2021 holds even more Samsung foldables

{rss:content:encoded} 2021 holds even more Samsung foldables https://ift.tt/2We03vM https://ift.tt/2LvKihu December 15, 2020 at 03:18PM

The foldable category got off to a famously rocky start. Fifteen months after the release of the first Galaxy Fold, Samsung has time to work out some of the issues with the original device in a fairly public fashion, given the world the better-received Galaxy Z Flip and Z Fold 2 this year.

Likely due to various stumbles from mobile manufacturers, the form factor has yet to redefine the industry in a meaningful way – but meaningful change takes time. And in case there was any doubt surrounding Samsung’s commitment to foldable displays, Mobile President TM Roh penned a letter on the company’s site, noting an expansion of the portfolio next year.

Whether that means an additional device or something more meaningful remains to be seen, though it does seem to suggest the arrival of at least one more affordable model. Price has certainly been a major hurdle for the adoption of these products. In the letter Roh notes that he/the company will be “sharing more in January” – perhaps an allusion to CES or a standalone Samsung event. Roh adds,

True to our heritage of staying ahead of the curve with trailblazing mobile tech, we’ll be expanding our portfolio of foldables, so this groundbreaking category is more accessible to everyone. And while we’re already known for our revolutionary cameras, we’ll never stop trying to outdo ourselves — so be on the lookout for super-intelligent, pro-grade camera and video capabilities in 2021. We’ve also been paying attention to people’s favorite aspects of the Galaxy Note experience and are excited to add some of its most well-loved features to other devices in our lineup.

Nothing particularly earth-shattering. With the race to 5G devices in the rear-view, the focus is seemingly back on cameras, in addition to folding screens. More after the holidays, no doubt.

Samsung’s new Galaxy Fold arrives September 18 for $2,000

 

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Taxdoo, the tax compliance platform for cross-border e-commerce, raises $21M Series A

Taxdoo, a startup that has built what it calls an “automated platform for financial compliance” aimed at cross-border e-commerce companies, has raised $21 million in new funding.

Leading the Series A round is venture capital firm Accel, with participation from Visionaries Club, 20VC and existing investor HTGF. The funding will be invested in Taxdoo’s growth — including international expansion– increased hiring, R&D, sales, and customer support. Accel’s Harry Nelis has joined the Taxdoo board.

The inclusion of Harry Stebbings’ 20VC is noteworthy, as the podcaster-turned-VC originally said his micro fund was targeting U.S. startups across various stages, and therefore there wasn’t any perceived conflict with his role as a partner at European VC Stride. Taxdoo is based out of Hamburg, Germany. “20VC essentially invests largely in the U.S. but can also invest where Stride does not, anywhere in Europe outside of the U.K. and Paris,” clarified Stebbings in a WhatsApp message.

Founded in May 2016, after its three founders — Christian Koenigsheim, Matthias Allmendinger, and Roger Gothmann — finished their PhDs in finance at the University of Hamburg, Taxdoo wants to use automation to meet the tax and compliance burden faced by cross-border e-commerce companies that sell on various marketplaces and platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and Shopify. This sees those businesses facing increasing complexity around VAT, accounting and other compliance requirements, with data siloed across multiple online systems.

Taxdoo brings that data into a single place and then uses its own tech to automate transaction-level data ingestion, tax calculation and filings across Europe. Customers can also collaborate with their tax advisors through the platform and reduce other compliance burdens, including Intrastat filings.

“While it has become easier and easier to sell products across borders in Europe from a marketing and logistics standpoint, the resulting compliance obligations – like accounting or VAT – are a nightmare for sellers,” Taxdoo’s Christian Koenigsheim tells me.

“Handling these issues manually using spreadsheets is a recipe for disaster. To solve this problem, we’ve used our in-house expertise to automate the entire process – from the collection of data to the filing of VAT returns in different countries and the integration of transactions into the seller’s accounting system”.

Koenigsheim says a typical Taxdoo customer sells products on different marketplaces and their own shop, with annual revenues of around €5-10 million. “Our largest customers are global consumer brands with annual revenues of €150 million and above,” he says.

Examples include D2C brands like air up and YFood or e-commerce companies OmniDeal and sellvin. “Among others, we partner with tax professionals, ERP systems, and e-commerce agencies to help them handle these complex issues for their clients,” adds Koenigsheim.

“Our secret sauce is that we automate the entire workflow from end-to-end. This starts with the aggregation of data from different channels like marketplaces, shops, and ERP systems using our automated connectors. Our system [then] analyses data under all applicable regulations and prepares the required returns across the EU, which are filed by an international network of tax partners using a convenient software solution created by us”.

Taxdoo data can also be exported to a seller’s accounting system, enabling them to more easily collaborate with local tax advisors.

