Meet Visa, Mayfield, DuploCloud and more at Disrupt

TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 takes place on September 19–21 in San Francisco and — if you don’t already know — it’s the startup world’s big tent. It draws founders, investors, CEOs, tech professionals, scientists, policy makers, researchers and entrepreneurs. It’s where you’ll find inspiration, gain knowledge, forge new relationships and discover tools to help you build your business.

Shameless, but helpful, plug: Buy your pass now for significant savings. Prices increase on May 12 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Who doesn’t like to save money?

Pivotal partners at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023

We’re fortunate to partner with some of the startup world’s leading companies to help make magic at Disrupt. We say fortunate because they’re passionate, thoroughly engaged and hands-on. They consistently deliver highly relevant content, educational expertise, resources and connection to the event. Their participation elevates, engages and supports early-stage founders.

Our partners also come to Disrupt to connect and explore opportunities with other companies within the startup ecosystem. They form alliances, forge partnerships, and look for potential investments, and sometimes they become a startup’s new client. Be sure to make time to meet, greet and network with our partners.

Here’s an early look at just some of our partners who will be on hand to help you move your early-stage startup to the next level. We’ll announce many more in the coming weeks.

Don’t miss out on the invaluable startup insights that Dealmaker, Helm.ai, Mayfield and Visa will bring to the stage during breakout sessions. Connect with other attendees in small group roundtable sessions with LatinX Startup Alliance, Mayfield and Otter.ai.

You’ll find plenty to discover on the exhibition floor, too, with Builder.ai, DuploCloud, Hedera, InvestHK, Platform.sh, Remote Technology Services, Yatta and others showing off their latest technologies, discussing how you can engage more with their companies and offering everyone’s favorite: swag! Plus, for the second year running, JetBlue Technology Ventures will be front and center connecting with female founders at the Women of Tech(Crunch) reception.

Oh, and if that bounty isn’t enough to whet your startup appetite, check this out. Visa will hold the finals of the Visa Everywhere Initiative 2023 global competition at TechCrunch Disrupt. Stop by to meet and greet the finalists at the TechCrunch Disrupt Pavillion on the exhibition floor.

And finally, you won’t have to worry about dead device batteries while you’re at Disrupt — just plug into one of the charging stations courtesy of Brex, and you’ll be good to go.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 takes place on September 19–21 in San Francisco, and our partners will help make it the best one yet. Don’t forget, prices go up on May 12 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. Buy your pass now and save.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Meet Visa, Mayfield, DuploCloud and more at Disrupt by Lauren Simonds originally published on TechCrunch

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The cultivated meat industry’s known struggles will take time to sort out, and maybe that’s OK

The Wall Street Journal went under the hood of the lab-grown meat industry, also known as cultivated or cell-cultured meat, and the struggles within.

The Journal particularly homed in on what’s going on at UPSIDE Foods, which received a blessing from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration related to its process for making cultivated chicken, essentially saying it was safe to eat and making it the first company to receive this approval. Eat Just, which has been selling its product in Singapore, the first nation to approve the sale of cultivated meat, followed, getting its “thumbs-up” from the FDA in March.

WSJ’s story pays particular attention to UPSIDE Foods’ success at making small batches of its chicken product, as well as its lack of being able to produce large amounts of product at a low cost, or at even price parity with traditional meat — and to be fair, most cultivated meat companies struggle with this too.

“Initially our chicken will be sold at a price premium,” UPSIDE founder and CEO Uma Valeti told TechCrunch in November. “As we scale, we expect to eventually reach price parity with conventionally produced meat. Our goal is to ultimately be more affordable than conventionally produced meat.”

UPSIDE Foods bites into $400M round to serve cultivated meat later this year

Companies in this sector make meat from animal cells that are fed growth factors. The production and pricing challenges presented in the WSJ story, however, are not new. “Is cell-culture meat ready for prime time?” wasn’t just a clever TechCrunch+ headline, but a legitimate question posed in early 2022 that still really hasn’t been answered.

Most cultivated meat stories in our archives include at least a sentence about how hard it is for companies to produce mass quantities and to create foods by this method so that the finished product is under $10 a pound.

The cultivated meat industry’s known struggles will take time to sort out, and maybe that’s OK by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

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Warm intros are awful for diversity, so why do investors keep insisting on them?

There are oodles of advantages to having a diverse workforce, but, as inBeta founder James Nash points out, you can’t simply take your homogenous workforce, add diversity, stir and hope for the best.

Often, something subtle gets in the way of diversity at startups: Companies depend on employee referrals in the beginning, but if a startup’s makeup is already not diverse, referrals aren’t going to change that.

That’s for startups. In the world of venture capital, things are more pronounced: A warm introduction is the only way to get in front of investors at many VC funds. That’s great for people who are already hooked into the startup ecosystem, but you don’t have to look for very long to realize that this is not a very diverse group of people.

“We’d love to hear from you. The best way to reach us is through someone we mutually know.” A VC firm's website

For many companies, employee referrals are one of the main ways to attract new talent. That’s all good until you stop to think who your newest hire is likely to know best. It doesn’t take many rounds through that particular mill until you end up with a relatively homogenous group of people with similar education, socioeconomic backgrounds and values.

If that’s what you’re optimizing for, great! Well done. If it isn’t, perhaps it’s time to stop being lazy and question why warm intros are still common practice.

My question has long been: What are you optimizing for by relying on referrals? If you spend some time thinking about that, I bet you’d unearth some uncomfortable unintended consequences.

Let’s talk about what we can do about it.

The situation in VC

If you read any guides about startups or raising money (including my own, although I also try to cover cold emails and cold intros), you’ll find that you need a “warm introduction” to land a meeting with a VC. Given the above parallel with hiring, that’s a problem.

