftBank’s second act
Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I noted some challenges plaguing mental health tech startups. Before that, I wrote about Zoom and Superhuman’s PR disasters.
Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you don’t subscribe to Startups Weekly yet, you can do that here.
Anyway, onto the subject on everyone’s mind this week: SoftBank’s second Vision Fund.
Well into the evening on Thursday, SoftBank announced a target of $108 billion for the Vision Fund 2. Yes, you read that correctly, $108 billion. SoftBank indeed plans to raise even more capital for its sophomore vehicle than it did for the record-breaking debut vision fund of $98 billion, which was majority-backed by the government funds of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, as well as Apple, Foxconn and several other limited partners.
Its upcoming fund, to which SoftBank itself has committed $38 billion, has attracted investment from the National Investment Corporation of National Bank of Kazakhstan, Apple, Foxconn, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft and more. Microsoft, a new LP for SoftBank, reportedly hopped on board with the Japanese telecom giant as part of a grand scheme to convince the massive fund’s portfolio companies to transition to Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud platform that competes with Amazon Web Services. Here’s more on that and some analysis from TechCrunch editor Jonathan Shieber.
News of the second Vision Fund comes as somewhat of a surprise. We’d heard SoftBank was having some trouble landing commitments for the effort. Why? Well, because SoftBank’s investments have included a wide-range of upstarts, including some uncertain bets. Brandless, a company into which SoftBank injected a lot of money, has struggled in recent months, for example. Wag is said to be going downhill fast. And WeWork, backed with billions from SoftBank, still has a lot to prove.
Here’s everything else we know about The Vision Fund 2:
- It’s focused on the “AI revolution through investment in market-leading, tech-enabled growth companies.”
- The full list of investors also includes seven Japanese financial institutions: Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, MUFG Bank, The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, SMBC Nikko Securities and Daiwa Securities Group. Also, international banking services provider Standard Chartered Bank, as well as “major participants from Taiwan.”
- The $108 billion figure is based on memoranda of understandings (MOUs), or agreements for future investment from the aforementioned entities. That means SoftBank hasn’t yet collected all this capital, aside from the $38 billion it plans to invest itself in the new Vision Fund.
- Saudi and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds are not listed as investors in the new fund.
- SoftBank is expected to begin deploying capital fund from Fund 2 immediately, and a first close is expected in two months, per The Financial Times.
- We’ll keep you updated on the Vision Fund 2’s investments, fundraising efforts and more as we learn about them.
On to other news…
WeWork is planning a September listing
The company made headlines again this week after word slipped it was accelerating its IPO plans and targeting a September listing. We don’t know much about its IPO plans yet as we are still waiting on the co-working business to unveil its S-1 filing. Whether WeWork can match or exceed its current private market valuation of $47 billion is unlikely. I expect it will pull an Uber and struggle, for quite some time, to earn a market cap larger than what VCs imagined it was worth months earlier.
The consumer financial app made headlines twice this week. The first time because it raised a whopping $323 million at a $7.6 billion valuation. That is a whole lot of money for a business that just raised a similarly sized monster round one year ago. In fact, it left us wondering, why the hell is Robinhood worth $7.6 billion? Then, in a major security faux pas, the company revealed it has been storing user passwords in plaintext. So, go change your Robinhood password and don’t trust any business to value your security. Sigh.
Another day, another huge fintech round
While we’re on the subject on fintech, TechCrunch editor Danny Crichton noted this week the rise of mega-rounds in the fintech space. This week, it was personalized banking app MoneyLion, which raised $100 million at a near unicorn valuation. Last week, it was N26, which raised another $170 million on top of its $300 million round earlier this year. Brex raised another $100 million last month on top of its $125 million Series C from late last year. Meanwhile, companies like payments platform Stripe, savings and investment platform Raisin, traveler lender Uplift, mortgage backers Blend and Better and savings depositor Acorns have also raised massive new rounds this year. Naturally, VC investment in fintech is poised to reach record levels this year, according to PitchBook.
Arianna Huffington, the CEO of Thrive Global, stepped down from Uber’s board of directors this week, a team she had been apart of since 2016. She addressed the news in a tweet, explaining that there were no disagreements between her and the company, rather, she was busy and had other things to focus on. Fair. Benchmark’s Matt Cohler also stepped down from the board this week, which leads us to believe the ride-hailing giant’s advisors are in a period of transition. If you remember, Uber’s first employee and longtime board member Ryan Graves stepped down from the board in May, just after the company’s IPO.
Unity, now valued at $6B, raising up to $525M
Bird is raising a Sequoia-led Series D at $2.5B valuation
SMB payroll startup Gusto raises $200M Series D
Elon Musk’s Boring Company snags $120M
a16z values camping business HipCamp at $127M
An inside look at the startup behind Ashton Kutcher’s weird tweets
Dataplor raises $2M to digitize small businesses in Latin America
While we’re on the subject of amazing TechCrunch #content, it’s probably time for a reminder for all of you to sign up for Extra Crunch. For a low price, you can learn more about the startups and venture capital ecosystem through exclusive deep dives, Q&As, newsletters, resources and recommendations and fundamental startup how-to guides. Here are some of my current favorite EC posts:
- What types of startups are the most profitable?
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If you enjoy this newsletter, be sure to check out TechCrunch’s venture-focused podcast, Equity. In this week’s episode, available here, Equity co-host Alex Wilhelm, TechCrunch editor Danny Crichton and I unpack Robinhood’s valuation and argue about scooter startups. Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast and Spotify.
That’s all, folks.
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