Month: June 2019

William Hockey, co-founder, chief technology officer and president of the fast-growing fintech business Plaid, will step down next week, TechCrunch has learned.

The former Bain associate (pictured above left) co-founded the startup in 2012 alongside chief executive officer Zach Perret. Today, the San Francisco-based company employs 300 with additional offices in Salt Lake City and New York.

Plaid has confirmed the news, stating that Hockey will remain on the company’s board of directors.

“This conclusion was neither a rash nor a recent decision,” Hockey writes in a blog post shared with TechCrunch. “Over the past couple of years, I have known that there would come a point at which I would choose to move to a purely strategic and advisorial role.”

Plaid builds infrastructure that allows consumers to interact with their bank account on the web, powering a number of third-party applications, like Venmo, Robinhood, Coinbase, Acorns and LendingClub. It rose to prominence recently, closing a $250 million Series C investment at a $2.65 billion valuation late last year. The deal was led by famed venture capitalist and author of the Internet Trends report Mary Meeker, who’s joined the startup’s board of directors.

In total, Plaid has secured $310 million in venture capital funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Coatue Management, Goldman Sachs, NEA, Spark Capital and others.

Plaid has integrated with 15,000 banks in the U.S. and Canada and says 25% of people living in those countries with bank accounts have linked with Plaid through at least one of the hundreds of apps that leverage Plaid’s application program interfaces (APIs) — an increase from 13% last year. Last month, the company launched its fintech platform in the U.K.

“As we’ve done in the U.S., Plaid will become the foundation for that growth by providing access to a financial network that allows developers to deliver the experience users expect from their financial apps,” the company wrote in a blog post.

TechCrunch participated in a panel discussion with Hockey and Brex CEO Henrique Dubugras last month, in which Hockey gave no indication of impending plans to leave the business. In fact, taking off just as Plaid amps up its global expansion efforts and accelerates growth is strange timing for a founder to depart.

Oftentimes, when a startup co-founder steps down from the C-suite, it’s to make room for a more experienced executive to lead the company through periods of fast growth. Recently, for example, Lime announced its co-founder Toby Sun would transition out of the CEO role to focus on company culture and R&D. Brad Bao, a Lime co-founder and longtime Tencent executive, assumed chief responsibilities.

Other times, it comes amid turmoil. Mike Cagney’s departure from SoFi, of course, is an example of this. One month after reports of a sexual harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit against the online lending business surfaced, SoFi announced Cagney would step down.

In Hockey’s case, the move was planned and calculated, he said. Plaid chief operating officer Eric Sager, who joined earlier this year, Perret and other executives will take over engineering and product reports, among Hockey’s other responsibilities.

“In tech, it has historically been taboo to talk about founders or executives transitioning to different roles inside companies,” Hockey writes. “Leadership transitions need to become a bedrock of any company that desires to endure across decades.”

Source: Tech Crunch

Source: Tech Crunch

Startup SafeAI, powered by a founding talent team with experience across Apple, Ford and Caterpillar, is emerging from stealth today with a $5 million funding announcement. The company’s focus is on autonomous vehicle technology, designed and built specifically for heavy equipment used in the mining and construction industries.

Out the gate, SafeAI is working with Doosan Bobcat, the South Korean equipment company that makes Bobcat loaders and excavators, and it’s already demonstrating and testing its software on a Bobcat skid loader at the SafeAI testing ground in San Jose. The startup believes that applying advances in autonomy and artificial intelligence to mining and construction can do a lot to not only make work sites safer, but also increase efficiencies and boost productivity — building on what’s already been made possible with even the most basic levels of autonomy currently available on the market.

What SafeAI hopes to add is an underlying architecture that acts as a fully autonomous (Level 4 by SAE standards, so no human driver) platform for a variety of equipment. Said platform is designed with openness, modularity and upgradeability in mind to help ensure that its clients can take advantage of new advances in autonomy and AI as they become available.

“We have seen and experienced deploying autonomous mining truck in production for last 10 years,” explained SafeAI Founder and CEO, Bibhrajit Halder in an email. “Now it’s time to take it to next level. At SafeAI, we are super excited to built the future of autonomous mine by creating autonomous mining equipment that just works.”

While SafeAI doesn’t have product in market yet, it is running its software on actual construction hardware at its proving ground, as mentioned, and it’s working with an as-yet unnamed large global mining company to deploy SafeAI in a mining truck, according to Halder. The company’s plan is to focus its efforts entirely on deploying fully Level 4 autonomy as its first available commercial product, with a vision of a future where multiple pieces of mining equipment are working together “seamlessly,” the CEO says.

Today’s $5 million round includes investment led by Autotech Ventures, and includes participation from Brick & Mortar Ventures, Embark Ventures and existing investor Mont Vista Capital.

Source: Tech Crunch

Get ready for summer in the city, TechCrunch -style. We just released a fresh batch of tickets to the 14th Annual TechCrunch Summer Party. Available on a first-come, first-served basis, tickets to our popular event sell out quickly, and they’ll be gone before you know it. Don’t wait — buy your ticket today.