Warm intros are awful for diversity, so why do investors keep insisting on them? by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

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‘Buy American’ shouldn’t block our progress toward ‘Internet for All’

Kim Keenan Contributor

The first female co-chair of the DC-based Internet Innovation Alliance, Kim Keenan has fought for digital equity for more than a decade, previously serving as president and CEO of the Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council (MMTC) and as general counsel and secretary of the NAACP.

The finish line is within sight. “Internet for All,” as the Biden administration put it, will soon be a reality if America keeps its priorities straight.

During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden set a high bar, “We’re going to buy American,” as the U.S. spends billions of dollars on new broadband connections. This is a smart strategy to create American jobs and boost the U.S. economy, but our leaders must not sacrifice speed in the race to close the digital divide in cases where “Buy American” isn’t yet a realistic option.

Strengthened during the pandemic when all finally understood that broadband is a necessity, bipartisan cooperation brought America a once-in-a-generation opportunity to achieve universal connectivity. To date, more than $90 billion has been earmarked by Congress and the administration to finish the private sector’s work of connecting every home in America with broadband internet service.

During this sprint toward “Internet for All,” America’s leaders should avoid creating hurdles that will delay progress.

Under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, for example, every participating state — as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia — will receive a minimum of $100 million for internet infrastructure, with more to be doled out based on each state’s proportional number of unserved locations. Cartesian estimates that fiber providers will contribute another $22 billion in funds for $64 billion in total, which is “sufficient to achieve the program’s availability goal” of making broadband service “available to all eligible locations.” That’s a first.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law by President Biden on November 15, 2021, also included $14.2 billion for the Affordable Connectivity Program, which has helped over 17 million American families pay for a home broadband connection that they otherwise would struggle to afford. What’s more, the bill set aside $2.75 billion for Digital Equity programs; $2 billion for the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program; $2 billion for the Rural Utilities Service Distance Learning, Telemedicine and Broadband Program; and $1 billion for a new Middle Mile grant program. This truly is broadband’s moment in the sun.

During this sprint toward “Internet for All,” America’s leaders should avoid creating hurdles that will delay progress. Every American deserves to have the chance to “attend class, start a small business, visit with their doctor, and participate in the modern economy.”

The Build America Buy America Act, which was enacted as part of the IIJA, requires infrastructure projects (including internet infrastructure funded by the BEAD Program) to use domestically sourced materials. But broadband networks are complex; they’re more than just fiber cables. Some essential pieces of the puzzle like certain electronic products aren’t currently manufactured in America and the components that make up those products are not available in the United States.

We should always do our best to honor President Biden’s goal to “Buy American,” but not at the expense of leaving Americans offline while they wait for every switch, router and radio to be made in the U.S. After all, the Government Accountability Office recently estimated that the BEAD Program alone could create 23,000 jobs for skilled telecommunications workers … just to build out the infrastructure. Spending will predominantly go toward U.S. paychecks and balance sheets, even if we need to rely on foreign manufacturers for a limited number of network components.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo recently announced that CommScope and Corning are investing nearly $550 million and creating hundreds of new jobs in America to build fiber optic cables. Although the Obama administration provided a blanket “Buy American” waiver for IT products in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), recognizing that the U.S. share of global computer and electronics output had dropped 8.2 percentage points between 1999 and 2009, the Biden administration is right to seek a solution that is balanced, maximizing U.S. production when possible while permitting select network components to be sourced from outside our borders when necessary.

There are so many good things happening to close the digital divide, including the Federal Communications Commission recently devoting $66 million to Affordable Broadband Outreach Grants. Let’s not lose that momentum. Let’s not sacrifice the great for the perfect.

It’s time for the Biden administration to guard against the unintended consequences of the “Buy American” ideal and keep its eye on the prize: Everyone in America — including communities of color, rural communities and older Americans — needs broadband now.

‘Buy American’ shouldn’t block our progress toward ‘Internet for All’ by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch

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Elon exposes his burner, Tile embraces the cat life, and Elizabeth Holmes avoids prison

Hey, TechCrunch people. If you’re looking for a recap of the week’s news in tech, you’ve come to the right place. It’s Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular recap column. Glad to have you.

Before we get on with the meat of it, a PSA that tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 are available now. Disrupt, of course, is TechCrunch’s flagship in-person event, focused on founders, investors and the future of tech year after year. In San Francisco on September 19–21, expect to hear from thought leaders in the fields of AI, fintech, hardware, sustainability, SaaS, security and more. It’ll be well worth the trip.

In the nearer term, tune into the next TechCrunch Live show, which will spotlight Cambrian BioPharma, a startup billing itself as a pharmaceutical outfit with a revolutionary approach to managing drug development. Founder James Peyer will be joined by Maryanna Saenko of Future Ventures, who invested in Cambrian’s Series A, B and C rounds.

Now, without further ado!

most read

Elon exposed: Elon Musk tweeted a photo on Monday night that showed him logged into his Twitter account, advertising to content creators how they can activate monetization features on Twitter. Unfortunately for Musk, people weren’t paying much attention to the fact that he has 24.7K paid subscribers — instead, some users realized that he appeared to be logged into another account, Amanda writes — possibly his burner. Oops.

SpaceX finds success in failure: SpaceX launched a fully integrated Starship launch vehicle for the first time last Thursday, a long-awaited and highly anticipated milestone in the vehicle development program. Despite its fiery fate, the test was a success, Aria reports: SpaceX got tons of valuable data that will inform future Starship and Super Heavy prototypes.

