Category: TECHNOLOGY
Gain insight from HAX robotics founders at TC Sessions: Robotics
We’re fired up and ready to connect with the global robotics and AI community at TC Sessions: Robotics on July 21. The agenda for this online event is packed with presentations, interviews and robot demos, and our speaker lineup features the brightest minds and makers in the business.
If for some reason you haven’t yet reserved your pass to this free conference, simply register here.
Back to those bright minds and makers. That group includes investors and founders, and if you’re interested in raising funds for your startup — and what early-stage startup isn’t — and learning how other founders found their way, don’t miss this breakout session sponsored by SOSV, a global venture capital firm with more than $1 billion in assets under management: Pre-seed to Unicorn: Lessons from HAX Robotics Founders.
As part of SOSV, HAX — the hands-on early stage investor in hard tech — has been making big bets on robotics for 10 years. Today the startup development program is the world’s most active pre-seed investor in robotics.
Tune in to this breakout session for invaluable founder insights across all startup stages and geographies. You’ll hear from HAX partner Garrett Winther and from these HAX founders:
- Chiu Chau, co-founder of prolific unicorn Opentrons, an open source lab automation company
- Pramod Ghadge, co-founder and CEO of Unbox Robotics, a leading supply chain robotics company specializing in fulfillment and distribution technology
- Kate Ma, co-founder and CEO of Neptune Robotics, a company building robots designed to clean biofouling off the hulls of international cargo ships
- Faizan Sheikh, CEO and co-founder of Avidbots, a global maker of autonomous cleaning robots
TC Sessions: Robotics, a free online event, takes place July 21. You can catch all of the sessions and join the robotics community online for speed networking, chats and one-on-one meetings. Simply register here for free.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/15/gain-insight-from-hax-robotics-founders-at-tc-sessions-robotics/
Pinterest Investors Should Buy Elliott’s Vision
Investors have reason to believe Elliott Management’s involvement should make for an effective wake-up call to a company stuck in the clouds. …read more
Runa Sandvik’s new startup Granitt secures at-risk people from hackers and nation states
For much of her career, hacker Runa Sandvik has worked to protect journalists and newsrooms from powerful adversaries who want to keep wrongdoing and corruption out of the public eye. Journalists and activists are increasingly targeted by the wealthy and resourceful who seek to keep the truth hidden, from nation-state aligned hackers hacking into journalist’s inboxes to governments deploying mobile spyware to snoop on their most vocal critics.
Few know the threats that journalists face better than Sandvik, a native Norwegian. She defended The New York Times newsroom from hackers and nation-state adversaries, trained reporters to cloak their online activity in anonymity at the Tor Project, and helped organizations like the Freedom of the Press Foundation to build tools that allow journalists, like us at TechCrunch, securely communicate with sources and receive sensitive source documents. Sandvik is also a renowned hacker and security researcher and, as of recently, a founder.
With her new startup, Granitt — with Sandvik as its principal — aims to help at-risk people, like journalists and activists but also politicians, lawyers, refugees and human rights defenders, from threats they face doing their work.
“At any point someone finds themselves in a category where there might be some repercussions for them doing whatever it is they’re doing, that’s something I would consider ‘at risk’ and something that I can help with,” Sandvik told me when we spoke in New York City this week.
Sandvik told me about her work and her new bootstrapped startup, how leaders should prioritize their cybersecurity efforts, and, what piece of security advice she would give that every person should know.
Our chat, which has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity, follows.
ZW: You’ve been laying the groundwork for Granitt for the past decade. Tell me how you got here.
RS: If you look at a decade ago when I worked for the Tor Project and they got funding, we set out to teach reporters how to use the Tor Browser. And very quickly realized that it’s not super impactful to just teach someone how to use the Tor Browser if they’re not also familiar with good passwords, two-factor authentication and software updates — things to consider when they’re traveling to conflict zones, for example. And we started building out a curriculum around what you should do to be safe online. I later consulted for the Freedom of the Press Foundation doing somewhat similar work, and also then working on SecureDrop. And my role at The New York Times was building on that type of work as well. And after the Times eliminated my role, I worked with ProPublica, Radio Free Europe, and the Ford Foundation to look at not just security for individuals but also how to help the business side of media organizations to support the newsroom.
<p Cruise robotaxi service under review following anonymous letter
Someone claiming to be a Cruise employee sent an anonymous letter to a California regulatory agency raising concerns that the company is launching its robotaxi service too early. The employee cited the regularity of instances that Cruise robotaxis malfunction in some way and are left stranded on streets, often blocking traffic or emergency vehicles, as one of his main concerns, according to the letter that has been reviewed by TechCrunch.
The letter also claims that employees “generally do not believe we are ready to launch to the public, but there is fear of admitting this because of expectations from leadership and investors.” Cruise has responded to this with results from an April 2022 survey from over 2,000 employees, in which 94% of respondents agreed with the statement: “Safety is a top priority here.”
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which is responsible for issuing driverless car permits in California, said it is looking into the issues raised by the letter. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the CPUC’s intention to investigate the matter.
