blogger better: 2019-06-02

Saturday, June 8, 2019

Startups Weekly: The Peloton IPO (bull vs. bear)

Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a newsletter published every Saturday that dives into the week’s noteworthy venture capital deals, funds and trends. Before I dive into this week’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about the proliferation of billion-dollar companies. Before that, I noted the uptick in beverage startup rounds. Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets.

Now, time for some quick notes on Peloton’s confirmed initial public offering. The fitness unicorn, which sells a high-tech exercise bike and affiliated subscription to original fitness content, confidentially filed to go public earlier this week. Unfortunately, there’s no S-1 to pore through yet; all I can do for now is speculate a bit about Peloton’s long-term potential.

What I know:

Peloton is profitable. Founder and chief executive John Foley said at one point that he expected 2018 revenues of $700 million, more than double 2017’s revenues of $400 million.
There is strong investor demand for Peloton stock. Javier Avolos, vice president at the secondary marketplace Forge, tells TechCrunch’s Darrell Etherington that “investor interest [in Peloton] has been consistently strong from both institutional and retail investors. Our view is that this is a result of perceived strong performance by the company, a clear path to a liquidity event, and historically low availability of supply in the market due to restrictions around selling or transferring shares in the secondary market.”
Peloton, despite initially struggling to raise venture capital, has accrued nearly $1 billion in funding to date. Most recently, it raised a $550 million Series F at a $4.25 billion valuation. It’s backed by Tiger Global Management, TCV, Kleiner Perkins and others.

A bullish perspective: Peloton, an early player in the fitness tech space, has garnered a cult following since its founding in 2012. There is something to be said about being an early-player in a burgeoning industry — tech-enabled personal fitness equipment, that is — and Peloton has certainly proven its bike to be genre-defining technology. Plus, Peloton is actually profitable and we all know that’s rare for a Silicon Valley company. (Peloton is actually New York-based but you get the idea.)

A bearish perspective: The market for fitness tech is heating up, largely as a result of Peloton’s own success. That means increased competition. Peloton has not proven itself to be a nimble business in the slightest. As Darrell noted in his piece, in its seven years of operation, “Peloton has put out exactly two pieces of hardware, and seems unlikely to ramp that pace. The cost of their equipment makes frequent upgrade cycles unlikely, and there’s a limited field in terms of other hardware types to even consider making. If hardware innovation is your measure for success, Peloton hasn’t really shown that it’s doing enough in this category to fend of legacy players or new entrants.”

TL;DR: Peloton, unlike any other company before it, sits evenly at the intersection of fitness, software, hardware and media. One wonders how Wall Street will value a company so varied. Will Peloton be yet another example of an over-valued venture-backed unicorn that flounders once public? Or will it mature in time to triumphantly navigate the uncertain public company waters? Let me know what you think. And If you want more Peloton deets, read Darrell’s full story: Weighing Peloton’s opportunity and risks ahead of IPO.

Anyways…

Public company corner

In addition to Peloton’s IPO announcement, CrowdStrike boosted its IPO expectations. Aside from those two updates, IPO land was pretty quiet this week. Let’s check in with some recently public businesses instead.

Uber: The ride-hailing giant has let go of two key managers: its chief operating officer and chief marketing officer. All of this comes just a few weeks after it went public. On the brightside, Uber traded above its IPO price for the first time this week. The bump didn’t last long but now that the investment banks behind its IPO are allowed to share their bullish perspective publicly, things may improve. Or not.

Zoom: The video communications business posted its first earnings report this week. As you might have guessed, things are looking great for Zoom. In short, it beat estimates with revenues of $122 million in the last quarter. That’s growth of 109% year-over-year. Not bad Zoom, not bad at all.

Must reads

We cover a lot of startup and big tech news here at TechCrunch. Sometimes, the really great features writers put a lot of time and energy into fall between the cracks. With that said, I just want to take a moment this week to highlight a few of the great stories published on our site recently:

A peek inside Sequoia Capital’s low-flying, wide-reaching scout program by Connie Loizos

On the road to self-driving trucks, Starsky Robotics built a traditional trucking business by Kirsten Korosec

The Stanford connection behind Latin America’s multi-billion dollar startup renaissance by Jon Shieber

How to calculate your event ROI by Sarah Shewey

Why four security companies just sold for $1.5B by Ron Miller

Scooters gonna scoot

In case you missed it, Bird is in negotiations to acquire Scoot, a smaller scooter upstart with licenses to operate in the coveted market of San Francisco. Scoot was last valued at around $71 million, having raised about $47 million in equity funding to date from Scout Ventures, Vision Ridge Partners, angel investor Joanne Wilson and more. Bird, of course, is a whole lot larger, valued at $2.3 billion recently.

On top of this deal, there was no shortage of scooter news this week. Bird, for example, unveiled the Bird Cruiser, an electric vehicle that is essentially a blend between a bicycle and a moped. Here’s more on the booming scooter industry.

Startup Capital

WorldRemit raises $175M at a $900M valuation to help users send money to contacts in emerging markets

Thumbtack is raising up to $120M on a flat valuation

Depop, a shopping app for millennials, bags $62M

Fitness startup Mirror nears $300M valuation with fresh funding

Step raises $22.5M led by Stripe to build no-fee banking services for teens

Possible Finance lands $10.5M to provide kinder short-term loans

Voatz raises $7M for its mobile voting technology

Flexible housing startup raises $2.5M

Legacy, a sperm testing and freezing service, raises $1.5M

Equity

If you enjoy this newsletter, be sure to check out TechCrunch’s venture-focused podcast, Equity. In this week’s episode, available here, Crunchbase News editor-in-chief Alex Wilhelm and I discuss how a future without the SoftBank Vision Fund would look, Peloton’s IPO and data-driven investing.

https://tcrn.ch/2BYQuGw Startups Weekly: The Peloton IPO (bull vs. bear) https://tcrn.ch/2ZitcFF

Maker Faire halts operations and lays off all staff

Financial troubles have forced Maker Media, the company behind crafting publication MAKE: magazine as well as the science and art festival Maker Faire, to lay off its entire staff of 22 and pause all operations. TechCrunch was tipped off to Maker Media’s unfortunate situation which was then confirmed by the company’s founder and CEO Dale Dougherty.