Tile, but for cats: Tile, the AirTag rival now owned by Life360, this week launched a new cat-tracking tag to help pet owners find their furry friends. The new device, “Tile for Cats,” is essentially a modified version of the Tile Sticker with a silicone collar attachment that costs $39.99. Ivan has more.

Epic loss: Apple has won its antitrust-focused appeals court battle with Fortnite maker Epic Games over its App Store policies, Sarah reports. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld the district court’s earlier ruling related to Epic Games’ antitrust claims in favor of Apple, but it also upheld the lower court’s judgment in favor of Epic under California’s Unfair Competition Law.

Holmes avoids prison: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will not be heading off to prison this week to begin serving an 11-year sentence, as first reported by the WSJ. Though earlier this month U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila denied her request to remain free while she appeals her conviction, this week she asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals directly if she could stay out of prison while her case makes its way through the appeals process; the request automatically puts her reporting date on hold while the court considers her request, writes Connie.

Protestors sting back: A Missouri government tip site for submitting complaints and concerns about gender-affirming care is down after people flooded it with fanfiction, rambling anecdotes and the “Bee Movie” script. The Missouri Attorney General’s office launched the online form for “Transgender Center Concerns” in late March, inviting those who’ve witnessed “troubling practices” at clinics that provide gender-affirming care to submit tips, Morgan reports.

Twitter pushes advertisers to pay up: As Twitter’s legacy blue check mark system finally comes to an end, the social network’s new paid-for verification system is causing more than a little chaos, with CEO Elon Musk himself stepping in to pay for some celebrities’ verification when they refuse to do so. However, another little nugget to emerge from the carnage this week is that anyone looking to advertise on Twitter will now seemingly have to have a verified account, Paul reports.

WhatsApp across devices: WhatsApp is finally rolling out multidevice login support for more than one phone. Mark Zuckerberg announced the feature’s rollout on Facebook and Instagram, clarifying that users can log into the same WhatsApp account on up to four phones. Until now, you could only use one WhatsApp account on one phone and multiple companion desktop devices.

audio

TechCrunch is cross-medium, in case you weren’t aware. The crew maintains a fantastic (in this writer’s humble opinion) slate of podcasts for your edification and enjoyment — so consider giving them a listen if you haven’t already. This week on Equity, Ankur Nagpal, the entrepreneur behind Teachable, Ocho and Vibe Capital, spoke about the future of solo GPs; how Ankur built, sold, pivoted and launched in public; and the importance of brand and succession. And Found — live from TechCrunch’s Early Stage event in Boston — was joined by Russ Wilcox, who founded E Ink and is currently a partner at Pillar VC.

TechCrunch+

TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys — which you know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:

Slow revenue growth: Public tech firms are for the most part on a moderate pace of trailing growth in the most recent fiscal quarter. Alex breaks down what that means — as well as the broader implications.

Founders change their pitch: More and more founders are adapting their pitches and business strategies to be more downturn-friendly, Natasha M writes. Now that it’s been over a year since tech’s current period correction first began, founders are getting more innovative in how they approach breaking their pitch.

Capital efficiency is the new VC filter for startups: Igor Shaversky, a partner at Waveup, writes about which metrics startups should track to understand where they stand on the capital efficiency scale.

Elon exposes his burner, Tile embraces the cat life, and Elizabeth Holmes avoids prison by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

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Pitch for the check you want

Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

Tech’s guiding principles these days aren’t too difficult to find: discipline, focus and cash conservation. But I’ve always found those same focuses to be especially in conflict with what it means to be an early-stage founder pitching your vision: You have to have Elon Musk-level ambition, big dreams and the ability to sell a company to investors before there are any real metrics behind it.

In some ways, it’s the job of the investor to see the reason to say yes anyway. In other ways, the downturn is very much making early-stage founders professionalize sooner and sooner; philosophically looking more like the late-stage company pitching for its Series C than the buzzy pre-seed.

I’ve been noticing small things about how early-stage founders have changed their pitches, suggesting that the checks are currently less about the messiah and more about the monetization.

Read the rest of my column on TC+: “Founders change their pitch.”

In the rest of this newsletter we’re talking about AI attribution, venture layoffs and modern entrepreneurship. As always, you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram to continue the conversation. If you feel like supporting me extra, subscribe to my very free Substack.

We’re actually starting to see AI be a factor in tech layoffs

Layoffs are almost a daily occurrence during this news cycle — I covered Chief and Clubhouse layoffs within an hour of each other — but the reasons behind each reduction often lack specificity. Dropbox surprised me. CEO Drew Houston, who laid off 16% of staff this week, cited “the AI era of computing” in relation to the layoffs. “We’ve believed for many years that AI will give us new superpowers and completely transform knowledge work. And we’ve been building toward this future for a long time, as this year’s product pipeline will demonstrate,” he said.

Here’s what to know: I expect there to be more redundancies in workforces that are partially attributed to artificial intelligence. It’s not a new take: The concern I hear most often around AI is its ability, or intent, to replace everyone’s jobs. To break from that pattern is to land lots of snaps: Harvey AI, backed by Sequoia this week, is the buzz all over tech dinners for its pitch to supercharge lawyers.

• What is this, revenue growth for ants?
• ‘GPT’ may be trademarked soon if OpenAI has its way

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Venture’s down

TC’s Mary Ann Azevedo broke news this week: “Fintech-focused VC firm Anthemis Group lays off 28% of staff as part of restructuring.” She reports, “Anthemis declined to provide further specifics around its strategy moving forward, instead pointing me to this blog post from co-founder Amy Nauiokas. In the post, Nauiokas writes that the firm aims to “translate 2022’s reckoning in private markets into enduring change in the structure and method of early-stage investing.”

