Network with CrunchMatch at TC Sessions: Enterprise 2019
Ready to tackle the colossus that is enterprise software? Join us and more than 1,000 attendees for TC Sessions Enterprise 2019 on September 5 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. We’re talking founders, technologists and investors digging deep into the challenges facing established and emerging enterprise companies today. Get your early-bird tickets now and save.
TechCrunch’s first ever event focused on Enterprise is a prime networking opportunity that will feature a crowd drawn to a day of intensive, on-stage interviews (led by TechCrunch editors) with the king pins of enterprise as well as breakout sessions, exhibiting startups, receptions and much more. Naturally, we have a fantastic networking app to help attendees wring the most opportunity out of the show.
CrunchMatch (powered by Brella), is TechCrunch’s free business match-making service. Effective networking is more than just meeting people. CrunchMatch helps you search for the right people based on specific mutual criteria, goals and interests. The platform’s combination of curation and automation lets you easily find, vet, schedule and connect with the people you want to meet — founders, investors, technologists, researchers or MBA students. You decide, and CrunchMatch delivers.
CrunchMatch is available to all attendees. When the platform launches, keep an eye out for an email with a sign-up link. Fill out your profile with the pertinent details — your role (technologist, founder, investor, etc.) and who you want to connect with at the event. CrunchMatch will make meet-up suggestions, which you can approve or decline.
Now that you’re up to speed on the networking situation, all you need to do is buy a ticket to TC Sessions: Enterprise. Early-bird passes cost $395, and you can save an extra 15 percent when you buy group tickets (four or more) for $335 each. Student passes sell for $245. Bonus: for every TC Sessions: Enterprise ticket you buy, we’ll register you for one free Expo Only pass to Disrupt San Francisco 2019. Holla!
There are a limited number of Startup Demo Packages available for $2,000, which includes four tickets to attend the event.
TC Sessions: Enterprise takes place on September 5 in San Francisco. Join your community of enterprise-minded founders, investors, CTOs, CIOs and engineers to talk machine learning, AI, intelligent marketing automation, the cloud, quantum computing, blockchain and so much more. Buy your early-bird tickets now.
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New tickets available to the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party
Could you use a little summer startup fun? We’re rolling out our next round of tickets to the TechCrunch Summer Party at Park Chalet, San Francisco’s coastal beer garden. If you want to join your startup peers to eat, drink and be merry, don’t delay. These limited-release tickets will be snapped up before you can say “hold my beer.” Buy your Summer Party ticket today.
Our 14th annual summer soiree offers an opportunity to connect and converse with like-minded entrepreneurs in a relaxed setting with ocean views. Take a break from the daily grind, have a local brew and strike up a conversation. You never know where it might lead or when lightning might strike — especially with Lead VC Partner Merus Capital along with firms August Capital, Battery Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Data Collective, General Catalyst, and Uncork Capital in the house.
Party-planning details you need to know:
- When: July 25 from 5:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
- Where: Park Chalet in San Francisco
- How much: $95
Don’t miss your chance to enjoy a fun night that fosters both opportunity and community. We always mix it up with games and door prizes — like fun TechCrunch swag, Amazon Echos and tickets to Disrupt San Francisco 2019.
Remember, we release tickets to the Summer Party on a rolling basis and they sell out quickly. Buy your 14th Annual Summer Party ticket today. If you strike out this time, sign up to be notified when the next batch goes on sale.
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the TechCrunch 14th Annual Summer Party? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
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Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony pen letter highlighting ‘harm’ from Trump’s tariffs
It’s not every day the three biggest competitors in a space join forces to denounced political action. Of course, this isn’t the first time the Trump administration has had this impact on a category.
Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony (collectively known as gaming’s “big three) penned a joint letter noting the harm the industry stands to face in the age of Trump administration tariffs on China. Addressed to Office of the United States Trade Representative General Counsel Joseph Barloon, the note asks for a modification the existing tariff list.
“While we appreciate the Administration’s efforts to protect U.S. intellectual property and preserve U.S. high-tech leadership,” the letter reads, diplomatically, “the disproportionate harm caused by these tariffs to U.S. consumers and businesses will undermine—not advance—these goals.”
The three companies highlight a broad range of cascading impacts the laws could ultimately have the vast industry, including,
- Injure consumers, video game developers, retailers and console manufacturers
- Put thousands of high-value, rewarding U.S. jobs at risk
- Stifle innovation in our industry and beyond.
The impacts of tariffs have already begun to take their toll on various technology sectors, with several leaders — including, notably, Apple’s Tim Cook — personally petitioning Trump for exceptions.