For 15 years, MAKE: guided adults and children through step-by-step do-it-yourself crafting and science projects, and it was central to the maker movement. Since 2006, Maker Faire’s 200 owned and licensed events per year in over 40 countries let attendees wander amidst giant, inspiring art and engineering installations.

“Maker Media Inc ceased operations this week and let go of all of its employees — about 22 employees” Dougherty tells TechCrunch. “I started this 15 years ago and it’s always been a struggle as a business to make this work. Print publishing is not a great business for anybody, but it works…barely. Events are hard . . . there was a drop off in corporate sponsorship.” Microsoft and Autodesk failed to sponsor this year’s flagship Bay Area Maker Faire.

But Dougherty is still desperately trying to resuscitate the company in some capacity, if only to keep MAKE:’s online archive running and continue allowing third-party organizers to license the Maker Faire name to throw affiliated events. Rather than bankruptcy, Maker Media is working through an alternative Assignment for Benefit of Creditors process.

“We’re trying to keep the servers running” Dougherty tells me. “I hope to be able to get control of the assets of the company and restart it. We’re not necessarily going to do everything we did in the past but I’m committed to keeping the print magazine going and the Maker Faire licensing program.” The fate of those hopes will depend on negotiations with banks and financiers over the next few weeks. For now the sites remain online.

The CEO says staffers understood the challenges facing the company following layoffs in 2016, and then at least 8 more employees being let go in March according to the SF Chronicle. They’ve been paid their owed wages and PTO, but did not receive any severance or two-week notice.

“It started as a venture-backed company but we realized it wasn’t a venture-backed opportunity” Dougherty admits, as his company had raised $10 million from Obvious Ventures, Raine Ventures, and Floodgate. “The company wasn’t that interesting to its investors anymore. It was failing as a business but not as a mission. Should it be a non-profit or something like that? Some of our best successes for instance are in education.”

The situation is especially sad because the public was still enthusiastic about Maker Media’s products Dougherty said that despite rain, Maker Faire’s big Bay Area event last week met its ticket sales target. 1.45 million people attended its events in 2016. MAKE: magazine had 125,000 paid subscribers and the company had racked up over one million YouTube subscribers. But high production costs in expensive cities and a proliferation of free DIY project content online had strained Maker Media.

“It works for people but it doesn’t necessarily work as a business today, at least under my oversight” Dougherty concluded. For now the company is stuck in limbo.

Regardless of the outcome of revival efforts, Maker Media has helped inspire a generation of engineers and artists, brought families together around crafting, and given shape to a culture of tinkerers. The memory of its events and weekends spent building will live on as inspiration for tomorrow’s inventors.

https://tcrn.ch/2wH1gyL Maker Faire halts operations and lays off all staff https://tcrn.ch/2MzBmYs

FCC passes measure urging carriers to block robocalls by default

{rss:content:encoded} FCC passes measure urging carriers to block robocalls by default https://tcrn.ch/2KwfGKg http://bit.ly/31g8sQq June 07, 2019 at 08:29PM

The FCC voted at its open meeting this week to adopt an anti-robocall measure, but it may or may not lead to any abatement of this maddening practice — and it might not be free, either. That said, it’s a start towards addressing a problem that’s far from simple and enormously irritating to consumers.

The last two years have seen the robocall problem grow and grow, and although there are steps you can take right now to improve things, they may not totally eliminate the issue or perhaps won’t be available on your plan or carrier.

How to stop robocalls spamming your phone

Under fire for not acting quick enough in the face of a nationwide epidemic of scam calls, the FCC has taken action about as fast as a federal regulator can be expected to, and there are two main parts to its plan to fight robocalls, one of which was approved today at the Commission’s open meeting.

The first item was proposed formally last month by Chairman Ajit Pai, and although it amounts to little more than nudging carriers, it could be helpful.

Carriers have the ability to apply whatever tools they have to detect and block robocalls before they even reach users’ phones. But it’s possible, if unlikely, that a user may prefer not to have that service active. And carriers have complained that they are afraid blocking calls by default may in fact be prohibited by existing FCC regulations.

The FCC has said before that this is not the case and that carriers should go ahead and opt everyone into these blocking services (one can always opt out), but carriers have balked. The rulemaking approved today basically just makes it crystal clear that carriers are permitted, and indeed encouraged, to opt consumers into call-blocking schemes.

That’s good, but to be clear, Wednesday’s resolution does not require carriers to do anything, nor does it prohibit carriers from charging for such a service — as indeed Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon already do in some form or another. (TechCrunch is owned by Verizon Media, but this does not affect our coverage.)

BREAKING: The @FCC votes to authorize call blocking to help stop #robocalls. That’s good news. Now the bad news: it refuses to prevent new consumer charges and fees to block these awful calls. That’s not right. We should stop robocalls and do it for FREE.https://t.co/6bay6cnujN

— Jessica Rosenworcel (@JRosenworcel) June 6, 2019

Commissioner Starks noted in his approving statement that the FCC will be watching the implementation of this policy carefully for the possibility of abuse by carriers.

At my request, the item [i.e. his addition to the proposal] will give us critical feedback on how our tools are performing. It will now study the availability of call blocking solutions; the fees charged, if any, for these services; the effectiveness of various categories of call blocking tools; and an assessment of the number of subscribers availing themselves of available call blocking tools.

A second rule is still gestating, existing right now more or less only as a threat from the FCC should carriers fail to step up their game. The industry has put together a sort of universal caller ID system called STIR/SHAKEN (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited / Secure Handling of Asserted information using toKENs), but has been slow to roll it out. Pai said late last year that if carriers didn’t put it in place by the end of 2019, the FCC would be forced to take regulatory action.

Why the Commission didn’t simply take regulatory action in the first place is a valid question, and one some Commissioners and others have asked. Be that as it may, the threat is there and seems to have spurred carriers to action. There have been tests, but as yet no carrier has rolled out a working anti-robocall system based on STIR/SHAKEN.

Pai has said regarding these systems that “we [i.e. the FCC] do not anticipate that there would be costs passed on to the consumer,” and it does seem unlikely that your carrier will opt you into a call-blocking scheme that costs you money. But never underestimate the underhandedness and avarice of a telecommunications company. I would not be surprised if new subscribers get this added as a line item or something; Watch your bills carefully.

