Ideaforge

For the global VC industry, 2018 was a supergiant year. Crunchbase projects that 2018 deal and dollar volume surpassed even the high-water mark left by the dot-com deluge and the drought that followed.

As covered in Crunchbase News’s global VC report reviewing Q4 and the rest of 2018, projected deal volume rose by 32 percent and projected dollar volume jumped 55 percent since 2017. For all of 2018, Crunchbase projects that well over $300 billion was invested in equity funding rounds across all stages of the venture-backed company life cycle. (This figure includes an estimate of transactions that were finalized in 2018, but won’t be publicized or added to Crunchbase until later. More on how Crunchbase projects data can be found at the end of that report.)

Is the market mostly buoyed by the billions raised by the biggest private tech companies, or is a rising tide in this extended aquatic metaphor raising all ships? In other words, is the bulk of the capital going to only a handful of the largest rounds? That’s what the numbers show.

In the global VC pool, capital is definitely sloshing toward rounds totaling $100 million or more. In the chart below, you can see what percent of reported global VC dollar volume was raised in “supergiant” rounds versus deals of smaller size.

In the year, over 56 percent of worldwide dollar volume can be attributed to supergiant rounds. With 61 percent of reported capital coming from supergiants in the final quarter, Q4 2018 has the highest concentration of supergiant dollar volume of any single quarter on record.

Big money weighs on the market

Following that same theme, the calendar year 2018 is the most concentrated year on record. In the chart below, we show how much capital was raised in non-supergiant (<$100 million) venture rounds over the past decade. (It’s basically the bottom part of the first chart, with the data aggregated over a longer period of time.)

For the first time in at least a decade (and likely ever) supergiant, $100 million+ VC rounds accounted for a majority of reported capital raised. So in summary: Q4 2018 had the highest share of supergiant VC dollar volume on record, and 2018 was the most concentrated year on record.

Source: Tech Crunch

Just as on-demand electric scooters are trying to pick up speed in Europe, one of the scooter market’s most ambitious startups has halted operations in one country after its e-scooters started halting mid-ride, throwing off and injuring passengers.

Lime, the Uber-backed bike and scooter rental company that is reportedly raising money at between a $2 billion and $3 billion valuation, has pulled its full fleet of scooters in Switzerland, in the cities of Basel and Zurich, for safety checks after multiple reports of people injuring themselves after their scooters braked abruptly while in use.

The company sent out a notice to users — presented in screenshots below, in German, with the full text translated underneath that — noting that it is currently investigating whether the malfunction is due to a software fault, where an update of the software causes a scooter inadvertently to reboot during a ride, thus engaging the anti-theft immobilization system.

To make up for the disruption in service, it’s offering users a 15-minute credit that they can use when the service is restored, but it doesn’t give an indication of when that might be.

The text reads as follows:

By now you surely have heard from the media that we have taken all Lime scooters into our workshops and have temporarily paused the service.

We have been made aware of cases in which users report that during their rides, sudden brake maneuvers take place, leading to crashes. The security of our users is our top priority and this is why we decided at the start of this week to pull in all devices and do a thorough security and quality check on them.

The investigation is ongoing. After first hints, we are currently examining whether a software update could be causing a reboot during the ride, triggering the theft protection. We have already taken measures to ensure this will never happen again. Nonetheless, we are testing each device thoroughly to ensure that no software or hardware issues remain.

We are optimistic that we will soon again be operating on the streets of Zurich and Basel and apologize for the disruption of the service. To make up for it, we offer you a free 15 minute ride with code “LIME-ON-SCHWEIZ”. As soon as we are back again.

We will keep you updated about the developments. Thank you for your understanding.

With lime green greetings

Your Lime Switzerland Team

We have reached out to Lime for more details and will update this post as we learn more.

The cessation of service comes after reports over the past several months detailed how users have been injured after their Lime scooters stopped abruptly. In November, a doctor broke his elbow after the speedometer on his vehicle failed, the brakes kicked in, and he was thrown into the air. (Fortunately, this happened in front of the hospital, where he also worked.)