Here’s what to know: We don’t see venture layoffs often, even though I have a feeling many are ghosts these days. Reductions will continue — and maybe more loudly this time. Last June, Backstage Capital fired most of its staff, with now only two people remaining at the venture firm.  

• How to pitch me: 5 investors discuss what they’re looking for in April 2023
• Chief, a professional network for women leaders, cuts staff amid restructuring effort
• Clubhouse needs to fix things, and today it cut more than half of staff

Image Credits: PM Images (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

A modern take on an entrepreneur

On Equity this week, I interviewed Ocho’s Ankur Nagpal, the founder of the business owner-focused fintech, as well as Teachable and Vibe Capital. We spoke about everything from the temperature of solo GPs and how building in public has impacted his trajectory.

Here’s an excerpt we got within minutes of recording: “A great CEO … you have to be mildly sociopathic. And there’s a lot of stuff that I just like struggled with when it came to being CEO, because it would be against my values as a person,” Nagpal said.

• Capital crunch shines a light on the importance of founders’ mental health, investors say
• Another newsletter for your ears: Is First Republic just a victim of SVB?
• Capital efficiency is the new VC filter for startups
• Pitch Deck Teardown: Careerist’s $8M Series A deck

Image Credits: Getty Images

Etc., etc.

• A weird parallel: Instacart’s co-founder and former CEO Apoorva Mehta raised $30 million for his new healthcare startup, WSJ reported last year. That news makes it all the more interesting that Instacart’s current CEO, Fidji Simo, co-founded a healthcare clinic, according to Fortune. According to TechCrunch, what a weird parallel between a grocery delivery startup’s past and present leadership! Jokes aside, maybe it’s a nod to what Amazon tried to do with Whole Foods and One Medical, Instacart edition.
• Big apologies: to those who I missed in Boston last week. I was ready to jump on stage but then food poisoning — from a coffee shop that shall remain unnamed — got the best of me. I heard it was a hoot, though, so check out TC+ recap posts coming at you soon.
• Programming note: If you’re reading this on a browser, get this in your inbox too! Subscribe here and share it with your friends.
• Of course: It’s already Disrupt season. Reminder that there’s a ticket for every budget and role.
• And finally, I have a shameless plug: Scoops make me! If you hear about a venture firm or startup winning, raising, flailing, or, oh I don’t know, booting an executive because of internal happenings, tell me. I love seeing early pitch decks and term sheets too. Happy to talk about anonymity and explain more of my process and what I’m looking for. You can tell me stuff on Signal at +1 925 271 0912. No pitches, please.

Seen on TechCrunch

Muslims come into the frame in Southeast Asia’s fintech boom

Founded by Adyen and Affirm alums, Ansa aims to help merchants create virtual wallets for customers

There was just one fintech unicorn minted in the first quarter

Snap stock down 24% on weak earnings, ad revenue slump

Seen on TechCrunch+

After initially defying the global slowdown, African startups’ first quarter venture results fall

First Republic’s results are proof that the SVB meltdown was brutal for smaller banks

It’s beyond time we started worrying about unicorn exits

Threading the needle: 5 questions for National Grid Partners’ Lisa Lambert

Take care of yourself,

N

Pitch for the check you want  by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

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EV owners in Texas face $200 annual fee

States have taxed motorists at the pump for more than a century. Yet, as electric cars gain ground, what happens when folks stop refueling altogether?

State lawmakers are increasingly imposing annual fees on EV owners, arguing they should pay up because they still rely on public infrastructure to get around. Texas is on track to become the latest state to levy such a tax, following more than a dozen others, including Georgia, Michigan and Ohio.

The Texas Senate passed SB 505 at the end of March. This week, the state’s House has cleared a similar bill, sending it on to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. The latest version of the bill lays out a $200 yearly registration fee for electric vehicles, with exceptions carved out for slow “Neighborhood Electric Vehicles,” as well as autocycles, mopeds and motorcycles. The bill states that the resulting fees “must be deposited to the credit of the state highway fund.”

Though Texas is certainly not alone in moving forward with such a bill, its $200 fee is on the high end, matching only Georgia. Colorado is the state with the lowest EV fee (excluding states that have no fees), at $50 per year.

Speaking against the bill in a statement to local media outlet KRLD, Environment Texas director Luke Metzger argued the $200 fee is punitive and “will make it harder for Texans to afford these clean vehicles which are so critical to reducing air pollution in Texas.”

Electric cars are still priced out of reach for many Americans. In September 2022, the average price for EVs sat at $65,291, versus $48,094 for gas guzzlers, per Cox Automotive.

EV owners in Texas face $200 annual fee by Harri Weber originally published on TechCrunch

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Satellite-to-phone race heats up with voice calls and cross-Canada access

The prospect of contacting a satellite to send a text or contact emergency services may soon be an effortless reality as startups move from proof of concept to actual product. Canadians on the Rogers network, which just inked a deal with Lynk, will get direct satellite-phone connections across the country; and not to be outdone, AST SpaceMobile claims to have made the first satellite voice call using a regular cell phone as well.

Connecting a stock smartphone like last year’s Samsung or iPhone to a satellite would have sounded like a fantasy a few years ago, when we all knew it was impossible. But now companies are jostling for position as it becomes clear that satellite services will be a compelling offering on any mobile plan or phone model over the next few years.

Lynk’s approach is to offer as universal as possible an SMS service to as much of the planet as possible, in the hopes that no one who needs help or is off the grid for any other reason will ever have to face “no signal.” It has demonstrated texting from the middle of nowhere (in fact the founder texted me) and also can blanket an area unexpected without signal — due to a power outage or natural disaster — with crucial info like where to find shelter.