Economic development organizations: good or bad for entrepreneurial activity?

Bill Baumel Contributor

Bill Baumel is Managing Director at the Ohio Innovation Fund. After twenty years in Silicon Valley - 4 public companies and 10 major acquisitions - Bill came home to the Midwest creating OIF, whose 14 companies have attracted partners such as Microsoft, Facebook, SAP, and Sanofi, providing SaaS, cyber, AI/ML and med tech solutions to a majority of the Fortune 500.

In developing VC markets such as the Midwest, some may think that funding from the government or economic development organizations are a godsend for local entrepreneurs. Startups are often looking for all the help they can get, and a boost in funds or an attractive set of economic incentives can be perceived as the fuel they need to take the next step in their growth journey.

While this type of funding can be helpful, a startup should ensure that funding from these sources is not a double-edged sword. The biggest positive, of course, is the money, which can help startups with product development, hiring, marketing, sales and more. But there can also be certain restrictions or limitations that are not fully understood initially—these restrictions could hinder growth at an inopportune time later on.

The inevitable question, then, is should startups consider partnering with the government or various economic development groups as they look to get off the ground? Let’s take a closer look.

What Local Economic Development Organizations Have to Offer

Today, particularly in the Midwest, it’s common for state and local governments to offer startups incentives such as tax exemptions or grants in an effort to keep local businesses around and also attract companies from other regions.

So how do these incentives work? When it comes to tax credits or exemptions, local governments are sometimes willing to provide these incentives if a startup can demonstrate how paying lower taxes will benefit the wider community.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Economic development organizations: good or bad for entrepreneurial activity? https://tcrn.ch/2MAzy1v

Daily Crunch: Facebook’s cryptocurrency is coming

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Facebook plans June 18 cryptocurrency debut. Here’s what we know

Facebook is finally ready to reveal details about its cryptocurrency, codenamed Libra. It has currently scheduled a June 18 release of a white paper explaining its cryptocurrency’s basics, according to a source.

It sounds like Facebook’s cryptocurrency will be a stablecoin, transferable with zero fees via Facebook products including Messenger and WhatsApp.

2. NASA declares International Space Station ‘open for business,’ including private astronaut visits

NASA’s plan also includes allowing private business activities to take place on the ISS, including “in-space manufacturing,” marketing activities, healthcare research “and more,” NASA says.

3. How Amazon’s delivery robots will navigate your sidewalk

In Amazon’s current trial, the robots are always accompanied by human assistants — who probably look like robot dog walkers as they trot through the neighborhood.

4. HTC launches Vive Pro Eye stateside, costs four times as much as Rift S

HTC’s Vive Pro Eye headset is its latest enterprise play, integrating an eye-tracking camera to give users an additional input mode and a way for users to signal attention. It’s available in a bundle with SteamVR 2.0 base stations and Vive controllers for $1,599.

5. Depop, a social app targeting millennial and Gen Z shoppers, bags $62M, passes 13M users

Depop is a London startup that’s built an app for individuals to post and sell (mostly resell) items to groups of followers.

6. Walmart to launch in-home grocery delivery in three cities, starting this fall

The service will allow the retailer to deliver items directly to a customer’s fridge or freezer, even when that customer isn’t home.

7. Why identity startup Auth0’s founder still codes: It makes him a better boss

An interview with Eugenio Pace, who founded Auth0 in 2013. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2HZTaaR Daily Crunch: Facebook’s cryptocurrency is coming Anthony Ha https://tcrn.ch/2F9cjWn
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Weighing Peloton’s opportunity and risks ahead of IPO

Exercise tech company Peloton filed confidentially for IPO this week, and already the big question is whether their last private valuation at $4 billion might be too rich for the appetites of public market investors. Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons leading up to the as-yet revealed market debut date.

Risk factors

The biggest thing to pay attention to when it comes time for Peloton to actually pull back the curtains and provide some more detailed info about its customers in its S-1. To date, all we really know is that Peloton has “more than 1 million users,” and that’s including both users of its hardware and subscribers to its software.

The mix is important – how many of these are actually generating recurring revenue (vs. one-time hardware sales) will be a key gauge. MRR is probably going to be more important to prospective investors when compared with single-purchases of Peloton’s hardware, even with its premium pricing of around $2,000 for the bike and about $4,000 for the treadmill. Peloton CEO John Foley even said last year that bike sales went up when the startup increased prices.

Hardware numbers are not entirely distinct from subscriber revenue, however: Per month pricing is actually higher with Peloton’s hardware than without, at $39 per month with either the treadmill or the bike, and $19.49 per month for just the digital subscription for iOS, Android and web on its own.

That makes sense when you consider that its classes are mostly tailored to this, and that it can create new content from its live classes which occur in person in New York, and then are recast on-demand to its users (which is a low-cost production and distribution model for content that always feels fresh to users).

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Weighing Peloton’s opportunity and risks ahead of IPO https://tcrn.ch/2Z7krxU

Answers to your burning questions about how ‘Sign In with Apple’ works

{rss:content:encoded} Answers to your burning questions about how ‘Sign In with Apple’ works https://tcrn.ch/2HZPsxX https://tcrn.ch/2Mv6nNg June 07, 2019 at 06:12PM

One of the bigger security announcements from Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference this week is Apple’s new requirement that app developers must implement the company’s new single sign-on solution, Sign In with Apple, wherever they already offer another third-party sign-on system.

Apple’s decision to require its button in those scenarios is considered risky — especially at a time when the company is in the crosshairs of the U.S. Department of Justice over antitrust concerns. Apple’s position on the matter is that that it wants to give its customers a more private choice.

From a security perspective, Apple offers a better option for both users and developers alike compared with other social login systems which, in the past, have been afflicted by massive security and privacy breaches.

Apple’s system also ships with features that benefit iOS app developers — like built-in two-factor authentication support, anti-fraud detection, and the ability to offer a one-touch, frictionless means of entry into their app, among other things.

For consumers, they get the same fast sign-up and login as with other services, but with the knowledge that the apps aren’t sharing their information with an entity they don’t trust.

Consumers can also choose whether or not to share their email with the app developer.

If customers decide not to share their real email, Apple will generate a random — but real and verified — email address for the app in question to use, then will route the emails the app wants to send to that address. The user can choose to disable this app email address at any time like — like if they begin to get spam, for example.

