Ideaforge

Motherly CEO Jill Koziol admits that it was a tough pitch when she and her co-founder Liz Tenety first tried to get investors on-board in 2015.

“We wanted to create a brand first and foremost,” Koziol told me. “We did not want to go and build a media company or a [direct-to-consumer] company or Facebook for moms — because, spoiler alert, it’s called Facebook.”

Instead, she described Motherly as a company that sits at the “intersection” of all three approaches. It started out by publishing motherhood-themed content on its website and on social media (and more recently in podcast form), which in turn encouraged the audience of 30 million unique users to start “engaging with us and with each other.”

Now that there’s a big audience and a real community, the company is getting ready to launch the Motherly Store. And it’s announcing that it has raised $5.4 million in Series A funding.

Koziol described her approach as building a trusted brand “that’s woman-centered — not baby-centered — and expert-driven,” then using that brand to sell products. She said Motherly has reversed the strategy of direct-to-consumer startups that sell products, then add content and community to support those commerce goals.

“Everyone says we did all the hard stuff first,” Koziol said. “We’re showing the world that motherhood is not niche, that you can build a brand through content and then create the natural extensions out of that.”

Image Credits: Motherly

The Series A funding was led by 8VC, with participation from Founders Fund, Muse Capital, AET and AmplifyHer Ventures.

“We’re long on millennial moms, and Motherly has demonstrated a unique ability to be at the center of this hyper-engaged market already,” AmplifyHer’s Meghan Cross told me via email. “Its content has organically sparked a vibrant conversation, and commerce is the logical extension.”

Koziol, meanwhile, said that Motherly was able to build this audience with “virtually” no audience spend. That sounds particularly difficult given all the other parenting and motherhood-themed content already online, but Koziol said that she and Tenety (a former Washington Post editor) are both millennial mothers themselves, and they realized that “in media brands across the board, motherhood was treated as cartoonish … everything was very baby-centered.”

She argued Motherly has succeeded so far because it’s aimed at a more educated and more diverse group of women, who are more likely to continue working after they have children.

And as Motherly moves into commerce, she said that will include both company-branded products (Sounds True is publishing the startup’s second book, “The Motherly Guide to Becoming Mama: Redefining the Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum Journey”), as well as a Motherly Store, which will offer a curated selection of products for moms, largely from smaller, direct-to-consumer brands.

Koziol suggested that these brands will benefit from access to Motherly’s audience (particularly as advertising costs have grown to unsustainable heights for many D2C brands), while moms will benefit from having a “credible” source that can help “narrow down those choices.”

Of course, the landscape for media, commerce and parenting have all changed dramatically in the past few weeks thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. But Koziol noted that as a “100% work from home company,” Motherly was better-prepared for this shift.

More broadly, she suggested that moms are going to need more help and support than ever — which Motherly is trying to provide, for example by offering its online birth class for free.

“This woman in our audience has been layering roles on for years,” Koziol said. “And what we are now seeing, in addition to carrying the mental load of parenthood disproportionately and being a full-time bread winner, you’re layering full-time child-care and homeschooling. These are three different jobs.”

Source: Tech Crunch

Public markets around the world have been tanking for the past few weeks, and many companies simply can’t operate during a lockdown. Sheltering in place has had some terrible economic consequences, with a record number of Americans getting laid off, including many startup employees.

But what is happening in Europe? You might also be wondering whether European tech startups have to lay off a significant chunk of their workforce and whether financial capital has become scarce.

That’s why I interviewed Jean de La Rochebrochard, a partner for Kima Ventures, backed by French telco and media entrepreneur Xavier Niel. They focus on seed and Series A investments and invest in dozens of startups each year. He oversees hundreds of startup investments at any given time, which means he has his finger on the pulse of the tech ecosystem in France and across Europe.

The interview was translated from French and edited for clarity and brevity.

TechCrunch: At Kima Ventures, have you seen any change when it comes to investment pace?

Jean de La Rochebrochard: There has been a big change at the deal-flow level. But we already committed to some deals before the lockdown. We’re currently closing all the deals that we were looking at. Over the past 15 days, we’ve closed 15 deals, I think.