The CPUC awarded Cruise a driverless deployment permit, which will allow the General Motors-owned company to begin charging fares for autonomous ride-hail services in San Francisco, at the start of June. Cruise began commercial operations close to three weeks ago.
The commission has the authority to suspend or revoke an autonomous vehicle permit at any time if it finds that unsafe behavior becomes evident, according to the CPUC’s resolution to give Cruise the green light.
Cruise says it has a transparent relationship with regulators and that communication between the two is frequent and consistent. The company also said it strictly follows a variety of reporting requirements and provides CPUC with extra information as needed.
The employee’s concerns, which were originally sent to the CPUC in May, come to light just a couple of weeks after more than half a dozen of Cruise’s vehicles stalled on a street in San Francisco for close to two hours, blocking traffic and an intersection. Cruise didn’t say what caused the issue, but the vehicles needed to be recovered through a combination of remote assistance and manual retrieval.
“Currently (as of May 2022) with regularity there are incidents where our San Francisco fleet of vehicles individually or in clusters enter a “VRE” or Vehicle Retrieval Event,” wrote the employee, who describes himself as a father and an employee working on safety critical systems who has been at Cruise for many years.
“When this occurs, a vehicle is stranded, often in lanes where they are blocking traffic and potentially blocking emergency vehicles. Sometimes it is possible to remotely assist the vehicle with safely pulling over, but there have been some cases where fallback systems have also failed and it was not possible to remotely maneuver the vehicle outside of the lanes they were blocking until they were physically towed from their location to a facility.”
The self-identified Cruise employee also shed light on the potentially “chaotic environment” internally at Cruise, specifically …read more
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/cruise-robotaxi-under-review-following-anonymous-letter/
NFT brand loyalty platform Hang banks $16M from Paradigm
Crypto startups — fresh off a mind-boggling bull run — are preparing for the next phase of life where the mere mention of “NFT,” “DAO” or “DeFi” may not tempt investors quite as much as before. The breed of crypto startups raising now are looking to double down on scoring more traditional customers rather than building up a self-referential crypto customer base. These startups are being pushed to distill the lessons of the bull run and find truth in the former frothiness.
Web3 startup Hang is one such startup looking to build up a client base of brands and help them leverage NFTs to replace their existing membership and loyalty programs. The startup hopes that by leveraging the blockchain, users will be able to buy into and sell elite membership status, finding the market value for the perks offered by loyalty programs and build a closer relationship with the brands they frequent.
“By leveraging NFTs and the blockchain there are far better ways to solve real problems for brands,” CEO Matt Smolin tells TechCrunch. “We truly see this as a new way to shepherd in a new relationship between consumers and brands.“
Smolin’s startup has just banked $16 million in new Series A funding from crypto venture firm Paradigm. Other investors include Tiger Global, Good Friends, Kevin Durant’s Thirty Five Ventures, MrBeast’s Night Ventures and Shrug Capital, among others. Some early customers of the brand include Budweiser, Bleacher Report, Pinkberry and music festival group Superfly.
Loyalty programs existed long before blockchains, but Smolin believes that adding a liquid market for the right to enter or exit a brand’s loyalty perks is better for all parties involved. Rather than endow each brand with their own cryptocurrency-backed points, Hang’s effort aims to give users NFTs that they can level up by being a fan. By engaging with the brand, buying stuff or participating in events, users can upgrade the status of their membership NFT, which they could eventually go on to sell to someone else with the perks they receive attached to it.
Smolin references the great lengths users go to at the end of the year to reach the next level of airline status as a way to signify how they price the value of the service; he wonders whether more services could build this relationship and create better membership programs for users. The reality is that most brand loyalty programs aren’t that great and often just offer a way to more directly spam a user through communications. Smolin believes that rising customer acquisition costs are going to push brands to rethink their fundamental approach and might push them toward taking a risk on NFTs.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/nft-brand-loyalty-platform-hang-banks-16-million-from-paradigm/
Daily Crunch: Stripe, stripped: Fintech leader slashes internal valuation by 28%
Startups and VC
“We could’ve taken money from crypto funds, but it’s stronger to take it from the game industry and believers,” Raz Friedman, co-founder of UnCaged, told
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Oh hey, and welcome to Thursday! It’s been another intense day with a lot of news happening. We’ve picked the cream of the crop for you. Oh! And if you want to be part of Disrupt with your startup, don’t forget to apply to the Startup Battlefield 200!
On July 21, we’ve got an incredible lineup for our TC Robotics event — and something is wrong with the folks up in marketing, because they decided to make the event free of charge. Get your ticket today in case they change their minds… — Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch Top 3
- In the Air tonightBrian gives us an inside look at the new Apple MacBook Air M2. Let the pluses and minuses commence!
- Losing a couple of stripesAnita, Natasha M and Mary Ann teamed up to tackle Stripe’s news that it is the latest to cut its internal valuation. For those who are like, “What?” they explain that this means the pricing of preferred shares sold is chosen by a third party versus startups or venture capital investors. Also interesting is that this is uncommon for a company to do.
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Into the looking glass: We enjoyed Dominic-Madori’s deep dive on TechCrunch+ into some predictions of what Black VCs and founders can expect from the investment community in the second half of this year.