Another rider dislocated his shoulder after falling over his Lime scooter’s handle bars when travelling at about 25 km/h (about 15 mph). A third suffered cuts and bruises in a similar incident to the other two: abrupt braking while travelling.

Lime launched e-scooter services in several cities across Europe last summer, starting in Paris with aggressive ambitions to expand its business to 25 cities in Europe by the end of 2018.

In Switzerland Lime has (had?) about 550 scooters in operation. But overall, Lime hasn’t quite hit its wider regional target. It is currently live in 18 cities in Europe, and not all of those have electric scooters.

In the UK, for example, Lime has had a limited roll out of electric bikes and there are no plans at the moment to add scooters.

Part of the reason in the UK is because that particular mode of transportation is facing some regulatory hurdles: technically they are classified as vehicles, and therefore illegal to drive without licenses on public roads. On the other hand, there are plenty being sold and in use by private individuals who may or may not have the right credentials to use them, and regulations may get revisited.

One of Lime’s biggest competitors, Bird, launched e-scooters in London last year, but it has been a very limited roll out, on private land on the Olympic campus.

In other markets, Lime originally launched scooters but has since had to halt its business. In December, Lime, along with rivals Wind and Voi, were all ordered to halt e-scooter operations in Madrid, after the city determined that they were posing a safety hazard after a series of accidents, including a death, amid other safety concerns.

We’ll update this post as we learn more. Overall, however, the development does not paint a very positive picture.

Even before we’ve seen a mass launch of actual services, the e-scooter market in Europe is already very crowded with hopeful players. Alongside Lime and Bird flying over from the US, there are also homegrown startups like Taxify, Dott, Wind and Voi, as well as transportation behemoths like VW, all entering the fray.

All fine and well, I suppose — let the best man win and all that — but seeing early versions of these services getting banned by authorities or halted by the companies themselves over accidents does make one wonder if safety is getting compromised in the name of aggressive competition in new, unchartered areas of “disruptive” tech.

Source: Tech Crunch

This week, the Las Vegas Convention Center was packed with many of the year’s biggest new devices. But over the last several years, The Sands has become the place where the real magic happens. The segment of the show known as Eureka Park is where the startups and accelerators congregate, often times showing off products that are still years away.

A quick walk around the floor (insofar as someone can walk quickly with that much humanity slowly shuffling through the halls) sheds a lot of light on the industry’s biggest trends. Plenty are holdovers from previous years — smart home and wearables continue to dominate —  but others offer insight into where the next several years of technology may be going.

One key trend that absolutely exploded this past year is mental well-being. Between the sleep, relaxation, concentration and meditation products on display, you couldn’t walk five feet without encountering another pitch. The list includes some familiar faces (to us, at least) like the Muse meditation and sleep headsets and a whole slew of new entrants.

The trajectory tracks if you consider many of these products a kind of extension of the fitness trackers that were all the rage a few years back. First startups pushed to keep our bodies in shape, moving on to sleep tracking and, eventually, our minds. The accessibility of sensors that can track things like basic brain activity have helped push the concept along.

It’s a worthy cause, of course. The proliferation of many technologies has done some pretty rough stuff to our bodies and brains over the years. Wouldn’t it be great if tech could also turn that around.

In many cases, the use is clear. Decades of scientific studies have demonstrated the value simply sitting quietly during meditation practice can have on your stress levels and mental health. If a product can help you get into a routine, great. But there’s an even larger opportunity for snake oil salespeople than we saw on the fitness side.

Certainly the FDA has a role to play, ensuring that companies can’t make untested medical claims for their products, but much of the burden here will ultimately be placed on journalist and consumer alike. When it comes to this category, the placebo effect is very real.

Source: Tech Crunch

Improbable may be pissed at Unity, but they still want them back.