The ability to create disposable emails is not new — you can add pluses (+) or dots (.) in your Gmail address, for example, to set up filters to delete emails from addresses that become compromised. Other email providers offer similar features.

However, this is the first time a major technology company has allowed customers to not only create these private email addresses for sign-ins to apps — but to also disable those addresses at any time if they want to stop receiving emails to them.

Despite the advantages to the system, the news left many wondering how the new Sign In with Apple button would work, in practice, at a more detailed level. We’ve tried to answer some of the more burning questions to common questions. There are likely many more questions that won’t be answered until the system goes live for developers and Apple updates its App Review Guidelines, which are its hard-and-faste rules for apps that decide entry into the App Store.

1) What information does the app developer receive when a user chooses Sign In with Apple?

The developer only receives the user’s name associated with their Apple ID, the user’s verified email address — or the random email address that routes email to their inbox, while protecting their privacy — and a unique stable identifier that allows them to set up the user’s account in their system.

Unlike Facebook, which has a treasure trove of personal information to share with apps, there are no other permissions settings or dialog boxes with Apple’s sign in that will confront the user with having to choose what information the app can get access to. (Apple would have nothing more to share, anyway, as it doesn’t collect user data like birthday, hometown, Facebook Likes or a friend list, among other things.)

2) Do I have to sign up again with the app when I get a new iPhone or switch over to use the app on my iPad?

No. For the end user, the Sign In with Apple option is as fast as using the Facebook or Google alternative. It’s just a tap to get into the app, even when moving between Apple devices.

3) Does Sign In with Apple work on my Apple Watch? Apple TV? Mac?

Sign In with Apple works across all Apple devices — iOS/iPadOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod touch), Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch.

4) But what about Android? What about web apps? I use my apps everywhere!

There’s a solution, but it’s not quite as seamless.

If a user signs up for an app on their Apple device — like, say, their iPad — then wants to use the app on a non-Apple device, like their Android phone, they’re sent over to a web view.

Here, they’ll see a Sign In with Apple login screen where they’ll enter their Apple ID and password to complete the sign in. This would also be the case for web apps that need to offer the Sign In with Apple login option.

This option is called Sign In with Apple JS as it’s Javascript-based.

(Apple does not offer a native SDK for Android developers, and honestly, it’s not likely to do so any time soon.)

5) What happens if you tap Sign In with Apple, but you forgot you already signed up for that app with your email address?

Sign In with Apple integrates with iCloud Keychain so if you already have an account with the app, the app will alert you to this and ask if you want to log in with your existing email instead. The app will check for this by domain (e.g. Uber), not by trying to match the email address associated with your Apple ID — which could be different from the email used to sign up for the account.

6) If I let Apple make up a random email address for me, does Apple now have the ability to read my email?

No. For those who want a randomized email address, Apple offers a private email relay service. That means it’s only routing emails to your personal inbox. It’s not hosting them.

Developers must register with Apple which email domains they’ll use to contact their customers and can only register up to 10 domains and communication emails.

7) How does Sign In with Apple offer two-factor authentication?

On Apple devices, users authenticate with either Touch ID or Face ID for a second layer of protection beyond the username/password combination.

On non-Apple devices, Apple sends a 6-digit code to a trusted device or phone number.

8) How does Sign In with Apple prove I’m not a bot?

App developers get access to Apple’s robust anti-fraud technology to identify which users are real and which may not be real. This is tech it has built up over the years for its own services, like iTunes.

The system uses on-device machine learning and other information to generate a signal for developers when a user is verified as being “real.” This is a simple bit that’s either set to yes or no, so to speak.

But a “no” doesn’t mean the user is a definitely a bot — they could just be a new user on a new device. However, the developer can take this signal into consideration when providing access to features in their apps or when running their own additional anti-fraud detection measures, for example.

9) When does an app have to offer Sign In with Apple?

Apple is requiring that its button is offered whenever another third-party sign-in option is offered, like Facebook’s login or Google. Note that Apple is not saying “social” login though. It’s saying “third-party” which is more encompassing.

This requirement is what’s shocking people as it seems heavy-handed.

But Apple believes customers deserve a private choice which is why it’s making its sign-in required when other third-party options are provided.

But developers don’t have to use Sign In with Apple. They can opt to just use their own direct login instead. (Or they can offer a direct login and Sign In with Apple, if they want.)

10) Do the apps only have to offer Sign In with Apple if they offer Google and/or Facebook login options, or does a Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat sign in button count, too?

Apple hasn’t specified this is only for apps with Facebook or Google logins, or even “social” logins. Just any third party sign-in system. Although Facebook and Google are obviously the biggest providers of third-party sign-in services to apps, other companies including Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat have been developing their own sign-in options, as well.

As third-party providers, they too would fall under this new developer requirement.

11) Does the app have to put the Sign In with Apple button on top of the other options or else get rejected from the App Store?

Apple is suggesting its button is prominent.

The company so far has only provided design guidelines to app developers. The App Store guidelines which dictate the rules around App Store rejections won’t be updated until this Fall.

And it’s the design guidelines that say the Apple button should be on the top of a stack of other third-party sign-in buttons, as recently reported.

The design guidelines also say that the button must be the same size or larger than competitors’ buttons, and users shouldn’t have to scroll to see the Apple button.

But to be clear, these are Apple’s suggested design patterns, not requirements. The company doesn’t make its design suggestions a law because it knows that developers do need a degree of flexibility when it comes to their own apps and how to provide their own users with the best experience.

12) If the app only has users signing up with their phone number or just their email, does it also have to offer the Apple button?

Not at this time, but developers can add the option if they want.

13) After you sign in using Apple, will the app still make you confirm your email address by clicking a link they send you?

Nope. Apple is verifying you, so you don’t have to do that anymore.

14) What if the app developer needs you to sign in with Google, because they’re providing some sort of app that works with Google’s services, like Google Drive or Docs, for example?

This user experience would not be great. If you signed in with Apple’s login, you’d then have to do a second authentication with Google once in the app.

It’s unclear at this time how Apple will handle these situations, as the company hasn’t offered any sort of exception list to its requirement, nor any way for app developers to request exceptions. The company didn’t give us an answer when we asked directly.