Meanwhile, the addressable market is growing fast, in part helped by accelerated digitisation during the pandemic and the growth of e-commerce. Taxdoo cites data showing that cross-border transactions now represents approximately 25% of total e-commerce transactions in Western Europe and Scandinavia, and is rising.

Cue statement from Accel’s Harry Nelis: “With a booming e-commerce landscape and companies of all sizes looking to sell their products and services internationally, we see an acute need for integrated financial and tax compliance. Taxdoo’s founders bring together unique experience at the intersection of tax, finance and software and we are excited to work with them to build Taxdoo into a category defining company”.

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Dott to expand beyond e-scooters with bike-sharing service

Dott is better known for its electric scooter service that is available in a few cities across Europe. But the company is working on electric bikes and wants to launch a bike-sharing service in London and Paris in March 2021.

Dott currently doesn’t operate in London. So it looks like it’ll be the company’s 16th city with this launch.

As for the bike, it has been designed by Dott and it is going to be assembled in Portugal. It is built around a colorful frame made from a single piece of aluminum — there’s no welding. The company also opted for puncture-resistant tyres thanks to foam tyre inserts.

As you can see on the photo, there’s no visible chain as it’s integrated in the frame. The battery can be swapped by Dott without having to bring the entire bike to the charging station. There’s also an integrated geolocation system.

“This European-made bike has been designed inline with our mission: to make mobility accessible to all. Our multimodal (e-bike and e-scooter) service will include the same level of operational excellence: removable batteries, secure charging, operations performed by experienced professionals, systematic repairs and recycling,” co-founder and COO Maxim Romain said in the release.

Dott will compete with Lime, which acquired Jump back in May as part of a deal with Uber. Bolt has also been operating bike-sharing services in some cities.

And, of course, Dott will compete with pay-as-you-go docked bike rental schemes, such as Santander Cycles in London and Vélib’ in Paris. In Paris alone, Vélib’ now has 400,000 subscribers. As it is a subsidized service, it’s going to be hard to compete on price.

How four European cities are embracing micromobility to drive out cars

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Arya raises $21M to provide farmers in India finance and post-harvest services

Only about a third of the yields Indian farmers produce reaches the big markets. Those whose produce makes it there today are able to leverage post-harvest services. Everyone else is missing out.

A Noida-based startup is working with all the stakeholders — farmers, food processors, traders and financial institutions — to bridge this post-harvest services gap — and it just secured new funds to continue its journey.

Seven-year-old Arya said on Tuesday it has raised $21 million in its Series B financing round. The round was led by Quona Capital, a venture firm that focuses on fintech in emerging markets. Existing investors LGT Lightstone Aspada and Omnivore also participated in the round, while multiple unnamed lenders are providing additional debt financing to the startup, Arya said.

Nearly all post-harvest interventions that exist in India today are focused largely toward major agriculture centres such as Kota in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan and Azadpur Mandi in capital New Delhi, explained Prasanna Rao, co-founder and chief executive of Arya, in an interview with TechCrunch.

This uneven concentration has deprived millions of farmers in the country of reasonable options to efficiently store and sell their produce and of financing options to maintain their cash flow, he said.

“Our belief is that we should cater to the two-thirds of the market that are currently underserved. The Kota mandi (market), for instance, has 35 bank branches in a kilometre of radius. But if you travel 70 to 80 kilometres away from Kota, this really declines,” said Rao, who previously worked at a bank.

Arya is solving all the aforementioned challenges: It operates a network of more than 1,500 warehouses in 20 Indian states where it stores over $1 billion worth of commodities. This network allows farmers to store their produce at a centre that is much nearer to their farms, avoiding any spillage and exorbitant real estate costs of the big markets. On the credit side, Arya has disbursed over $36.5 million to farmers and its banking partners have disbursed more than $95 million.

“Arya is addressing a vastly underserved market of farmers in India, half of whom previously had little access to post-harvest finance,” said Ganesh Rengaswamy, co-founder and partner at Quona Capital, in a statement. “We believe Arya’s unique approach, providing a full-service digital platform with embedded finance and differentiated efficiencies for small farmholders, will drive the future of farming in India.”

The startup’s offerings have proven even more useful during the coronavirus pandemic, which saw New Delhi enforce one of the world’s strictest lockdowns earlier this year. The lockdown broke the supply chain network, and prices of agricultural commodities dropped by over 20%.

To navigate this, Arya connected farmer produce organizers, or FPOs, with buyers through its own digital marketplace a2zgodaam.com. “The need for immediate liquidity saw demand increase for credit against these warehouse receipts. Arya’s credit portfolio saw a 3x jump year-on-year,” wrote Prashanth Prakash, a founding partner at Accel in India, and Mark Kahn, managing partner at Omnivore in an industry report last week.