So it might slow down in the next 15 or 30 days…

Yes, it’s going to slow down, that’s for sure. But we’ll only know for sure in a month when we’re done with our backlog.

Source: Tech Crunch

Want to let your kids poke around Netflix without them wandering their way beyond the kids section? Got a roommate who keeps inexplicably forgetting to use their profile and is totally screwing up your “Continue Watching” list?

Good news! Netflix is now letting users set a PIN to keep individual profiles locked down.

The new feature comes as part of a wider update this morning focusing on improved parental controls.

Other new features include:

• Filtering titles based on their maturity rating in your country. Useful if you want someone to have access to more than just the kids section while still blocking off anything beyond, say, PG-13.
• Disabling auto-play on a kid profile to make Octonaut marathons a bit more… intentional.
• Blocking specific titles by name. Need a break from Boss Baby? Maybe add it to the list for a while.

It’s all pretty basic stuff… but with more people working from home with kids in tow right now, it’s a good time for all of it to land.

Looking for the new controls? Visit Netflix.com in a browser, make sure you’re toggled into a non-kid profile, tap the dropdown arrow in the upper right, hit “Account”, then look for the “Profile & Parental Controls” section — everything should be nested in there, with individual settings for each profile on your account.

Source: Tech Crunch

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro has been granted a permit to begin driverless testing on California’s public roads, paving the way for the company to roll out commercial operations throughout the state.

Nuro, which raised $940 million from SoftBank Vision Fund last year, is allowed to put two of its low-speed electric R2 delivery vehicles on public roads in parts of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the agency that regulates autonomous vehicle testing in the state.

The driverless permit allows the vehicles to operate at a maximum speed of 25 mph and only in fair weather conditions on streets with a speed limit of no more than 35 mph, the DMV said Tuesday. The permit covers nine cities, including Atherton, East Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Woodside.

“The safety of the motoring public is the DMV’s top priority, and we do not give out these permits lightly,” DMV Director Steve Gordon said in statement. “Nuro has met the DMV’s requirements to receive this permit to test their driverless delivery vehicles on California’s public roads.”

Nuro won’t start its driverless testing right away due to stay-at-home orders issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom because of the spreading COVID-19 pandemic. The company will be actively engaging in logistical planning for the day public roads testing can begin, Nuro’s chief legal and policy officer David Estrada said in a blog post Tuesday. “Our hope is that residents of neighboring cities and counties will see R2 on the road soon,” he said.

A path to commercialization

While 65 companies have an active permit to test autonomous vehicles with a human safety driver, Waymo, and now Nuro, are the only companies allowed to operate driverless vehicles on California’s public roads.

Nuro might end up being the first company to actually use it. Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a business under Alphabet, received the first permit in October 2018. However, the company has never conducted driverless testing on public roads there. Instead, Waymo has focused its efforts on Arizona, where it already operates a robotaxi service called Waymo One and it has a clearer commercial path.

In California, the commercial path is muddled for most AV developers. Under state law, the DMV regulates autonomous vehicle testing. If a company wants to transport passengers — essentially operating a ride-hailing service — it must get an Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service pilot permit from the California Public Utilities Commission.

The CPUC lets companies use their self-driving vehicles to transport people. However, they can’t charge for rides and the vehicles must have safety drivers behind the wheel.

Nuro’s R2 vehicle isn’t designed for people, only packages. While the company can’t charge a delivery fee, it can generate revenue by working with local retailers to launch a commercial delivery business using the autonomous vehicles.

Nuro will start with free deliveries to select customers in Mountain View and the surrounding area, Estrada said, adding that this will allow a formal delivery service in partnership with local brands and retailers.

The company already has its eyes on a statewide delivery service. Estrada said Nuro will apply for a full commercial deployment permit to bring its services to California residents throughout the state.