It may be one of those cases where this is handled privately with specific developers, without announcing anything publicly. Or it may not make any exceptions at all, ever. And if regulators took issue with Apple’s requirement, things could change as well. Time will tell.

17) What if I currently sign in with Facebook, but want to switch to Sign In with Apple?

Apple isn’t providing a direct way for customers to switch for themselves from Facebook or another sign-in option to Apple ID. It instead leaves migration up to developers. The company’s stance is that developers can and should always offer a way for users to stop using their social login, if they choose.

In the past, developers could offer users a way to sign in only with their email instead of the third-party login. This is helpful particularly in those cases where users are deleting their Facebook accounts, for example, or removing apps’ ability to access their Facebook information.

Once Apple ID launches, developers will be able to offer customers a way to switch from a third-party login to Sign In with Apple ID in a similar way.

Do you have more questions you wish Apple would answer? Email me at sarahp@techcrunch.com

Why identity startup Auth0’s founder still codes: It makes him a better boss

If you ask Eugenio Pace to describe himself, “engineer” would be fairly high on the list.

“Being a CEO is pretty busy,” he told TechCrunch in a call last week. “But I’m an engineer in my heart — I am a problem solver,” he said.

Pace, an Argentinan immigrant to the U.S., founded identity management company Auth0 in 2013 after more than a decade at Microsoft. Auth0, pronounced “auth-zero,” has been described as like Stripe for payments or Twilio for messaging. App developers can add a few lines of code and it immediately gives their users access to the company’s identity management service.

That means the user can securely log in to the app without building a homebrew username and password system that’s invariably going to break. Any enterprise paying for Auth0 can also use its service to securely logon to the company’s internal network.

“Nobody cares about authentication, but everybody needs it,” he said.

Pace said Auth0 works to answer two simple questions. “Who are you, and what can you do?” he said.

“Those two questions are the same regardless of the device, the app, or whether if I’m an employee of somebody or if I am an individual using an app, or if I am using a device where there’s no human attached to it,” he said.

Whoever the users are, the app needs to know if the person using the app or service is allowed to, and what level of access or functionality they can get. “Can you transfer these funds?,” he said. “Can you approve these expense reports? Can you open the door of my house?” he explained.

Pace left Microsoft in 2012 and founded Auth0 during the emergence of Azure, which transformed Microsoft from a software giant into a cloud company. It was at Microsoft where he found identity management was one of the biggest headaches for developers moving their apps to the cloud. He wrote book after book, and edition after edition. “I felt like I could keep writing books about the problem — or I can just solve the problem,” he said.

So he did.

Instead of teaching developers how to become experts in identity management, he wanted to give them the tools to employ a sign-on solution without ever having to read a book.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Why identity startup Auth0’s founder still codes: It makes him a better boss https://tcrn.ch/2IpdYI7

Swiftly raises $10 million Series A to power real-time transit data in your city

Swiftly just raised a $10 million Series A round led by VIA ID, Aster Capital, Renewal Funds and Wind Capital to grow its software-as-a-service business for cities transportation agencies. ly works by helping cities manage their transit systems and identify points in the schedule or route that negatively impact service efficiency and reliability.

Swiftly also offers real-time passenger info that will “predict when the bus will arrive in a way that is much more accurate than the current system,” Swiftly co-founder and CEO Jonny Simkin told TechCrunch. In fact, Simkin says Swiftly is up to 30 percent more accurate than current systems.

“It’s one thing to tell someone their bus is ten minutes delayed but if we can get to the root of the problem, it’s better for the city and stimulates the economy,” he said.

That’s where Swifty’s data platform comes in to gather insights and analyze historical data to rethink route planning and where to place stops. In one city, these insights led the customer to implement processes to change lights to green when a bus is running behind schedule.

Swiftly currently works with over 50 cities and 2,500 transit professionals throughout the country. That comes out to powering more than 1.2 billion passenger trips per year. If you’ve never heard of Swiftly, you’re not alone. And that’s by design.

Swiftly is meant to be a behind-the-scenes software that enables local transportation agencies to better manage their fleets and offerings to their respective riders. Swiftly’s customer is generally either a transit agency, a city or department of transportation.

“They buy our platform because they want to improve the passenger experience, and improve service reliability and efficiency,” Simkin said.

For the passenger, they experience Swiftly when they open up Google Maps and look for transit routes or when they open a city’s specific transit service. One of Swiftly’s customers is the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in San Jose, Calif. Its CIO Gary Miskell says Swiftly is one of the authority’s early innovation partners.

“With Swiftly’s innovative product development, VTA has been able to improve our real time information accuracy and provide cutting edge data to our planning and operations staff thus improving our transit system performance,” Miskell said in a statement.

With the funding, the plan is to expand to several hundred cities in the U.S. and worldwide.

“Public transit is very important to our communities and cities and it’s something that needs to be more efficient,” Simkin said. “Public transit is this extensive piece of the community and there to serve everyone but often times those tools fall short.”

https://tcrn.ch/2WpX6pH Swiftly raises $10 million Series A to power real-time transit data in your city https://tcrn.ch/2WrcgLm

Unmortgage founder and CEO Rayhan Rafiq-Omar (centre) has departed the companny

Unmortgage, the London-based startup that wants to let people buy as little as five percent of a home and rent the rest, has lost its founder and CEO, TechCrunch has learned.

According to a regulatory filing on Companies House, Unmortgage’s Rayhan Rafiq-Omar was terminated as a Director on 4th of May, and has been replaced on the board by Unmortgage co-founder and product lead Josef Wasinski.

However, sources tell me the board room reshuffle is the result of Rafiq-Omar leaving the startup entirely, which is bound to come as a shock to London’s fintech and property tech community. It’s not clear why he has departed, although one source tells me it wasn’t of his own volition.

Rafiq-Omar is named on Companies House as a person of “significant control” of Unmortage, with a share ownership of more than 25% but not more than 50%, and voting rights of more than 25% but not more than 50%. He was also the driving force behind Unmortgage and in conversations I’ve had with the departing CEO over the last few years, I always got the impression he was not only determined to help fix the housing market but also wanted to build a business for the long term.

The company appeared to be off to a decent start, too, having raised a hefty £10 million seed round to funds its operations. Backing the round was fintech venture capital firms Anthemis Exponential Ventures (which lost its own CEO last year amid accusations of inappropriate behaviour), and Augmentum Fintech plc. Separately, Unmortgage had managed to court institutional investment to fund the acquisition of property, which was at the heart of its mortgage alternative model. In other words, there is a lot of money at stake.