Rao said Arya will deploy the fresh capital to scale its fintech platform in a “big way” as the startup broadens its network of warehouses across the country. Additionally, the startup plans to fuel the growth of a2zgodaam.com, which also aggregates unorganized warehouses, and supercharge them with their own set of financiers and insurers and ways to allow farmers to sell directly through these warehouses if they need.

Amazon, Flipkart, Ola and Uber begin to resume their services in India

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UK Online Harms Bill, coming next year, will propose fines of up to 10% of annual turnover for breaching duty of care rules

The UK is moving ahead with a populist but controversial plan to regulate a wide range of illegal and/or harmful content almost anywhere online such stuff might pose a risk to children. The government has set out its final response to the consultation it kicked off back in April 2019 — committing to introduce an Online Safety Bill next year.

“Tech platforms will need to do far more to protect children from being exposed to harmful content or activity such as grooming, bullying and pornography. This will help make sure future generations enjoy the full benefits of the internet with better protections in place to reduce the risk of harm,” it said today.

In an earlier partial response to the consultation on its Online Harms white paper ministers confirmed the UK’s media regulator, Ofcom, as its pick for enforcing the forthcoming rules.

UK sets out safety-focused plan to regulate internet firms

Under the plans announced today, the government said Ofcom will be able to levy fines of up to 10% of a company’s annual global turnover (or £18M, whichever is higher) on those that are deemed to have failed in their duty of care to protect impression eyeballs from being exposed to illegal material — such as child sexual abuse, terrorist material or suicide promoting content.

Ofcom will also have the power to block non-compliant services from being accessed in the UK — although it’s not clear how exactly that will be achieved (or whether the legislation will seek to prevent VPNs being used by Brits to access blocked Internet services).

The regulator’s running costs will be paid by companies that fall under the scope of the law, above a threshold based on global annual revenue, per the government, although it’s not yet clear where that pay-bar will kick in (nor how much tech giants and others will have to stump up for the cost of the oversight).

The online safety ‘duty of care’ rules are intended to cover not just social media giants like Facebook but a very wide range of Internet services — from dating apps and search engines to online marketplaces, video sharing platforms and instant messaging tools, as well as consumer cloud storage and even video games that allow relevant user interaction.

P2P services, online forums and pornography websites will also fall under the scope of the laws, as will quasi-private messaging services, according to a government press release.

That raises troubling questions about whether the legal requirements could put pressure on companies not to use end-to-end encryption (i.e. if they face being penalized for not being able to monitor robustly encrypted content for illegal material).

“The new regulations will apply to any company in the world hosting user-generated content online accessible by people in the UK or enabling them to privately or publicly interact with others online,” the government writes in a press release.

The rules will include different categories of responsibility for content and activity — with a top tier (category 1) only applying to companies with “the largest online presences and high-risk features” which the government said is likely to include Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.

“These companies will need to assess the risk of legal content or activity on their services with ‘a reasonably foreseeable risk of causing significant physical or psychological harm to adults’. They will then need to make clear what type of ‘legal but harmful’ content is acceptable on their platforms in their terms and conditions and enforce this transparently and consistently,” it said.

Category 1 companies will also have a legal requirement to publish transparency reports about the steps they are taking to tackle online harms, per the government’s PR.

While all companies that fall under the scope of the law will be required to have mechanisms so people can easily report harmful content or activity while also being able to appeal the takedown of content, it added.

The government believes that less than three per cent of UK businesses will fall within the scope of the legislation — adding that “the vast majority” will be Category 2 services.

Protections for free speech are also slated as being baked in — with the government saying the laws will not affect articles and comments sections on news websites, for example. 

The legislation will contain provisions to impose criminal sanctions on senior managers (introduced by parliament via secondary legislation). On this the government added that it will not hesitate to use the power if companies fail to take the new rules seriously (such as by not responding “fully, accurately and in a timely manner” to information requests from Ofcom).

Commenting on the plans in a statement, digital secretary Oliver Dowden said: “I’m unashamedly pro tech but that can’t mean a tech free for all. Today Britain is setting the global standard for safety online with the most comprehensive approach yet to online regulation. We are entering a new age of accountability for tech to protect children and vulnerable users, to restore trust in this industry, and to enshrine in law safeguards for free speech.

“This proportionate new framework will ensure we don’t put unnecessary burdens on small businesses but give large digital businesses robust rules of the road to follow so we can seize the brilliance of modern technology to improve our lives.”

In another supporting statement, home secretary Priti Patel added: “Tech companies must put public safety first or face the consequences.”

Also commenting, Ofcom CEO, Dame Melanie Dawes, welcomed its new broader oversight remit, adding in a statement that: “Being online brings huge benefits, but four in five people have concerns about it. That shows the need for sensible, balanced rules that protect users from serious harm, but also recognise the great things about online, including free expression. We’re gearing up for the task by acquiring new technology and data skills, and we’ll work with Parliament as it finalises the plans.”