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Oppo shows first under-screen camera in bid to eliminated the hated notch
Ever since the notch was first added to smartphones, everyone in the world except the deeply deluded and my editor have wished it gone. Oppo has done it — or at least shown that it can be done — with a demonstration unit at Mobile World Congress in Shanghai. iPhone users can console themselves that Oppo kind of sounds like Apple.
Oppo and Xiaomi both teased their upcoming under-screen cameras in recent weeks, but it’s one thing to put out a video and quite another to show a working model to the public. And Oppo’s device was unmistakably present in Shanghai.
Unfortunately, if you were hoping that the first device would knock it out of the park… not quite. Eyes-on photos and impressions from Engadget China show that the transparent LCD used to cover the camera assembly is, or can be, noticeably different from its surroundings. Of course the team there was trying to capture it, and from straight on when you’re not looking for it this effect may not be particularly pronounced. But it’s there.
The camera itself, since it loses a lot of incoming light to the LCD layer, has a larger sensor with bigger pixels on it to better capture that light. This suggests a lower resolution for the unit than other front-facing cameras, and obviously shooting through an extra layer will reduce sharpness and increase artifacting. Oppo says it is working on reducing these in software, but there’s only so much you can do. The sample photos don’t look so hot.
It’s not going to set the world on fire, but Oppo’s less visible camera is a step towards a notchless future, and that I can support. No word on when it’ll actually be available for purchase, or in what models — perhaps Xiaomi will take the opportunity to announce its under-screen camera with a few more of the relevant details.
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Verizon gets FCC approval for a 60 day network lockdown on new phones
Verizon (disclosure: the company that owns the company that owns TC) celebrated an FCC victory this week, as the agency approved a request for a temporary network lockdown on new phones.
The carrier request the feature in February as part of a “safety check period.” The ruling presents a kind of temporary waiver on an FCC dating back to 2008. As the agency auctioned off the C block of the 700MHz spectrum to the carrier, it put a ruling in place requiring it to keep unlocked devices open to all compatible carriers.
This year Verizon argued successfully that this presents a security loophole and that a two-month waiting period would effectively help it implement a kind of fraud safety check. The company argued back in February that offering all phones unlocked upon sale has led to theft that impacts customers at a rate of around 7,000 a month.
“As a result of this activity, these customers have to deal with the inconvenience and hassle of identity theft, and Verizon sustains financial losses,” the company wrote. “While we actively work with law enforcement to stop this growing trend, it’s time that we take a stand to protect our customers.”
The FCC agreed. “This limited waiver will not undermine the underlying policy objectives of the handset unlocking rule and will, in fact, better serve the public interest,” the ruling reads. “The locking rule was adopted to enable consumers to migrate from one service provider to another on compatible networks. Allowing handsets to be locked for 60 days will not interfere significantly with this policy objective.”
Verizon says the waiting period is set to go into effect “very soon.”
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Tesla reportedly working on its own battery cell manufacturing capability
Automaker Tesla is looking into how it might own another key part of its supply chain, through research being done at a secret lab near its Fremont, Calif., factory, CNBC reports. The company currently relies on Panasonic to build the battery pack and cells it uses for its vehicles, which is one of, if not the most significant component in terms of its overall bill of materials.
Tesla is no stranger to owning components of its own supply chain rather than farming them out to vendors as is more common among automakers – it builds its own seats at a facility down the road from its Fremont car factory, for instance, and it recently started building its own chip for its autonomous features, taking over those duties from Nvidia.
Eliminating links in the chain where possible is a move emulated from Tesla CEO Elon Musk inspiration Apple, which under Steve Jobs adopted an aggressive strategy of taking control of key parts of its own supply mix and continues to do so where it can eke out improvements to component cost. Musk has repeatedly pointed out that batteries are a primary constraint when it comes to Tesla’s ability to produce not only is cars, but also its home power products like the Powerwall consumer domestic battery for solar energy systems.
Per the CNBC report, Tesla is doing its battery research at an experimental lab near its factory in Fremont, at a property it maintains on Kato road. Tesla would need lots more time and effort to turn its battery ambitions into production at the scale it requires, however, so don’t expect it to replace Panasonic anytime soon. And in fact, it could add LG as a supplier in addition to Panasonic once its Shanghai factory starts producing Model 3s, per the report.
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Why Carbon just raised another $260 million
Two months ago, we reported that Carbon was set to raise up to $300 million, bringing the 3D printing company’s valuation up to a lofty $2.5 billion. The real numbers released this week by the company aren’t quite so lofty, but are impressive nonetheless. The Series E fetched $260 million, putting its valuation at closer to $2.4 billion.
The latest round follows a $200 million Series D that arrived in late-2017, bringing the company’s total raise to $680 million. What exactly is the bay area-based startup planning to do with that massive sum, in the wake of high profile manufacturing partnerships with companies like Adidas and Riddell?