Declining to discuss the specific reasons for his departure, Rafiq-Omar gave TechCrunch the following statement:

“Unmortgage is a genuine zero to one story – an innovation that inspired many to join me on a journey to restore hope in homeownership. I’m immensely proud to have created something from nothing over the last four years. But it’s the tough times that truly define us. And those around us.

So if there’s one thing I’d like you to quote me on, if you do write this story, it’s my deepest thanks to my family and friends during this personal and professional set-back. My parents and my wife Sofi have really stepped up to support me emotionally. And a special thanks should also go to [Rentify’s] George Spencer, James Micklethwait and my partners at Allianz Global Investors: Adrian Jones and Irshaad Ahmed. Their friendship at this time has been important to me.”

I’ve reached out to both Anthemis and Augmentum Fintech and will update this post if and when I hear back.

Meanwhile, an Unmortgage spokesperson provided the following statement:

“As Unmortgage enters the next stage of its growth strategy, it has strengthened and restructured its senior team to reflect the needs of the business.

“Hugh Boyle has been appointed as CEO and will be leading Unmortgage day-to-day as it provides a new route to homeownership for the millions of people who are currently locked out of the market. Hugh is the Former International Division CFO and CEO of MBIA UK Insurance, subsidiary of MBIA Inc. He will be supported by Nigel Purves, COO, Conrad Holmboe, CIO and Co-founder Josef Wasinski.

“Having founded the business alongside Josef and Nigel, we look forward to Ray playing a pivotal advisory role as Unmortgage continues its journey to help aspiring homeowners via our innovative gradual homeownership product.”

https://tcrn.ch/2K3qvnP Unmortgage, the ‘part own, part rental’ housing startup, loses founder and CEO https://tcrn.ch/2WuGGB9

Depop, a social app targeting millennial and Gen Z shoppers, bags $62M, passes 13M users

The rising popularity of omni-channel commerce — selling to customers wherever they happen to be spending time online — has spawned an army of shopping tools and platforms that are giving legacy retail websites and marketplaces a run for their money. Now, one of the faster growing of these is announcing an impressive round of funding to stay on trend and continue building its business.

Depop, a London startup that has built an app for individuals to post and sell (and mainly resell) items to groups of followers by way of its own and third-party social feeds, has closed a Series C round of $62 million led by General Atlantic. Previous investors HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Balderton Capital, Creandum, Octopus Ventures, TempoCap and Sebastian Siemiatkowski, founder and CEO of Swedish payments company Klarna all also participated.

The funding will be used in a couple of areas. First, to continue building out the startup’s technology — building in more recommendation and image detection algorithms is one focus.

And second, to expand in the US, which CEO Maria Raga said is on its way to being Depop’s biggest market, with 5 million users currently and projections of that going to 15 million in the next three years.

That’s despite strong competition from other peer-to-peer selling platforms like Vinted, Poshmark, and social platforms that have been doubling down on commerce, like Instagram and Pinterest, but on the other hand the opportunity is big: a recent report from ThredUp, another second-hand clothes sales platform, estimated that the total resale market is expected to more than double in value to $51 billion from $24 billion in the next five years, accounting for 10% of the retail market.

Prior to this, Depop had raised just under $40 million. It’s not disclosing its valuation except to say it’s a definitely upround. “I’m extremely happy,” Raga said when I asked her about it this week.

The rise of the bedroom entrepreneur

The funding comes on the heels of strong growth and strong focus for the startup.

If “social shopping”, “selling to groups of followers”, and the “use of social feeds” (or my headline…) didn’t already give it away, Depop is primarily aimed at millennial and Gen Z consumers. The company said that about 90% of its active users are under the age of 26, and in its home market of the UK it’s seen huge traction with one-third of all 16-24 year-olds registered on Depop.

Its rise has dovetailed with some big changes that the fashion industry has undergone, said Raga. “Our mission is to redefine the fashion industry in the same way that Spotify did with music, or Airbnb did with travel accommodation,” she said.

“The fashion world hasn’t really taken notice” of how things have evolved at the consumer end, she continued, citing concerns with sustainability (and specifically the waste in the fashion industry), how trends are set today (no longer dictated by brands but by individuals), and how anything can be sold by anyone, from anywhere, not just from a store in the mall, or by way of a well-known brand name website. “You can now start a fashion business from your bedroom,” she added.

For this generation of bedroom entrepreneurs, social apps are not a choice, but simply the basis and source of all their online engagement. Depop notes that the average daily user opens the app “several times per day” both to browse things, check up on those that they follow, to message contacts and comment on items, and of course to buy and sell. On average, Depop users collectively follow and message each other 85 million times each month.

This rapid uptake and strong usage of the service has driven it to 13 million users, revenue growth of 100% year-on-year for the past few years, and gross merchandise value of more than $500 million since launch. (Depop takes a 10% cut, which would work out to total revenues of about $50 million for the period.)

When we first wrote about Depop back in 2015 (and even prior to that), the startup and app were primarily aiming to provide a way for users to quickly snap pictures of their own clothes and other already-used items to post them for sale, one of a wave of flea-market-inspired apps that were emerging at that time. (It also had an older age group of users, extending into the mid-thirties.)

Fast forward a few years, and Depop’s growth has been boosted by an altogether different trend: the emergence of people who go to great efforts to buy limited editions of collectable, or just currently very hot, items, and then resell them to other enthusiasts. The products might be lightly used, but more commonly never used, and might include limited edition sneakers, expensive t-shirts released in “drops” by brands themselves, or items from one-off capsule collections.

It may have started as a way of decluttering by shifting unused items of your own, but it’s become a more serious endeavor for some. Raga notes that Depop’s top sellers are known to clear $100,000 annually. “It’s a real business for them,” she said.

And Depop still sells other kinds of goods, too. These pressed-flower phone cases, for example, have seen a huge amount of traction on Twitter as well as in the app itself in the last week:

Ordered a new phone case off this woman from depop who makes them with pressed flowers n she sent me this :’) pic.twitter.com/oBtRtQ1MJc

— megan (@__meganbenson) June 1, 2019

Alongside its own app and content shared from there to other social platforms, Depop extends the omnichannel approach with a selection of physical stores, too, to showcase selected items.