The government has said it will publish Interim Codes of Practice today to provide guidance for companies on tackling terrorist activity and online child sexual exploitation prior to the introduction of legislation — which is unlikely to make it into law before late 2021 at the earliest to allow adequate time for parliamentary debate and scrutiny.

And while a noisy political push to ‘protect kids’ online can expect to enjoy plenty of tabloid-level support, the wide-ranging application of the duty of care rules the government is envisaging — with large swathes of the UK’s tech sector set to be impacted — means ministers can expect to attract plenty of homegrown criticism too, from business groups, entrepreneurs and investors and legal and policy experts, including over specific concerns about knock-on impacts on privacy and security.

Its plan to push ahead with an Online Safety Bill that will impact scores of smaller digital businesses, instead of zeroing in on the handful of platform giants that are responsible for generating high volumes of harms, has already attracted criticism from the tech sector.

Coadec, a digital policy group that advocates for startups and the UK tech sector, branded the plan “a confusing minefield” for entrepreneurs — arguing it will do the opposite of fostering digital competition, counteracting other measures recently announced by the government in response to concerns about market concentration in the digital advertising sphere.

“Last week the Government announced a new unit within the CMA [Competition and Markets Authority] to promote greater competition within digital markets. Days later they have announced regulatory measures that risk having the opposite effect,” said Dom Hallas, Coadec’s executive director in a statement. “86% of UK investors say that regulation aiming to tackle big tech could lead to poor outcomes that damage tech startups and limit competition — these plans risk being a confusing minefield that will have a disproportionate impact on competitors and benefit big companies with the resources to comply.”

“British startups want a safer internet. But it’s not clear how these proposals, which still cover a huge range of services that are nowhere near social media from ecommerce to the sharing economy, are better targeted than the last time government published proposals nearly a year and a half ago,” he added. “Until the Government starts to work collaboratively instead of consistently threatening startup founders with jail time it’s not clear how we’re going to deliver proposals that work.”

UK to set up ‘pro-competition’ regulator to put limits on big tech

One gap in the government’s proposal is financial harms — with issues such as fraud and the sale of unsafe goods explicitly excluded from the framework (as it says it wants the regulations to be “clear and manageable” for businesses and to avoid the risk of duplicating existing rules).

Some “lower-risk” services may also be exempt from the duty of care requirement, per the government, to avoid the law being overly. burdensome.

Email services will also not be in scope, it confirmed.

And while it says some types of advertising will be in scope (such as influencer ads posted on social media) ads placed on an in-scope service via a direct contract between an advertiser and an advertising service (such as Facebook or Google Ads) will be exempt because “this is covered by existing regulation” — which looks set to let the adtech duopoly off the harmful ads hook without good clear reason.

After all, existing UK regulations do not seem to have done much to stem the tide of crypto scam ads running on Facebook (or served via Google’s ad tools) in recent years — which led to a campaign by a consumer advice personality to get Facebook and other companies to clean up their act, for example.

Facebook agrees to do more to tackle scam ads after celebrity defamation lawsuit

Consumer group Which? has criticized the lack of government attention to financial scams in the Online Safety Bill. In a response statement, Rocio Concha, its director of policy and advocacy, said: “It’s positive that the government is recognising the responsibility of online platforms to protect users, but it would be a big missed opportunity if online scams were not dealt with through the upcoming bill. Our research has shown the financial and emotional toll of scams and that social media firms such as Facebook and search engines like Google need to do much more to protect users.

“We look forward to the detail and hope to see a clear plan to give online platforms greater responsibility for fraudulent content on their sites, including having in place better controls to prevent fake adverts from appearing, so that all users can be confident that they will truly be safe online.”

European Union lawmakers are due to unveil their own pan-EU policy package to regulate illegal and harmful content later today — but the Digital Services Act will tackle the sale of illegal goods online as well as proposing to harmonize rules for reporting troublesome content on online services.

Europe to limit how big tech can push its own services and use third-party data

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Troy Carter and Suzy Ryoo’s music tech startup Q&A launches software group, Venice Innovation Labs

Q&A, a startup developing tech for the music industry co-founded by industry insiders Troy Carter (Lady Gaga’s first manager) and Suzy Ryoo (Carter’s longtime collaborator), has launched a new suite of software products through a division called Venice Innovation Labs.

The new tools are designed to help record labels beta test songs, manage artists and distribute music easily and efficiently, the company said in a statement.

The first releases from the new division are StreamRate, which provides sentiment analysis of new songs before they’re released; and Venice For Labels, which tracks splits and payments among different artists, manages and monitors music distribution, and helps labels keep track of their rosters.