“Putting our driverless R2 delivery vehicles on the road will be an important first for our company and the self-driving industry. But it is just a glimmer of what is to come,” Estrada said. “We have always believed in the transformative power of autonomous vehicles, and in the climate of COVID-19 we understand their potential even more deeply.”

Nuro’s R2 unit

Nuro was founded in June 2016 by Google alums Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu. The company was issued an AV testing permit — with a human safety operator — in 2017. Initially, the company used modified Toyota Prius sedans for testing as well as for pilot grocery deliveries in Arizona and Texas.

The company transitioned in December 2018 to the R1, the first step towards a vehicle designed exclusively for packages.

The R2, which was designed and assembled in the U.S. in partnership with Michigan-based Roush Enterprises, was introduced in February 2020. Nuro received a driverless exemption from the federal government for its R2 vehicle, a milestone for the company. 

The exemption granted by the the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration allows the vehicle to operate without three features that are normally required: side-view mirrors, windshield and a rear-view camera that shuts off when driving forward. This exemption is different from the one that GM is currently pursuing for its self-driving unit Cruise. That vehicle, which is not considered a low-speed vehicle, has a much longer list of exemptions.

Source: Tech Crunch

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

“Dear Sophie” columns are accessible for Extra Crunch subscribers; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie: I have an H-4 visa and work authorization. I currently have a job that’s considered nonessential during the coronavirus emergency. If I get laid off, I would need unemployment assistance while I look for another job.

Would getting unemployment benefits hurt my or my spouse’s green card petition under the new public charge rule?

— Nonessential in NorCal

Dear Nonessential:

Thanks for your timely question. The short answer is no, getting unemployment benefits alone right now won’t jeopardize your or your spouse’s green card. This is because receiving unemployment benefits, getting tested for coronavirus and seeking emergency medical treatment (even if it’s covered by Medicaid) are all exempt from consideration as government benefits under the new public charge rule.

Immigration officials have long had the authority to deny individuals a visa or green card if they are likely to be dependent on public benefits. The new public charge rule, which went into effect on February 24, expands the factors immigration officials will consider. An additional form seeking health and financial information must now be submitted with most visa and green card applications. Immigration officials will use that information to determine whether applicants are or are likely to become dependent on government benefits.

If you have received a public benefit in the past, your application won’t necessarily be denied, but given what’s at stake, it’s important to consult an experienced immigration attorney.

Individuals who will be subjected to the increased scrutiny of the expanded public charge rule are:

Source: Tech Crunch

Today, Facebook quietly released a new app for couples called Tuned. The new release is a multimedia messaging app designed to help significant others communicate.

The app is available for download in the U.S. and Canada, app analytics firm Sensor Tower tells us. Tuned was developed and released by Facebook’s New Product Experimentation (NPE) team. The division is — as the name suggests– very experimental and thus a bit quicker to pull the plug on projects if they don’t show traction.

The Tuned app arrives during a very interesting time for couples. Couples that live together are spending every waking moment in each other’s presence in the midst of quarantine and could probably never have less of a need for an app like this. For couples that don’t live together, there’s more of an appeal as people are emboldened to build out digital toolsets to stay close with their partners during an unprecedented time.

The app is by all means just a messaging app that’s more focused on pushing updates and stickers to a singular person. Users can also integrate the app with Spotify to share songs, or use dedicated widgets to share how they’re feeling or what they’re up to. The company refers to the app’s feed as “scrapbook-style.”

It’s not integrated with the company’s dating platform, Facebook Dating, in fact the most interesting quality of the app is the sheer lack of Facebook tie-ins. Some

For years, Messenger was the testing bed for Facebook’s social curiosities, but Messenger became too important and users weren’t responding positively to constantly seeing nominal changes in an app they frequently used. The issue is Facebook doesn’t have a default experimentation app anymore, and so these NPE team releases kind of force Facebook to get by with less user data and make judgment calls on how fast functionality can develop when starting from a standstill. It’s unclear successfully this strategy is progressing. NPE Team’s only other release that’s still available, a Pinterest competitor named Hobbi, was released two months ago and has only received one review on the App Store– a one-star review.

Source: Tech Crunch