The startup has up to now taken a very light-touch approach to the many complexities that can come with running an e-commerce business — a luxury that’s come to it partly because its sellers and buyers are all individuals, mostly younger individuals, and, leaning on the social aspect, the expectation that people will generally self-police and do right by each other, or less risk getting publicly called out and lose business as a result.

I think that as it continues to grow, some of that informality might need to shift, or at least be complemented with more structure.

In the area of shipping, buyers generally do not seem to expect the same kind of shipping tracking or delivery professionals appearing at their doors. Sellers handle all the shipping themselves, which sometimes means that if the buyer and seller are in the same city, an in-person delivery of an item is not completely unheard of. Raga notes that in the US the company has now at least introduced pre-paid envelopes to help with returns (not so in the UK).

Payments come by way of PayPal, with no other alternatives at the momen. Depop’s 10% cut on transactions is in addition to PayPal’s fees. But having the Klarna founder as a backer could pave the way for other payment methods coming soon.

One area where Depop is trying to get more focused is in how its activities line up with state laws and regulations.

For example, it currently already proactively looks for and takes down posts offering counterfeit or other illicit goods on the platform, but also relies on people or brands reporting these. (Part of the tech investment into image detection will be to help improve the more automated algorithms, to speed up the rate at which illicit items are removed.)

Then there is the issue of tax. If top sellers are clearing $100,000 annually, there are taxes that will need to be paid. Raga said that right now this is handed off to sellers to manage themselves. Depop does send alerts to sellers but it’s still up to the sellers themselves to organise sales tax and other fees of that kind.

“We are very close to our top sellers,” Raga said. “We’re in contact on a daily basis and we inform of what they have to do. But if they don’t, it’s their responsibility.”

While there is a lot more development to come, the core of the product, the approach Depop is taking, and its success so far have been the winning combination to bring on this investment.

“Technology continues to transform the retail landscape around the world and we are incredibly excited to be investing in Depop as it looks to capture the huge opportunity ahead of it,” said Melis Kahya, General Atlantic Head of Consumer for EMEA, in a statement. “In a short space of time the team has developed a truly differentiated platform and globally relevant offering for the next generation of fashion entrepreneurs and consumers. The organic growth generated in recent years is a testament to the impact they are having and we look forward to working with the team to further accelerate the business.”

https://tcrn.ch/2WQado1 Depop, a social app targeting millennial and Gen Z shoppers, bags $62M, passes 13M users https://tcrn.ch/31fTo5u

FoodShot Global is digging up innovation for soil health as part of its first prize competition

FoodShot Global, a prize platform devoted to transforming the world’s food and agriculture industries, has awarded the first round of prizes for its Innovating Soil 3.0 competition.

Trace Genomics, a startup developing an analytics service for soil health to optimize the use of farmland, has received an undisclosed investment from FoodShot’s investment partner, S2G Ventures.

Additional awards of $250,000 were given to Keith Paustian to speed up the global adaptation of his COMET tool systems, which provide farmers with metrics and information on regenerative farming; and Gerlinde De Deyn, for her work studying biodiversity over time.

A $35,000 award was given to Dorn Cox to support the development of his open-source data project that will look to catalog knowledge around agriculture techniques and distribute that information freely to a global community of farmers.

“I founded FoodShot Global envisioning a new way to harness the power of innovation, capital, and the collaborative spirit of the world’s leading stakeholders to effect change,” said FoodShot Global founder and chairman Victor Friedberg. “We chose to start with soil because any future that imagines 10 billion people eating healthy and sustainably with equal access will require healthy soil. The three people we announced today are all groundbreakers whose inspired work lays the foundation for the next generation of solutions to the urgency we now face as a civilization. I couldn’t be more impressed and inspired by these inaugural FoodShot Global award winners and look forward to sharing what they’re doing with a larger audience.”

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J FoodShot Global is digging up innovation for soil health as part of its first prize competition https://tcrn.ch/2wIhasE

Voatz has raised $7 million in Series A funding for its mobile voting technology

Voatz, the four-year-old, Boston, Ma.-based voting and citizen engagement platform that has been at the center of debate over the merits and dangers of mobile voting, has raised $7 million in Series A funding. The round was co-led by Medici Ventures and Techstars, with participation from Urban Innovation Fund and Oakhouse Partners.

Voatz, which current employs 17 people, is modeled after other software-as-a-service companies but geared toward election jurisdictions, working with state and local governments to conduct elections and provide related election management and cybersecurity services.

As we’d reported back in March, the city of Denver agreed to implement a mobile voting pilot in its May municipal election using Voatz’s technology, an opportunity that was offered exclusively to active-duty military, their eligible dependents and overseas voters using their smartphones.

The company hasn’t yet shared how many people wound up using the platform. As Voatz cofounder and CEO Nimit Sawhney told us late yesterday, “Our most recent election in Denver CO finished last night on June 4th and the post election audit will be beginning shortly.”

Denver was not the company’s first pilot program. Rather, Voatz had conducted more than 30 pilots previously, including two in West Virginia last year that had attracted the financial backing of Tusk Philanthropies, the philanthropic operation of investor and strategist Bradley Tusk.

As for where Voatz will be used next, Sawhney says to “stay tuned. The next phase of our pilot programs will be announced by the relevant jurisdictions a bit later in the summer.”

Voatz has become the best-known mobile voting app, which has also made it the target of some unflattering attention, including last summer, when numerous security experts criticized it roundly in a Vanity Fair piece. One said it was “going to backfire.” Another warned that the “United States needs some form of vetting process for online voting in elections.” A software expert separately called Voatz an “horrifically bad idea.”

Apparently, investors, along with growing number of city and state governments, are still willing to bet that it’s better than what’s currently available.

Voatz had previously raised $2.2 million in funding led by the venture arm of Overstock.com.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Voatz has raised $7 million in Series A funding for its mobile voting technology https://tcrn.ch/2wDCyzv

The Ticket Fairy is tech’s best hope against Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster’s dominance has led to ridiculous service fees, scalpers galore, and exclusive contracts that exploit venues and artists. The moronic approval of venue operator and artist management giant Live Nation’s merger with Ticketmaster in 2010 produced an anti-competitive juggernaut. It pressures venues to sign ticketing contracts under veiled threat that artists would otherwise be routed to different concert halls. Now it’s become difficult for venues, artists, and fans to avoid Ticketmaster, which charges fees as high as 50% that many see as a ripoff.