The company is also providing a human touch through a strategic marketing and advisory “Premium Services” team led by Ray Kurzeka in North America and Matt Ott in the U.K.

“Technology is rapidly changing the way music is consumed, yet our industry’s infrastructure remains underserved. We’ve been quietly building beautiful and intuitive tools that labels will love, as well as services that move the needle. Our vision is to create an authentic community to empower brilliant artists and the labels that support them daily,” said Suzy Ryoo, president of Q&A. 

 

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Klima publicly launches its consumer-focused carbon offset app

Andreas Pursian, Markus Gilles and Jonas Brandau, the three co-founders of Klima, an app focused on helping consumers understand and offset their carbon emissions, first found entrepreneurial success at Hyper.

The mobile magazine publishing toolkit they developed was sold to Mic in 2017, but it was only the most recent success in a string of collaborations dating back nearly a decade.

“We had a fascination for technology and all the great things you could do to improve society,” said Gilles, Klima’s chief executive, in an interview earlier this year.

Klima, which launched this month, is in some way the culmination of those efforts.

Gilles and Pursian first met in university and later with Brandau they launched their first app, Pino, a mobile-based video op-ed page that had German Chancellor Angela Merkel as an early contributor on the platform.

The connection to politics and media continued with Hyper, their publishing platform that sold to Mic, and continues with Klima. With the app, the three co-founders have taken their media savvy and applied it to getting consumers to reduce and neutralize their carbon emissions through offsets and behavioral changes.

“Offsets can remedy and buy us a lot of time while we’re rebuilding our society,” said Gilles. “We need to get to 50% emissions reductions in the next 10 years which is a herculean task. We can’t afford to leave any climate solution on the table right now.”

Like other apps, Klima has identified diet as one of the major personal steps a person can take to reduce their emissions footprint. Substituting cars with biking, or electric vehicles, and buying less fast-fashion and more used clothing also has an impact.  

Klima’s app includes a carbon calculator, which measures a carbon footprint and allows users to offset that with a personalized monthly subscription. The company’s app also provides lifestyle tips to reduce emissions. Finally it offers a social sharing feature so that other would-be climate warriors can join the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

“We have a special situation right now,” said Gilles. “What we are doing as founders. We know that the climate crisis is not taking a pause because of the pandemic. We have raised enough funding right now to still be there when the pandemic is over.”

The company is backed by Jens Begemann, the founder of Wooga; Niklas Jansen, co-founder of Blinkist; Christian Reber, the founder of Pitch; and institutional investors including e.ventures, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures and 468 Capital.

To date, Klima has raised $5.8 million in financing. The company offers three types of offsets for its users. The first is natural solutions, like tree-planting projects; the second is tech-based solutions like solar power installations; and the third is social solutions, like replacing wood-burning cookstoves with electric or gas stoves for homes. 

“We’ve seen great traction with the app so far,” said Gilles. The company’s app is now live in 18 countries including the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and has the largest user base of any climate offset app currently on the market, the company said.

 

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Sequoia picks its horse in the consumer carbon offset market, leading a $2.5 million round for Joro

Sanchali Pal first woke up to the world’s climate crisis after watching the 2008 documentary Food Inc.

The Princeton undergraduate saw the film in 2011, and it started her on the journey that would lead her to launch Joro, the Sequoia-backed startup that monitors consumer spending to offer tips on how to offset and reduce a user’s carbon footprint.

After scoring a job at the development firm Dalberg, then working in India and Ethiopia, Pal returned to the U.S. to pursue an MBA at Harvard Business School. She initially thought she’d focus on transportation, but her mind kept returning to consumer consumption habits and the potential to reduce CO2 emissions by targeting consumer behavior.

“I started thinking about it in the fall of my first year at business school, and I kind of put it on the back burner because I didn’t know how to do it from a practical stand. I wasn’t a technology person. I didn’t build software myself,” Pal told Jason Jacobs, the host of the My Climate Journey podcast. “I didn’t know how we would capture the data to show someone their carbon footprint and help them reduce it until I met my co-founder [J. Cressica Brazier], and I met her at an MIT event in the spring of that year two years ago, and the wheels started turning, maybe there’s a tool here that we could build together.”

The Joro app uses consumer spending data culled from integrations with Plaid to identify changes in users’ personal habits that can make an impact on their overall carbon footprint — based on their personal spending.

The app also has a community component, connecting users with sustainability challenges, classes and other educational tools, along with a social network to communicate with peers to track relative progress.

Consider it a version of keeping up with the Joneses, but for planetary health and eco-consciousness.