Image Credits: Yuichiro Chino / Getty Images
Startups and VC
“We could’ve taken money from crypto funds, but it’s stronger to take it from the game industry and believers,” Raz Friedman, co-founder of UnCaged, told Jacquelyn in an interview regarding the company’s $24 million fundraise. “We are a gaming company first that is utilizing and bringing web3 into games, rather than being a web3-first company.”
“We envision You.com becoming a search platform that is open and allows others to build on top of all of the search technology that we’ve created,” Richard Socher told Kyle for his story about You’s $25 million fundraise. “Data transparency, user customization, summarization, privacy and state-of-the-art search are the foundation of our platform, and we beat Google in the long run by empowering the world to build the next search experience together.”
More, more, give me more (what an amazing tune).
- And how does that make you feel, |*FNAME*|: Therapist chatbots are continuing to rise in popularity, and Wysa raised $20 million to further expand its services, as Jagmeet reports.
- One star, would buy for …read more
Meta’s first human rights report is largely self-congratulatory
Meta today released its first annual human rights report, which — in the company’s words — includes “insights and actions from [Meta’s] human rights due diligence on products, countries, and responses to emerging crises.” The 83-page report, covering the years 2020 and 2021, strikes a largely self-congratulatory tone, defending Meta’s misinformation strategy while failing to touch on allegations of biased content moderation.
Regulators and civil rights groups have claimed over the years that Meta fails to put in place proper safeguards against hate speech both in the U.S. and in countries like Myanmar, where Facebook has been used to promote violence against minorities. There’s evidence to suggest that Meta’s business practices have played a role in abuses from digital redlining to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Meta itself has acknowledged this (to a degree); an internal study conducted by the company that found the majority of people who join extremist groups do so because of the company’s recommendation algorithms.
The human rights report, spearheaded by Meta human rights director Miranda Sissons, who joined the company three years ago, contains little in the way of revelations. Meta claims that it’s struck a “balance” between freedom of expression and security, with policies to fight health misinformation and emerging implicit threats. In the report, the company also explores the privacy and safety risks associated with Ray-Ban Stories, its glasses that can record photos and videos, including how data from the glasses could be stored and searched in the cloud.
But the report glosses over — among other topics — Meta’s efforts to date in India, where its products have often been overwhelmed with inflammatory content, reporting by The Wall Street Journal and others has shown. Meta commissioned an assessment of its India operations in 2020 from the law firm Foley Hoag LLP, but the report today contains only a summary of that assessment and Sissons has said that Meta doesn’t plan to release it in its entirety.
In the summary, Foley Hoag analysts note the potential for Meta’s platforms to be “connected to salient human rights risks caused by third parties,” including “advocacy of hatred that incites hostility, discrimination, or violence.” Meta says that it’s studying the recommendations but hasn’t yet committed to implementing them; human rights groups have accused the company of narrowing the assessment’s scope and delaying its completion.
As Engadget points out, the report also avoids delving into the implications of the metaverse — an increasingly hairy space where it concerns human rights. Reports suggest that the metaverse as it exists today across Meta’s products — a mix of social virtual reality experiences — has a sexual assault and moderation problem. One corporate watchdog documented misogynistic and racist comments, insufficient protections for children and a reporting system that left the door open for repeat offenders.
Meta has commissioned various ad hoc assessments of its …read more
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/metas-first-human-rights-report-is-largely-self-congratulatory/
Systemiq secures $70 million to fund early-stage climate tech founders
Systemiq Capital, a backer of early-stage climate tech startups, says it has secured $70 million to kick off its second fund.
The London-based VC aims to raise as much as $130 million more; that would mark quite a step up for the firm, which says it has funneled $30 million into 19 startups since 2018.
As far as putting that money to use, Systemiq says it is out to fund founders who are focused on making large industries and cities “more efficient and sustainable.” In practice, it’ll fund key areas like regenerative land use, oceans, transportation and the circular economy.
Systemiq’s past deals include climate data company Jupiter, shipping data firm Nautilus Labs (whose co-founder later launched Bedrock) and ESG-focused investing startup OpenInvest. Last year, OpenInvest sold to J.P. Morgan, the world’s top funder of fossil fuels.
Systemiq was co-founded by McKinsey veterans Jeremy Oppenheim and Martin Stuchtey. The consulting giant, which pulls in an estimated $10 billion a year in revenue, also has a lengthy history of work with many of the world’s top polluters.
Systemiq partner and former Goldman executive Irena Spazzapan will steer the second fund, along with Oppenheim and former Unilever CEO Paul Polman, the firm said.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/systemiq-vc-70-million-fund-2/
Stripe Cuts Its Valuation by 28%
The payments giant was last valued by private investors at $95 billion, making it one of the most valuable U.S. startups. …read more
https://www.wsj.com/articles/stripe-cuts-internal-valuation-by-28-11657815625?mod=rss_Technology
GM and Pilot Plan National Electric-Vehicle Charging Network
The partnership would add 2,000 fast-charging stalls to 500 Pilot and Flying J locations starting next year. …read more