But The Ticket Fairy wants to wrestle control of venues away from Ticketmaster while giving fans ways to earn tickets for referring their friends. The startup is doing that by offering the most technologically advanced ticketing platform that not only handle sales and checkins, but acts as a full-stack Salesforce for concerts that can analyze buyers and run ad campaigns while thwarting scalpers. Co-founder Ritesh Patel says The Ticket Fairy has increased revenue for event organizers by 15% to 25% during its private beta focused on dance music festivals. Now after 850,000 tickets sold, it’s officially launching its ticketing suite and actively poaching venues from Ticketmaster as it moves deeper into esports and conventions.

Ritesh’s combination of product and engineering skills, rapid progress, and charismatic passion for live events after throwing 400 of his own has attracted an impressive cadre of angel investors. They’ve delivered a $2.5 million seed round for Ticket Fairy adding to its $485,000 pre-seed from angels like Twitch/Atrium founder Justin Kan, Twitch COO Kevin Lin, and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman. The new round includes YouTube founder Steve Chen, former Kleiner Perkins partner and Mark’s sister Arielle Zuckerberg, and funds like 500 Startups, ex-Uber angels Fantastic Ventures, G2 Ventures, Tempo Ventures, and WeFunder. It’s also scored music industry angels like Serato DJ hardware CEO AJ Bertenshaw, Spotify’s head of label licensing Niklas Lundberg, and celebrity lawer Ken Hertz who reps Will Smith and Gwen Stefani.

“The purpose of starting The Ticket Fairy was not to be another EventBrite, but to reduce the risk of the person running the event so they can be profitable. We’re not just another shopping cart” Patel says. The Ticket Fairy charges a comparable rate to EventBrite’s $1.59 + 3.5% per ticket plus payment processing that brings it closer to 6%, but Patel insists it offers far stronger functionality.

Constantly clad in his golden disco hoodie over a Ticket Fairy t-shirt, Patel lives his product, spending late nights dancing and taking feedback at the events his clients host. He’s been a savior of SXSW the past two years, injecting the aging festival that shuts down at 2am with multi-night after-hours raves. Featuring top DJs like Pretty Lights in creative locations cab drivers don’t believe are real, The Ticket Fairy’s parties have won the hearts of music industry folks.

The Ticket Fairy co-founders. Center and inset left: Ritesh Patel. Inset right: Jigar Patel

Now the Y Combinator startup hopes its ticketing platform will do the same thanks to a slew of savvy features:

Earn A Ticket – The Ticket Fairy supercharges word of mouth marketing with a referral system that lets fans get a rebate or full-free ticket if they get enough friends to buy a ticket. 30% of ticket buyers are now sharing a Ticket Fairy referral link, and Patel says the return on investment is $30 in revenue for each $1 paid out in rewards, with 10% to 25% of all ticket sales coming from referrals. A public leaderboard further encourages referrals, with those at the top eligible for backstage passes, free merch, and bar tabs. And to prevent mass spamming, only buyers, partners, and street teamers get a referral code.

Creative Payment Options – The startup offers “FreeFund” tickets for free events that otherwise see huge no-show rates. Users pay a small deposit that’s refunded when they scan their ticket for entry, discouraging RSVPs from those who won’t come. Buyers can also pay on layaway with Affirm or LayBuy and then earn a ticket before their debt is due.

Anti-Scalping – The Ticket Fairy offers identity-locked tickets that must be presented with the buyer’s ID on arrival, which means customers can’t scalp them. Instead, the startup offers a waitlist for sold out events, and buyers can sell their tickets back to the company which then redistributes them at face value with a new QR code to a specific friend or whoever’s at the top of the waitlist. Patel says client SunAndBass Festival hasn’t had a scalped ticket in five years of working with the ticketer.

Clever Analytics – Never wasting an opportunity, The Ticket Fairy lets events collect contact info and demand before ticket sales start with its pre-registration system. It can ceate multiple variants of ticketing sites designed for different demographics like rock vs dance fans for a festival, track sales and demographics in real-time, and relay instant stats about checkins at the door. Integration of email managers like MailChimp and sales pixels like Facebook plus the ability to instantly retarget people who abandoned their shopping via Facebook Custom Audience ads makes marketing easier. And all the metrics, budgets, and expenses are automatically organized into financial reports to eliminate spreadsheet busywork.

Still, the biggest barrier to adoption remains the long exclusive contracts Ticketmaster and other giants like AEG coerce venues into in the US. Abroad, venues typically work with multiple ticket promoters who sell from the same pool, which is why 80% of The Ticket Fairy’s business is international right now. In the US, ticketing is often handled by a single company except for the 8% of tickets artists can sell however they want. That’s why The Ticket Fairy has focused on signing up non-traditional venues for festivals, trade convention halls, newly built esports arenas, as well as concert halls.

“Coming from the event promotion background, we understand the risk event organizers take in creating these experiences” The Ticket Fairy’s co-founder and Ritesh’s brother Jigar Patel explains. “The odds of breaking even are poor and many are unable to overcome those challenges, but it is sheer passion that keeps them going in the face of financial uncertainty and multi-year losses.” As competitors’ contracts expire, The Ticket Fairy hopes to swoop in by dangling its sales-boosting tech. “We get locked out of certain things because people are locked in a contract, not because they don’t want to use our system.”

The live music industry can brutal, though. Events can have slim margins, organizers are loathe to change their process, it’s a sales heavy process convincing them to try new software. But while record business has been redefined by streaming, ticketing looks a lot like it did a decade ago. That makes it ripe for disruption.

“The events industry is more important than ever, with artists making the bulk of their income from touring instead of record sales, and demand from fans for live experiences is increasing at a global level” Jigar concludes. “When events go out of business, everybody loses, including artists and fans. Everything we do at The Ticket Fairy has that firmly in mind – we are here to keep the ecosystem alive.”

from Social – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2F7N2vJ The Ticket Fairy is tech’s best hope against Ticketmaster Josh Constine https://tcrn.ch/2XwrLmg
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