In a blog post titled “A final statement on SpatialOS and Unity,” the team at the cloud gaming startup aimed to tell their side of the story and implored Unity to “clarify their terms or unsuspend our licenses.”

Unity is a game engine that developers use to create, among other things, games. Improbable offers a cloud solution to developers that basically enables large multiplayer online gameplay by rendering the game worlds across multiple servers on its SpatialOS platform.

Yesterday, Improbable announced that Unity had terminated their game engine access and that developers that used SpatialOS were in danger of losing their work. Unity responded that live and in development games were fine and that Improbable was in violation of their new terms of service and needed to negotiate a new partnership.

In the new blog post, Improbable doesn’t mince words, saying it “still has all its Unity license and access suspended. We cannot easily fix bugs, improve the service or really support our customers without being in a legal grey area. Anyone who has ever run a live game knows this is a farcical situation that puts games at risk.”

Last night, Improbable appeared to leverage their relation with rival engine-maker Epic Games to put the heat on Unity, creating a $25 million fund with the gaming giant to help developers move to “more open engines,” a pretty transparent knock on Unity.

Improbable now seems to be claiming that Unity basically changed the rules on them and was trying to bully them into a deal that none of their other partners have requested.

“We do not require any direct technical cooperation with an engine provider to offer our services – Crytek, Epic and all other providers clearly allow interoperability without commercial arrangement with cloud platforms. We have no formal technical arrangements there and have not required any with Unity for years.”

Losing Unity support is a huge blow to Improbable, which has raised $600 million largely on the promise that it can revolutionize online gaming, something that would prove difficult to do without one of the largest available game engines.

Source: Tech Crunch

The New York Times is expanding its efforts around audio programming and voice assistants, the company announced today. The NYT says it’s launching a daily flash briefing for Alexa devices, as well as an interactive news quiz, and – in an interesting twist – it will be introducing “enhanced coverage” in its Sunday paper that prompts readers to launch dedicated Alexa skills to learn more about the stories they’re reading.

On weekdays, the Times will offer a short news briefing for Alexa devices that’s hosted by Michael Barbaro of The NYT’s popular podcast, “The Daily.” Listeners can enable the Alexa skill, then ask to hear the top stories by saying “Alexa, what’s my Flash Briefing,” or “Alexa, what’s in the news?,” for example.

For now, the flash briefing consists of the last portion of “The Daily” where Barbaro says “Here’s what else you need to know today.” Over time, the company plans to expand upon that with new stories and sound bites.

Also new today is a daily news quiz, created by “The Daily’s” producers. This will be available on Fridays, and is triggered by saying “Alexa, play The New York Times News Quiz.”

The quiz will ask questions that listeners answer to then be told if they are right or wrong. The skill will provide additional context, as well.

While daily briefing skills and quizzes are among the most popular types of Alexa skills today, the way the paper is experimenting with its Sunday paper contest is interesting.

Skill discovery is still a huge challenge on voice assistants. And even when you enable a skill, you may forget to use it or not remember what it’s called, if it’s not something you launch regularly.

The NYT’s solution is to add Alexa prompts to its printed edition of the Sunday paper, for select sections including travel, music, and books.

Starting this weekend, a special section will feature Travel’s annual list of f ‘52 Places to Go.’ Readers can choose to listen to the Times’s new ‘Traveler’ writer Sebastian Modak, as he visits all the places on the list, by saying, “Alexa, open the 52 Places Traveler.”

In addition, a command to “open The Pop Music Roundup” will offer a voice round-up from Times pop music editor Caryn Ganz, while saying “Alexa, get book recommendations from The New York Times” will trigger Alexa to tell you what the paper’s book critics are reading and recommend.

All three of these Alexa skills will continue beyond this weekend and will include fresh content.

“We’ve only just begun to explore the ways that voice technology can bring Times journalism to our audience, where and how they want it,” said Monica Drake, assistant managing editor, The New York Times, in a statement about the Alexa skills. “This project is a great starting point in this effort as we begin to experiment the ways voice can work in conjunction with stayed mediums like print while also exploring native Times experiences like the flash briefing and interactive news quiz, built specifically for voice services,” she added.