The company has been striking deals across the world with various carriers, and is now at the very doorstep of the U.S. (which has a tough regulatory environment and entrenched mobile players) with a deal with Canada’s biggest provider, Rogers.

Although the idea is that everyone will be able to use this, every satellite cellular station still needs to operate through a licensed carrier. The Rogers deal doesn’t mean total exclusivity (for example, you’re lost and need help but have a different carrier) but it is the carrier that is paying Lynk, and will take payment from customers across Canada as the local partner. I’ve asked for more details on this and will update if I hear back.

Bringing a more comprehensive connectivity package to the table is AST SpaceMobile, which has launched its first test satellite and for the first time demonstrated a direct phone-to-satellite call using an unmodified consumer handset. I double checked (this stuff can be tricky) and the connection was a continuous two-way data exchange between the phone and the satellite, which relayed it to the terrestrial network:

Abel’s phone in Texas was connected directly to the satellite for both send and receive two-way communications, without any other intermediary. He made the phone call by typing in the number to the regular Samsung dial app on the Galaxy S22, just like you would make any regular phone call. The other end of the phone call in Japan was received via the normal terrestrial communications network (a cell tower).

Demonstrating the capability is a huge step forward, since the engineering involved in getting a regular phone to connect with something in low Earth orbit is already difficult — maintaining that connection to the point where data can flow constantly between them is even harder. Scaling is yet another problem that AST SpaceMobile will face, but having proven the capability, that challenge probably seems less daunting now.

The company’s BW3 satellite is the prototype for a constellation that will provide “2G, 3G, 4G LTE and 5G” coverage from space, which is great because I lose 5G just going down the block. Help me out, AST SpaceMobile.

Of course Apple has made headlines with its emergency SOS service, which connects to the Iridium network but requires you to sort of sight your phone on a passing satellite in order to exchange a set of mostly premade messages. Useful if you’re stuck in a canyon and need a helicopter to scoop you up, but not if you want to check the weather or tell your spouse your backpacking trip is going fine.

Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite prompts rescue after car goes off a cliff north of LA

And then there’s T-Mobile and SpaceX, which plan to provide a Starlink data connection to the network’s customers. While no one can gainsay Starlink’s ability to provide a signal from orbit, it has not yet demonstrated an orbital connection to an unmodified phone, something it supposedly will do this year.

Pretty soon these services will graduate from experiment to line item and we’ll be back to the days when texts cost a dime each. Still, it’s better than nothing, and that’s definitely what a lot of people have once they leave the city to take a hike or go fishing. Let’s hope the connection stays on-demand, though — no one needs to get spam messages from orbit while they’re waiting for the trout to bite in a remote mountain lake. That’s not a future anyone wants.

Satellite-to-phone race heats up with voice calls and cross-Canada access by Devin Coldewey originally published on TechCrunch

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A claw machine does not a robotic gripper make

A refrain I hear from a lot of startups is that there’s “no need to rethink the gripper.” It’s something I appreciate from an economic standpoint. It’s expensive, resource intensive and both your time and money are probably best spent elsewhere when there are already so many effectors on the market.

I also recently made an analogy to a claw machine during an interview — and got some pushback. I understand a bit better now why that’s the case — at least in part. Discussing its new approach to robotic gripping, MIT invokes the perennial arcade favorite, noting, “When manipulating an arcade claw, a player can plan all she wants. But once she presses the joystick button, it’s a game of wait-and-see. If the claw misses its target, she’ll have to start from scratch for another chance at a prize.”

Image Credits: MIT

If you think about that for a moment, you realize that you’re suddenly faced with something that comes up over and over again in this field of study: That’s not how humans approach the job — and there’s a reason for that. If you’re say, grabbing an object with a strange or unexpected weight distribution, you generally don’t need to withdraw your hand and try again. You adjust.

The team describes a system that adjusts to an object in real time, using reflexes and feedback. Says MIT:

If the gripper fails to grab hold of the object, rather than back out and start again as most grippers do, the team wrote an algorithm that instructs the robot to quickly act out any of three grasp maneuvers, which they call “reflexes,” in response to real-time measurements at the fingertips. The three reflexes kick in within the last centimeter of the robot approaching an object and enable the fingers to grab, pinch, or drag an object until it has a better hold.

Interestingly, the project builds on actuators developed for the school’s mini cheetah robot, which were designed to help it react to uneven terrain on the fly. The new system is built around an arm with two multi-joint fingers. There’s a camera on the base and sensors on the tips that record feedback. The system uses that data to adjust accordingly.

Currently the team is using the gripper to clean up around the lab. Says MIT:

They set a variety of household objects on a shelf, including a bowl, a cup, a can, an apple, and a bag of coffee grounds. They showed that the robot was able to quickly adapt its grasp to each object’s particular shape and, in the case of the coffee grounds, squishiness. Out of 117 attempts, the gripper quickly and successfully picked and placed objects more than 90 percent of the time, without having to back out and start over after a failed grasp.

A claw machine does not a robotic gripper make by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

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#NotMyAI and other TC news

Snapchat Rolled out their generative AI chatbot, My AI to their 750 million monthly users so it feels like the right time to pause and ask whether we’re ready for the real thing – and ready or not, whether anybody wants one. This week on the TechCrunch Podcast, we’re talking to TechCrunch reporter Amanda Silberling about making robot friends on the internet.