To date, the app’s community of users have reduced nearly 6 million kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020. Which sounds impressive, but given reductions in travel due to COVID-19 mitigation restrictions, the largest contribution that a consumer can make is reducing their meat consumption. While that only leads to roughly 4% reductions in global carbon emissions, it reduces about 1,200 pounds of carbon emissions. Over the 6 million kilograms that would mean a little bit over 10,000 people may be using the app.

Pal would not comment on the number of users her company’s app has managed to attract.

Image Credit: Joro

What the company does have now is $2.5 million in seed funding from investors including Sequoia Capital, which doubled down on its $1 million pre-seed commitment made when Joro was part of the firm’s early-stage founder program.

Sequoia Capital has internal crash courses for its founders — here’s how they work

Other investors and advisors include the venture firms Expa and Amasia, and angel investors and advisors like James Park, the co-founder of Fitbit; Rich Pierson, the co-founder of Headspace; Sebastian Knutsson, the chief creative head and co-founder of King; the actress Maisie Williams; Philian, the private investment company of Karl-Johan Persson, chairman of H&M; Tom Baruch; and Anjula Acharia, a partner at Trinity Ventures.

“At Expa we are focused on backing remarkable founders that are passionate about the product they are building,” said Expa founder Garrett Camp in a statement. “We saw that in Sanchali – she had a big vision and conveyed it very strongly to us. We have conviction that Joro can build a great product and a great business. The world will be a better place because of what Joro will bring to market.”

Pal estimates that behavioral changes and better consumer choices can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint by up to 30%.

It’s a bet that other companies are making too. For instance, the Los Angeles challenger bank Aspiration, founded by Andrei Cherny, has a tool that can measure the “social impact” of a consumer’s monthly spending — that includes the climate impact of daily consumption.

Aspiration can now tell you the ‘social impact’ of your monthly spending

Pal hopes that through the education and community components of the app, consumers can put pressure on the systems and industries that are the primary producers of greenhouse gas emissions to change their ways.

“Systems are made of people. Like us,” Pal wrote in a blog post. “Companies and governments change when enough people demand it through their actions and behaviors. No, we’re not a silver bullet — we need policymakers and businesses to take sweeping action. But we’re not powerless either. Together we can accelerate the pace of change by demonstrating our demand for a cleaner society.”

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5 questions every IT team should to be able to answer

Christy Wyatt Contributor

Christy Wyatt is Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors at Absolute, a leader in endpoint resilience solutions and the industry’s only undeletable defense platform embedded in over a half-billion devices.

Now more than ever, IT teams play a vital role in keeping their businesses running smoothly and securely. With all of the assets and data that are now broadly distributed, a CEO depends on their IT team to ensure employees remain connected and productive and that sensitive data remains protected.

CEOs often visualize and measure things in terms of dollars and cents, and in the face of continuing uncertainty, IT — along with most other parts of the business — is facing intense scrutiny and tightening of budgets. So, it is more important than ever to be able to demonstrate that they’ve made sound technology investments and have the agility needed to operate successfully in the face of continued uncertainty.

For a CEO to properly understand risk exposure and make the right investments, IT departments have to be able to confidently communicate what types of data are on any given device at any given time.

Here are five questions that IT teams should be ready to answer when their CEO comes calling:

What have we spent our money on?

Or, more specifically, exactly how many assets do we have? And, do we know where they are? While these seem like basic questions, they can be shockingly difficult to answer … much more difficult than people realize. The last several months in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak have been the proof point.

With the mass exodus of machines leaving the building and disconnecting from the corporate network, many IT leaders found themselves guessing just how many devices had been released into the wild and gone home with employees.

One CIO we spoke to estimated they had “somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 devices” that went home with employees, meaning there could have been up to 20,000 that were completely unaccounted for. The complexity was further compounded as old devices were pulled out of desk drawers and storage closets to get something into the hands of employees who were not equipped to work remotely. Companies had endpoints connecting to corporate network and systems that they hadn’t seen for years — meaning they were out-of-date from a security perspective as well.

This level of uncertainty is obviously unsustainable and introduces a tremendous amount of security risk. Every endpoint that goes unaccounted for not only means wasted spend but also increased vulnerability, greater potential for breach or compliance violation, and more. In order to mitigate these risks, there needs to be a permanent connection to every device that can tell you exactly how many assets you have deployed at any given time — whether they are in the building or out in the wild.

Are our devices and data protected?

Device and data security go hand in hand; without the ability to see every device that is deployed across an organization, it becomes next to impossible to know what data is living on those devices. When employees know they are leaving the building and going to be off network, they tend to engage in “data hoarding.”

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Mombox is a curated kit of postnatal products that puts new moms first

Just last week, General Catalyst’s Peter Boyce explained how one of the most important things he looks for in a founder is a personal connection to the problem they’re solving. Kate Westervelt is one such founder.