The NYT already offered some of its news through Alexa and other voice assistants prior to today, as its podcast “The Daily” has been available across platforms. But this is the first time it has rolled out dedicated Alexa skills like this.

Source: Tech Crunch

The Chromecast Audio is no more. Google has decided to stop manufacturing the audio dongle that allowed you to add any ‘dumb’ speaker to your Google Cast setup. If you still want one, you’ll have to hurry — and to entice you to buy a discontinued product, Google is now selling its remaining inventory for $15 instead of $35.

“Our product portfolio continues to evolve, and now we have a variety of products for users to enjoy audio,” Google told us  in a statement. “We have therefore stopped manufacturing our Chromecast Audio products. We will continue to offer assistance for Chromecast Audio devices, so users can continue to enjoy their music, podcasts and more.”

While the Chromecast turned out to be a major hit for Google, the Chromecast Audio was always more of a niche product.

Google is clearly more interested in getting people to buy its Google Home products and Assistant- or Cast-enabled speakers from its partners. It’s also worth noting that all Google Home devices can connect to Bluetooth enabled speakers, though plenty of people surely have a nice speaker setup at home that doesn’t have built-in Bluetooth support. “Bluetooth adapters suck,” Google told us at the time, though at this point, it seems a Bluetooth adapter may just be the way to go.

The Chromecast Audio first launched back in 2015, in conjunction with the second-generation Chromecast. Over the years, the Chromecast Audio received numerous updates that enabled features like multi-room support. Google says it’ll continue to support Chromcast Audio users for the time being, so if you have already invested in this ecosystem, you should be set for a few more years.

Source: Tech Crunch

If you watched Netflix’s latest ‘Black Mirror’ production, there’s no doubt it reminded you of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. Now, the publisher that owns the trademark to “Choose Your Own Adventure,” Chooseco, LLC, is suing Netflix. The publisher is alleging trademark infringement, The Hollywood Reporter first reported.

In the complaint, Chooseco says Netflix “used the mark willfully and intentionally to capitalize on viewers’ nostalgia for the original book series from the 1980s and 1990s. The film’s dark and, at times, disturbing content dilutes the goodwill for and positive associations with Chooseco’s mark and tarnishes its products.”

In one scene, the main character explains to his dad that his video game, ‘Bandersnatch,’ is based on the fictional “Choose Your Own Adventure” book.

20th Century Fox, according to Chooseco, has an options contract to develop a series based on the publisher’s books. Netflix, on the other hand, pursued a license beginning in 2016 but did not receive one, the suit says. Chooseco alleges it also sent Netflix a cease-and-desist letter before the release of ‘Bandersnatch.’

Chooseco is seeking at least $25 million or Netflix’s profits from the film, whichever amount is the greatest, for Netflix’s alleged trademark infringement, false designation of origin, unfair competition and trademark dilution.

Netflix declined to comment for this story.

Source: Tech Crunch

Square’s management continues to shuffle. One week after the merchant services and mobile payments company tapped Amrita Ahuja to lead finance, replacing long-time executive Sarah Friar who landed the chief executive role at Nextdoor, the company’s head of payments, Mary Kay Bowman, has joined Visa as its head of seller solutions.

The company will promote someone internally to fill the position, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Bowman joined Square in 2015 after more than a decade at Amazon, most recently as the e-commerce giant’s director of global payments. In her new role, Visa says Bowman will lead the credit card company’s “strategy for acceptance products and solutions, driving the design, development and delivery of new services and solutions that will transform the payment experience for both sellers and consumers.”

“This is a critical role, as the point of sale is undergoing dramatic change as it shifts from traditional payment acceptance to digital, cross-channel payment experiences,” Visa wrote in a company announcement released Friday morning.

Source: Tech Crunch