CEO/co-founder Joseph M. DeSimone and recent addition CMO Dara Treseder (most recently of GE Ventures) stopped by our offices to discuss what the latest round means for the Bay Area-based company.
Asked for a timeline around when Carbon might exit, DeSimon offered a non-committal answer. “As we grow our business, we haven’t made announcements for our IPO or anything like that yet,” he told TechCrunch. But the revenue business is growing nicely. So we’re in pretty good shape.”
It’s hard to say precisely what goals the company is hoping to attain before going public, but at the very least, Carbon presents a good indicator that the 3D printing industry is back on the uptick — in some circles, at least.
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Bright Machines wants to put AI-driven automation in every factory
There’s a mythology around today’s factories that says everything is automated by robotics, and while there is some truth to that, it’s hard to bring that level of sophistication to every facility, especially those producing relatively small runs. Today, Bright Machines, a San Francisco startup announced its first product designed to put intelligence and automation in reach of every manufacturer, regardless of its size.
The startup, which emerged last fall with $179 million in Series A funding, has a mission to make every aspect of manufacturing run in a software-defined automated fashion. Company CEO Amar Hanspal understands it’s a challenging goal, and today’s announcement is about delivering version 1.0 of that vision.
“We have this ambitious idea to fundamentally change the way factories operate, and what we are all about is to get to autonomous programmable factories,” he said. To start on that journey, since getting its initial funding in October, the company has been building a team that includes manufacturing, software and artificial intelligence expertise. It brought in people from Autodesk, Amazon and Microsoft and opened offices in Seattle and Tel Aviv.
The product it is releasing today is called the Software Defined Microfactory and it consists of hardware and software components that work in tandem. “What the Software Defined Microfactory does is package together robotics, computer vision, machine handling and converged systems in a modular way with hardware that you can plug and play, then the software comes in to instruct the factory on what to build and how to build it,” Hanspal explained.
Obviously, this is not an easy thing to do, and it’s taken a great deal of expertise to pull it together over the last months since the funding. It’s also required having testing partners. “We have about 20 product brands around the world and about 25 production lines in seven countries that have been iterating with us toward version one, what we are releasing today,” Hanspal said.
The company is concentrating on the assembly line for starters, especially when building smaller runs like say a specialized computer board or a network appliance where the manufacturer might produce just 50,000 in total, and could benefit from automation, but couldn’t justify the cost before.
“The idea here is going after the least automated part inside of factory, which is the assembly line, which is typically where people have to throw bodies at the problem and assembly lines have been hard to automate. The operations around assembly typically require human dexterity and judgment, trying to align things or plug things in,” Hanspal said.
The hope is to create a series of templates for different kinds of tooling, where they can get the majority of the way there with the software and robotics, and eventually just have to work on the more customized bits. It is an ambitious goal, and it’s not going to be easy to pull off, but today’s release is a first step.
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Facebook squeezes money from Instagram with new ads in Explore
Half of Instagram’s billion-plus users open its Explore tab each month to find fresh content and creators. Now the Facebook-owned app will do more to carry its weight by injecting ads into Instagram Explore for the first time. But rather than bombard users with marketing right on the Explore grid, Instagram will instead only show ads after users tap into a post and then start scrolling through similar imagery.
The move feels like a respectful way to monetize Explore without annoying users too much or breaking the high visual quality of the space. Instagram’s director of business product marketing Susan Bucker Rose tells me she believes the ads will feel natural because users already come to Explore “in the mindset of discovery. They want to be exposed to new accounts, people, and brands.”
Instagram will test the ad slots itself at first to promote its ailing IGTV feature before they “launch to a handful of brands over the coming weeks” Rose says. That includes both big name corporations and smaller advertisers looking to drive conversions, video views, or reach. Instagram hopes to roll the ad format out broadly in the next few months.
Advertisers will buy the slots through the same Facebook ads manager and API they use to buy Instagram feed and Stories space. At first advertisers will have to opt in to placing their ads in Instagram Explore too, but eventually that will be the default with an opportunity to opt out.
Here’s how ads work in Instagram Explore. When you open the tab it will look the same as always with a scrollable grid of posts with high engagement that are personalized based on your interests. When you tap into a photo or video, you’ll first see that full-screen. But if you keep scrolling down, Instagram will show you a contextual feed of content similar to the original post where it will insert photo and video ads. And if you tap into one of the themed video channels and then keep scrolling after watching the clip to check out more videos in the same vein, you may see Instagram video ads.
Instagram describes the introduction as “slowly and thoughtfully” — which makes it sound like the volume of ads will ramp up over time.