Westervelt founded Mombox, a curated kit of postnatal care products focused squarely on the mom rather than the child. The company recently closed a $500,000 angel round led by Wayfund and TBD Angels, as well as high-net-worth individuals from organizations like Facebook, Amazon, Uber and Drizly.

Westervelt first came up with the idea for Mombox after having her first child and quickly learning that there were several products she’d need to help her body heal that were difficult to find, especially with a newborn on her hip.

Image Credits: Mombox

The standard Mombox includes organic overnight pads, a peri bottle, perineal ice pack, post-pregnancy panties and other care products to help soothe the body and mind. Mombox also offers a C-section box and a Deluxe Mombox.

For now, the Mombox is a one-time kit — Westervelt said the vast majority of kits are purchased as gifts — but the company has plans to build out the product to include a kit subscription, content and a platform to connect new moms with the care providers they may need during the first year of motherhood. Westervelt calls it a 24/7 pocket concierge, which would allow new mothers to ask questions and get connected with lactation consultants, pelvic floor therapists, marital therapists or whomever else they might need during their first year.

“The myth here, created by a male-dominated medical and maternal wellness community, is that postpartum recovery is six to eight weeks long,” said Westervelt. “The truth is that the body goes through a process known as matrescence, similar to adolescence, where the body and hormones and identity is changing, and that process lasts at least 12 months.”

She went on to say that there is usually just one check-up with a doctor after giving birth and after that, the mom is on her own. Mombox aims to stay with mom for the first 12 months of motherhood and eventually personalize the Mombox experience based on each mom’s journey, whether its breastfeeding or bottle, stay-at-home or working mom, etc.

“The greatest challenge is that the narrative has always been to put the child’s care first,” said Westervelt. “Mothers are willing to martyr themselves for the care of this infant at the expense of their own wellbeing. The challenge is to teach moms that they’re the nucleus. If they’re ok, their babies are ok.”

Westervelt bootstrapped Mombox up until this point (and is the only employee) after first serving as managing Lifestyle editor at Wayfair and then as director of Content Strategy at Purple Carrot. Mombox has spent $0 on marketing up until this point, growing revenue 100% year-over-year since inception on word of mouth.

The new funding will go toward hiring out a team and testing out new marketing strategies to fuel further growth and eventually build out the full-service platform Westervelt envisions.

General Catalyst’s Katherine Boyle and Peter Boyce are looking for ‘obsessive’ founders

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MIT professor wants to overhaul ‘The Hype Machine’ that powers social media

More than 3.6 billion people use social media, and its runaway success has left the industry at a crossroads. There are now heated debates in Washington and Brussels over the future of antitrust regulation for this market, whether platform operators should filter certain content (and if so, which types), and how to open the market to new innovators.

To find my way through this thicket of interesting questions, I spoke with Sinan Aral, a professor of management at the MIT Sloan School of Management who also co-leads MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy. He has spent years analyzing the social media market, directly participating in its development as chief scientist of SocialAmp and Humin and as a founding partner of Manifest Capital.

This fall, he published his latest book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores what’s next for social media giants. In our discussion, we talked about the landscape of the market today, what responsibilities companies and users have to each other and what come next as the industry evolves.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

TechCrunch: Why don’t we start with how the book came together and how you got interested in this topic of digital media and how it affects our decision-making?

Sinan Aral: I started researching social media four years before Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook. I have worked with all of the major social media platforms for the last 20 years: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, WeChat, Yahoo and the rest. I’ve published a number of very large-scale studies, and I’m also an entrepreneur. So, I’ve got a vantage point as a practitioner, but also as a long-time academic leader in this area.

We really have a full-blown social media crisis on our hands, as is obvious if you turn on the TV on any given day.

The reason why I wrote “The Hype Machine” is because essentially, we’ve seen this coming to a head for many years now. We really have a full-blown social media crisis on our hands, as is obvious if you turn on the TV on any given day.

My book takes off from where “The Social Dilemma” documentary and Shoshana Zuboff’s “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” leave off, which is to ask, what can we concretely do to solve the social media crisis that we find ourselves in? The book argues that in order to do that, we have to stop armchair theorizing about how social media works, and we have to stop debating whether or not social media is good or evil. The answer is yes.

The book goes through the fundamentals of how social media works. So, there’s a chapter on neuroscience and social media, and economics and social media, and that eventually informs the solutions in the book, which cover everything from antitrust and competition to federal privacy legislation. How do we secure our elections and our democracy? What do we do about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act? How do we balance free speech and hate speech? How do we deal with misinformation and fake news?

I think for a lot of us in tech, we’re a bit stuck. On one hand, these technologies have produced jarring amounts of wealth in the tech industry, but they have also caused a large number of harms. What do we do next?

Let me start by saying that the general framework of the solution is about what I call the four levers: money, code, norms and laws.