Articles from the episode:

• Snapchat’s AI chatbot is now free for all global us
• Snapchat sees spike in 1-star reviews as users pan the ‘My AI’ feature, calling for its removal
• Missouri trans ‘snitch form’ down after people spammed it with the ‘Bee Movie’ script
• SpaceX’s successful failure is a wake-up call for Starship’s timeline
• Google’s Bard AI chatbot can now generate and debug code
• Apple wins antitrust court battle with Epic Games, appeals court rules

#NotMyAI and other TC news by Darrell Etherington originally published on TechCrunch

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Upward and onward

The future is very much yet to be written about vertical farming. In many ways, the technology presents hope in the midst of rising food safety concerns, aging populations and potential environmental collapse. It’s also an intensely hard row to hoe, as it were. Early companies in the space are going to be the ones focused on driving down unit economics (hopefully) to a point where the technology makes sense from a price perspective.

But sometimes being early to a party means you’re among the first to leave. Last January, we covered what looked to be an important next step for Upward Farms, as the company announced plans to open a 250,000-square-foot farm in Northeastern, Pennsylvania early this year. The Brooklyn-based firm recently announced, however, that it has closed up shop.

“We found that vertical farming is almost infinitely complex — as we tackled challenges, new ones emerged,” founders Jason Green, Ben Silverman and Matt La Rosa said in an open letter. “Our team faced these challenges head on, humbly asking ourselves, ‘If not me, who, and if not now, when?’ ”

Even in a thriving market, building this stuff is intensely difficult. After three years of economic and other challenges, one imagines that it becomes even harder to convince potential backers to stick out what is ultimately a long runway.

The startup is closing up its decade-long project, but the founders point at some potential silver lining. “While Upward Farms is closing its doors,” they note, “a small portion of our team will continue working to unleash the magic of the microbiome. In the coming months, we’ll have more to share.”

There are still plenty of big names in the space, including Bowery and AeroFarms. It probably shouldn’t be a big surprise that the herd is going to thin for a bit, until the path to success gets clearer. Meantime, perhaps the Upward team has valuable innovations it can share with a potential industry partner.

Upward and onward by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

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After initially defying the global slowdown, African startups’ first quarter venture results fall

The recent, and now past, venture capital boom was a global affair. While traditionally busy markets like North America and Europe benefited from the explosion in capital, other regions with more nascent startup scenes also saw big gains in their ability to attract funding. Southeast Asia is a frequently noted example of the phenomenon. Latin American as well.

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Africa also saw its venture capital totals soar during the last startup gold rush. In recent quarters, much like other startup regions around the world, African venture results have declined. In fact, March posted what was described as “the worst month in 2.5 years” for Africa, including “the first time the monthly amount of funding raised by start-ups in Africa dipped below the $100 million mark since 2020,” by The Big Deal, a publication focused on the venture and startup market on the continent.

Clearly, the quarter was a step backward. Naturally we wanted to better understand what was going on in one of the most exciting venture markets in recent years. So, this morning, The Exchange has collected two other data sources for us to chew on.

We know that deals are still getting done in Africa. TechCrunch recently covered a $4 million round for Shuttlers, which we described as a “Nigerian shared mobility company.” Chargel, based in Senegal, recently raised $2.5 million. But TechCrunch coverage of individual rounds is by definition partial when compared to all activity, so we’ll need to grapple with aggregates to ascertain a clearer image.

From a lower ceiling in terms of dollars raised, African startups’ slowing fundraising pace is bringing its quarterly results under the billion-dollar mark. That’s thin support for such a large, geographically diverse and increasingly digitally connected area.

Let’s talk venture results, unique issues to the African startup scene, and look ahead to see if we can spy any good news on the horizon.

After initially defying the global slowdown, African startups’ first quarter venture results fall by Anna Heim originally published on TechCrunch

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Microsoft makes its AI-powered Designer tool available in preview

Today, Microsoft Designer, Microsoft’s AI-powered design tool, launched in public preview with an expanded set of features.

Announced in October, Designer is a Canva-like web app that can generate designs for presentations, posters, digital postcards, invitations, graphics and more to share on social media and other channels. It leverages user-created content and DALL-E 2, OpenAI’s text-to-image AI, to ideate designs, with drop-downs and text boxes for further customization and personalization.

“Since October, the AI models have steadily improved, and we’ve worked to weave these powerful capabilities throughout the Designer canvas in even more delightful ways while keeping you in control,” Bryan Rognier, GM at Microsoft’s 365 Consumer division, wrote in a blog post published today.

Now Designer can generate written captions and hashtags relevant for social media posts, offering several suggestions users can choose from. It can also create animated visuals, complete with backgrounds and text transitions, powered by AI.

New features coming to Microsoft’s AI-powered Designer tool. Image Credits: Microsoft

In the future, Designer will gain additional editing features, Microsoft says, including the ability to place an object in a specific spot in a graphic and automatically fill in the rest of a picture. Forthcoming “erase” and “replace background” options, meanwhile, will let users brush over objects, people or backdrops they didn’t intend to be in a graphic.

Designer will remain free during the preview period, Microsoft says — it’s available via the Designer website and in Microsoft’s Edge browser through the sidebar. Once the Designer app is generally available, it’ll be included in Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions and have “some” functionality free to use for non-subscribers, though Microsoft didn’t elaborate.

Addressing some of the legal questions that’ve sprung up recently around AI-powered image-generation systems, Microsoft says that users will have “full” usage rights to commercialize the images they create with Designer and Image Creator. It’s unclear whether that might change in the future, though, given the ongoing court battles involving OpenAI and other startups commercializing generative AI tools.

Microsoft makes its AI-powered Designer tool available in preview by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

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Pinterest announces multi-year ads partnership with Amazon alongside earnings beat

Pinterest today announced a multi-year strategic ad partnership with Amazon aimed at bringing more brands and relevant products to its platform. The new deal will make the e-commerce giant Pinterest’s first-ever partner on third-party ads, the company said in a blog post shared alongside the company’s first-quarter earnings beat.