Explore was first launched in 2012, some two years after Instagram itself, as a merger of the app’s search and “popular” tabs, with an aim of using algorithms that were informed by your existing interests to give you a new way to discover new people and themes to follow in the app beyond those you might pick up by way of you own social circles. It’s had a few revamps, such as the addition of topical channels and hashtags, and the addition of Stories, the format that has proven to be such a hit on Instagram itself. There won’t be any ads in Stories that recently started appearing in Explore.
But interestingly, through all of that, Instagram stayed hands-off when it came to advertising and Explore. The idea is that the content that each person sees in Explore is individualized, with algorithms detecting the kinds of things you like to show you photos, videos and subjects you might most want to see. Apparently Instagram didn’t want to deter browsing of this content.
On the other side of the coin, this has meant that up to now, individuals and brands have not been able to proactively request or pay to be in anyone’s specific Explore tab — although that doesn’t mean that people don’t game this situation (just Google “how to get on Instagram Explore” and you will find many how-to’s to show you the way).
The move to bring ads into the Explore experience has some logic to it. Even before monetization made its way to Instagram in the form of feed advertising, shoppable links and sponsored content posted by influencers, brands and businesses had started using the platform to promote products and to connect with customers. Instagram says that today, 80 percent of its users follow at least one business on Instagram. Now instead of trying desperately to game the Explore algorithm, Instagram can just sell businesses space instead.
With Facebook’s News Feed usage in danger as attention shifts to Stories that it’s still learning to monetize, the company is leaning more on Instagram to keep revenue growing. But Instagram must be sure not to suffocate the golden goose with too many ads.
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300M-user meme site Imgur raises $20M from Coil to pay creators
Meme creators have never gotten their fair share. Remixed and reshared across the web, their jokes prop up social networks like Instagram and Twitter that pay back none of their ad revenue to artists and comedians. But 300 million monthly user meme and storytelling app Imgur wants to pioneer a way to pay creators per second that people view their content.
Today Imgur announces that it’s raised a $20 million venture equity round from Coil, a micropayment tool for creators that Imgur has agreed to build into its service. Imgur will eventually launch a premium membership with exclusive features and content reserved for Coil subscribers.
Users pay Coil a fixed monthly fee, install its browser extension, the Interledger protocol is used to route assets around, and then Coil pays creators dollars or XRP tokens per second that the subscriber spends consuming their content at a rate of 36 cents per hour. Imgur and Coil will earn a cut too, diversifying the meme network’s revenue beyond ads.
“Imgur began in 2009 as a gift to the internet. Over the last 10 years we’ve built one of the largest, most positive online communities, based on our core value to ‘give more than we take’” says Alan Schaaf, founder and CEO of Imgur. The startup bootstrapped for its first five years before raising a $40 million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz and Reddit. It’s grown into the premier place to browse ‘meme dumps’ of 50+ funny images and GIFs, as well as art, science, and inspirational tales. With the same unpersonalized homepage for everyone, it’s fostered a positive community unified by esoteric inside jokes.
While the new round brings in fewer dollars, Schaaf explains that Imgur raised at a valuation that’s “higher than last time. Our investors are happy with the valuation. This is a really exciting strategic partnership.” Coil founder and CEO Stefan Thomas who was formerly the CTO of cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs will join Imgur’s board. Coil received the money it’s investing in Imgur from Ripple Labs’ Xpring Initiative, which aims to fund proliferation of the Ripple XRP ecosystem, though Imgur received US dollars in the funding deal.
Thomas tells me that “There’s no built in business model” as part of the web. Publishers and platforms “either make money with ads or with subscriptions. The problem is that only works when you have huge scale” that can bring along societal problems as we’ve seen with Facebook. Coil will “hopefully offer a third potential business model for the internet and offer a way for creators to get paid.”
Founded last year, Coil’s $5 per month subscription is now in open beta, and it provides extensions for Chrome and Firefox as it tries to get baked into browsers natively. Unlike Patreon where you pick a few creators and choose how much to pay each every month, Coil lets you browse content from as many creators as you want and it pays them appropriately. Sites like Imgur can code in tags to their pages that tell Coil’s Web Monetization API who to send money to.
The challenge for Imgur will be avoiding the cannibalization of its existing content to the detriment of its non-paying users who’ve always known it to be free. “We’re in the business of making the internet better. We do not plan on taking anything away for the community” Schaaf insists. That means it will have to recruit new creators and add bonus features that are reserved for Coil subscribers without making the rest of its 300 million users feel deprived.
It’s surprising thT meme culture hasn’t spawned more dedicated apps. Decade-old Imgur precedes the explosion in popularity of bite-sized internet content. But rather than just host memes like Instagram, Imgur has built its own meme creation tools. If Imgur and Coil can prove users are willing to pay for quick hits of entertainment and creators can be fairly compensated, they could inspire more apps to help content makers turn their passion into a profession…or at least a nice side hustle.
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