Money is the business models, which create the incentives for how the advertisers on the platforms and the users behave. Code is how we design the platforms and the algorithms underlying the platforms, which I go into in great detail. Norms are how we adopt, appropriate and use the technology. And obviously, laws are regulation.

In terms of solutions, I think the entry ticket for solving the social media crisis is creating competition in the social media economy. Platforms that lack competition don’t have any incentive to change away from the attention economy and their engagement-driven business models, nor do they have any real incentive to clean up their negative externalities in our information ecosystem, whether it’s hate speech or misinformation or manipulation.

Now, when I say competition, the first thing on everyone’s mind is always, “Oh, you mean break up Facebook.” But the point I make in the book — and I take a very clear stance on this — is that breaking up Facebook in this economy doesn’t solve the problem. This economy runs on network effects. The value of these platforms is a function of the number of users on the platform. Economies that run on network effects tend toward concentration and monopoly.

So, if you break up Facebook, it’s just going to tip the next Facebook-like company into market dominance. What we really need is structural reform of the social media economy, and that involves social network portability, data portability and interoperability legislation.

Let me push back on this a bit though. Terms like “data portability” always sound nice as a solution, but have we ever effectively used this tool to open a market?

This isn’t the first time that we’ve done this. During the AOL-Time Warner merger, we forced AOL’s AIM product to become interoperable with Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger. And it went from a 65% market share to a 59% market share one year later, down to like 50%, then it ceded the entire market to new entrants three years later.

Another good analogy is number portability in the cell phone market. It used to be that you couldn’t take your cell phone number with you when you switched from one cell phone provider to another, and then we legislated that they had to let you take your number with you. That was akin to a social network at the time, because all of your friends knew to call you at that number.

Research has shown that number portability created about $880 million of consumer surplus every quarter for years and years after it was instituted in Europe, and it created a lot of competition. We should have something very similar in social networks, around social network portability and data portability, so that we could create competition.

Now, if you break up Facebook after these kinds of structural reforms to the market, that’s a different question, but breaking up Facebook without structural reforms to the market economy is like putting a Band-Aid on a tumor. It’s not going to solve the underlying lack of competition that the social media economy has.

“The Hype Machine” details how we might do that and suggests that there could be a stack of commodity messaging formats that would be required to be interoperable. Then, you could have unique messaging formats for every platform on top of that. But things like texts, short-form videos, stories that either persist or disappear, that kind of stuff should have a level of interoperability that’s legislated. The entry ticket to solving the social media crisis is creating competition.

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Get a taste of TC Sessions: Space 2020 with an Expo Ticket

If your event budget is more like dental floss than a shoestring, this is your lucky day. Our $25 Expo Only ticket offers affordable access to an impressive array of presentations — and opportunity — at TC Sessions: Space 2020 on December 16-17.

Full disclosure: The Expo Only ticket does not include networking with CrunchMatch, the free Extra Crunch membership or access to the main stage programming. You’ll need a late registration pass to tap into those opportunities.

So, what exactly do you get with the Expo Only pass? You can explore the expo area to meet and connect with early-stage startups showcasing their innovative tech and talent. You also get access to all the breakout sessions (11 of them at last count) over the course of two days — including the Fast Money series. You need money to build your startup, and this series teaches you where and how to access grants and other funding opportunities.

Don’t miss the two University Research Showcase sessions, where you’ll hear about the latest space research and emerging space technologies. You’ll gain valuable insight on the current and future state of the space industry. Plus, you’ll have two opportunities to watch live pitch sessions and learn what VCs look for in a pitch deck. Get ready to take copious notes.

Schedule conflict? Don’t stress about missing any of the breakouts — they’ll be available as video on demand after the event. Go ahead, meet with a customer, flesh out your pitch deck — and catch up on anything you missed at your convenience.

Now that you know what’s included, here are four stellar breakout examples. You’ll find complete descriptions of all the breakout sessions in the event agenda.

Fast Money: Learn how SMC Space Ventures, AFWERX and Space Force Accelerators work together to connect startups to government organizations and resources in the space industry.

University Showcase — Boldly Innovating in Space, for Space (Part One): will feature scientists and academics from USC, MIT, UCLA, ASU and Caltech, Aerospace Corporation’s partners, sharing insights on their space research and highlighting a range of emerging space technologies.

Pitch Feedback Session: Join us for a pitch feedback session open to all startups exhibiting at TC Sessions: Space 2020 moderated by TechCrunch staff.

Starburst x TechCrunch Pitch Me to the Moon: Ten promising early-stage space startups will present their innovations live to a panel of high-profile judges from across the industry.

Don’t let a dental floss budget keep you from attending TC Sessions: Space 2020. Buy your Expo Only ticket now and get ready to discover up-and-coming startups, find funding resources and learn more about the latest space research and technology.

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