The partnership is a step in a new direction for the image sharing and social media site, which has been working to adjust to consumers’ changing interests around product discovery in recent years. As demand for video platforms like TikTok and Reels grew, Pinterest’s image pinboard began to feel dated, leading it to launch its video-first Idea Pins and increase its investment in creator content.

But some of those creator efforts were recently wound down, ahead of Pinterest’s last quarter miss on revenue where the company warned also of low first-quarter sales, sending its shares down.

By comparison, Amazon’s digital ads unit in the same quarter did well, jumping 19% to $11.6 billion.

Like other tech companies, Pinterest has been struggling with the macroeconomic forces impacting its business, but promised it was working to adapt to the changing environment. The company also laid off 150 employees in February, as it tried to reduce expenses.

While Pinterest has for years worked to connect product inspiration to purchases, the Amazon ads partnership could potentially offer consumers a more seamless buying experience. Unlike on some e-commerce websites, Amazon shoppers may not have to fiddle with filling out forms, as most have their payment information already on file with the company, leading to faster checkouts.

When users encounter an Amazon ad on Pinterest, they’ll be taken directly to Amazon to make the purchase, Pinterest says.

“Over 463 million people come to Pinterest each month to create a life they love. Brands and products are a critical piece of this journey, enabling Pinners to move easily from inspiration to action and advertisers to realize value in connecting with users with high commercial intent,” Pinterest noted in its blog post. “Our partnership with Amazon will allow us to scale these efforts in meaningful ways,” it said.

The company noted the implementation of the Amazon ads integrations will take place over multiple quarters, starting later this year. Pinterest can’t yet say where the ads will appear to end users and it’s not making any near-term forecasts related to revenue impacts, noting it won’t see meaningful impact until next year.

“Amazon Ads is delighted to partner with Pinterest and make it even easier for customers to discover and buy relevant products through shoppable content, while also providing differentiated value for brands,” add Amazon SVP Paul Kotas, in a statement.

Pinterest beat on Q1 revenue and earnings, with revenue up 5% year over year to $603 million, ahead of $598 million expected, and adjusted EPS of $0.08, vs $0.02 expected. Global monthly active users were up 7% year over year to 463 million. The company also reported a GAAP net loss of $209 million, or 31 cents per share, up from 1 cent a share in the year-ago period.

Despite the earnings beat, Pinterest stock dropped 6% on higher Q2 costs.

more to come

 

Pinterest announces multi-year ads partnership with Amazon alongside earnings beat by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

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YouTube Music officially rolls out podcasts for listeners in the US

YouTube Music is officially adding podcasts to its platform in the United States on Android, iOS and the web. The rollout comes a few months after YouTube podcasting head Kai Chuk revealed that podcasts would be added to YouTube Music soon.

The update allows users watching podcasts on the main app to continue listening to them on YouTube Music. The company notes that all users call listen to podcasts on-demand, offline, in the background, while casting and seamlessly switch between audio-video versions on YouTube Music.

“This podcast listening experience is different from our music listening experience where you need a Premium or Music Premium subscription to enjoy some of these features,” the company wrote in a blog post. “This new podcast listening experience complements the podcast video experience on YouTube.”

Podcasts in YouTube Music will be available regardless of whether you have a YouTube Premium subscription. YouTube even notes that paying customers may encounter host-read endorsements or sponsorship messages when listening to podcasts on YouTube Music.

Image Credits: YouTube

YouTube is rolling out the update to all of its listeners in the United States gradually, which means not everyone may see it just yet. The company said it plans to bring podcasts to YouTube Music to users outside of the United States soon, but didn’t provide any specific launch details.

The YouTube Music Home tab now includes a new “Podcasts” tab that takes you to a dedicated feed, which will show you your favorite podcasts and recommended episodes.

YouTube is advising creators that if their podcast is audio-only, they should consider uploading a video with a static image, or use audiograms or other dynamic video formats. The company notes that it will soon offer creators the option to directly upload their audio podcasts via RSS feeds to both YouTube and YouTube Music.

According to previous reports, YouTube isn’t looking to sign exclusive deals with podcasters, which has been a key strategy at Spotify. YouTube instead seems to be focused on melding the experience of listening to podcasts on video and audio.

YouTube Music contractors win historic union vote

YouTube Music officially rolls out podcasts for listeners in the US by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

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Replit, the web-based IDE developing a GitHub Copilot competitor, raises $100M

Investors continue to pump money into generative AI tech. Case in point, Replit, an IDE startup developing a code-generating AI-powered tool called Ghostwriter, this week raised nearly $100 million ($97.4 million) at a $1.16 billion post-money valuation.

Andreessen Horowitz led the round — a Series B extension — with participation from Khosla Ventures, Coatue, SV Angel, Y Combinator, Bloomberg Beta, Naval Ravikant, ARK Ventures and Hamilton Helmer.

“We are relentless in our mission to empower a billion software developers,” Replit founder and CEO Amjad Masad said in a statement, adding that the new funds — which bring Replit’s total raised to over $200 million — will be put toward further developing the core product experience, expanding Replit’s cloud services and “driving innovation” in AI.

“AI has already brought that future closer,” Masad continued. “We look forward to expanding our offerings for professional developers.”

Based in San Francisco, Replit was co-founded by programmers Amjad Masad, Faris Masad and designer Haya Odeh in 2016. Before creating Replit, Masad worked in engineering roles at Yahoo and Facebook, where he built software development tooling.

Replit offers a web-based IDE for software development.

Replit offers an online, collaborative IDE that supports a range of programming languages, including JavaScript, Python, Go and C++. With Replit, users can share a workspace with one or many users and see real-time edits across files, message each other and debug code together. Beyond that, users can share projects, ask for help, learn from tutorials and use templates.

But perhaps its headlining feature is Ghostwriter, a suite of features powered by an AI model trained on publicly available code. Ghostwriter — much like GitHub’s Copilot — can make suggestions and explain code, considering what users type and other context from their accounts, like the programming languages they’re using.

Ghostwriter appears to be the driver behind Replit’s recent explosive growth, leading to a partnership with Google Cloud and a user base eclipsing 22 million developers. But like all generative AI tools, it comes with risks — and potentially legal consequences that have yet to fully play out in the courts.

Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI are being sued in a class action lawsuit that accuses them of violating copyright law by allowing Copilot to regurgitate sections of licensed code without providing credit. Liability aside, some legal experts have suggested that AI like Copilot could put companies at risk if they were to unwittingly incorporate copyrighted suggestions from the tool into their production software.

It’s unclear whether Ghostwriter, too, was trained on licensed or copyrighted code. But Replit does note that the code Ghostwriter suggests might contain “incorrect, offensive or otherwise inappropriate” strings.

That includes insecure code. According to a recent study out of Stanford, software engineers who use code-generating AI systems are more likely to cause security vulnerabilities in the apps they develop. While the study didn’t look at Replit specifically, it stands to reason that developers who use it would fall victim to the same.

Replit has its work cut out for it, that’s all to say.

Replit, the web-based IDE developing a GitHub Copilot competitor, raises $100M by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

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Bipartisan Senate bill would ban social media algorithms for minors

In a bipartisan effort to “protect kids from harm,” an unlikely cohort of senators introduced a bill that would restrict minors’ access to social media, as well as ban companies from using algorithms to recommend content to minors. 

Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Chris Murphy (D-Conn), Katie Britt (R-Ala) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark) introduced the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act on Wednesday. The bill would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media sites, and would require parental consent and age verification for users under 18. 

“The growing evidence is clear: social media is making kids more depressed and wreaking havoc on their mental health. While kids are suffering, social media companies are profiting. This needs to stop,” Schatz said in a press release. “Our bill will help us stop the growing social media health crisis among kids by setting a minimum age and preventing companies from using algorithms to automatically feed them addictive content based on their personal information.”

While some social media companies, like TikTok and YouTube, have launched kid-friendly versions of their platforms with content limits and parental controls, age verification is largely based on an honor system. 

If the bill is signed into law, social media companies will be forbidden from using the “personal data” of any user to recommend content “unless the platform knows or reasonably believes that the individual is age 18 or older according to the age verification process used by the platform,” the bill’s text reads. Advertising to minors will still be allowed, as long as it’s “solely based on context,” and isn’t “targeted or recommended based on the personal data” of the user.

The bill’s language doesn’t outline how algorithms will be regulated. A representative for Schatz did not immediately respond to request for comment. 

On Twitter, users have already raised concerns about the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, and questioned whether the proposed regulations are even enforceable. 

“Broadly speaking I’d say this: yes, Big Tech companies are harming kids,” Evan Greer, director of the digital rights nonprofit Fight for the Future, said in a tweet responding to Murphy. “We stop that by forcing those companies to change their business practices, not by kicking kids off the internet or taking away kids rights.” 

Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, also responded to Murphy’s tweet announcing the bill, in which he described prohibiting algorithms for kids. 

“With all due respect Senator, but that is a terribly misinformed statement about social media technology. You might as well try saying you’re banning javascript for teens,” she said. 

Murphy decried social media companies as “100% committed to addicting our children to their screens” in a press release. 

“The alarm bells about social media’s devastating impact on kids have been sounding for a long time, and yet time and time again, these companies have proven they care more about profit than preventing the well-documented harm they cause,” he said. “In particular, these algorithms are sending many down dangerous online rabbit holes, with little chance for parents to know what their kids are seeing online.”  

Most social media policies already require users to be at least 13 years old, but enforcement is flimsy at best. Minors can easily fly under the radar by submitting a fake date of birth and checking off a box attesting to their supposed age. The bill would require social media platforms to take “reasonable steps beyond merely requiring attestation,” instead employing “existing age verification technologies” to ensure that users are the age they claim to be. 

The bill’s language forbids companies from storing and using any information collected during the verification process “for any other purpose.” It instead proposes a free “Pilot Program,” regulated by the Secretary of Commerce, that would provide “secure digital identification credential to individuals who are citizens and lawful residents of the United States.” 

The Pilot Program is supposed to “meet or exceed the highest cybersecurity standards” of consumer products, and the bill promises that only anonymized aggregate data will be stored. 

This isn’t the first bipartisan effort to try and curb kids’ internet use. Last year, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn) introduced the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require sites to provide more parental control tools and limit the content that users under 16 can access. Dozens of civil liberties organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future and GLAAD, opposed the bill. 

The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act follows a larger nationwide push for age verification online. This year, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia and Utah passed laws requiring users to submit a government-issued ID in order to view porn sites. Eleven more states have proposed similar laws. But digital privacy advocates have expressed concerns over how age verification data is stored and used. 

In the joint letter opposing KOSA, civil liberties organizations warned against age verification requirements. 

“Age verification requirements may require users to provide platforms with personally identifiable information such as date of birth and government-issued identification documents, which can threaten users’ privacy, including through the risk of data breaches, and chill their willingness to access sensitive information online because they cannot do so anonymously,” the letter said. “Rather than age-gating privacy settings and safety tools to apply to only minors, Congress should focus on ensuring that all users, regardless of age, benefit from strong privacy protections by passing comprehensive privacy legislation.” 

Bipartisan Senate bill would ban social media algorithms for minors by Morgan Sung originally published on TechCrunch

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