Join us for TechCrunch’s fabulous summer fete at Park Chalet — San Francisco’s coastal beer garden — where you can enjoy ocean views, refreshing drinks and delicious appetizers. It’s a wonderful way to relax and celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit with more than 1,000 members of the startup community.

It’s also a wonderful way to meet your next investor, co-founder or — who knows? You’ll find startup magic in between the drinks, the games, the food and the fun. Opportunity happens at TechCrunch parties.

Check out the party particulars:

• When: July 25 from 5:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
• Where: Park Chalet in San Francisco
• How much: $95

Come and join the summer fun. Connect with community and opportunity. As always, you’ll have a chance to win great door prizes — like TechCrunch swag, Amazon Echos and tickets to Disrupt San Francisco 2019.

Tickets sell out quickly, so don’t wait. Buy your 14th Annual Summer Party ticket today.

Did you try to buy a ticket and come up empty? We release tickets to the Summer Party on a rolling basis. Sign up here, and we’ll let you know when the next batch goes on sale.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the TechCrunch 14th Annual Summer Party? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Source: Tech Crunch

I played Pokémon GO this weekend, because I was babysitting my nephew, and I couldn’t help but be reminded what a cultural force it was when it launched three years ago. Hundreds massed near San Francisco’s Ocean Beach every day to hunt. Huge crowds sprinted through Central Park to catch a Vaporeon. Disapproving finger-pointers penned whiny moral panics and sermons about how it encouraged crime and provoking danger.

One thing that was not controversial, though, was the belief that it was a harbinger, the thin edge of the AR wedge, only the first of many crossover games and universes. If you had told anyone then that, three who years later, Pokémon GO would remain the only real example of a widely publicly successful AR / VR app, you would have been laughed out of most rooms.

And yet, here we are. Pokémon GO is still a hit (and remains fun!) but was not the vanguard of an AR/VR onslaught. Magic Leap — which by 2016 had already raised $1.4 billion! — remains at best a disappointment. Which is almost too kind a word for Oculus. AR as an industry has, to oversimplify, largely pivoted to business / work / industrial uses, in the hopes an actual market appears there. What happened?

Note that this isn’t unique to augmented / mixed / virtual reality. 2016 was also that Meerkat, 2015’s hottest app, died, because livestreaming video, while it has its valid niche, was not the future of communications. It was also, at the same time, the year that chatbots were going to take over the world. You may have noticed that in fact they did not.

Looking back, is it really that surprising that Pokémon GO was a one-off, rather than the first ripple of a massive wave of change? Or that AR/VR have faltered and failed to meet expectations? Or that Meerkat and chatbots did not define how we would communicate in the future?

Of course it’s not. The history of innovation is a history of throwing new things at the wall and seeing if they stick — or, more accurately, throwing them into a crowd and seeing how the crowd reacts. Most bets on the big, household-name tech startups of the last two decades weren’t bets on their technologies but on how people would react to them. This especially applies applies to this year’s crop of IPOs — Uber, Lyft, Slack, Pinterest — but also to Twitter and Facebook, and even, to a lesser extent, Apple and Amazon. (Though interestingly not so much to Google, beyond the insight “people will use the Internet to search for stuff.”)

Of course sometimes the crowd ignores the offering flung into its midst. Or they choose one from an apparently similar array and turns its collective back on the rest. Are we really so surprised by this aspect of human nature?

We shouldn’t be. But to an extent we are — because, at least until 2016, the Valley’s techno-optimism had pervaded the rest of the world as well, journalists and politicians and the like. It was based on two pillars:

1. the genuine belief that technology was transforming erything around the world, including politics, culture, and finance, and these changes were almost invariably net positive
2. the surprisingly hard-headed financial analysis of venture capitalism, whose business model consists of being maximally optimistic about 100 different things while knowing that only 10 will actually succeed and 1 will succeed wildly, because in tech that one wild success more than pays for the 90 abject failures.

I don’t need to tell you that 1) is, at best way way more complicated that it seemed, and at worst horrifyingly wrong, while the worst aspects of politics / culture / finance as we knew them turned out to be ferociously intransigent and as able to infect the tech industry right back; meanwhile, the world has wised up to 2), now correctly recognizing VC optimism as a business model rather than a prophecy.

That doesn’t mean technology has lost its potential to be transformative in a positive way. But it means we’ve all grown more skeptical, more judicious, less reflexively optimistic. This is no bad thing. It means, for instance, if and when the next AR/VR hit finally arrives, we should all be better able to distinguish between silly moral panics and truly worrying consequences. At least let’s hope so. Because while the former are very real, so are the latter.

Source: Tech Crunch

Just about anyone can come up with a good idea. Fewer people can execute on that idea and turn it into a prototype or MVP. But there is still one final challenge for most entrepreneurs that can prove challenging.

How do you secure that initial seed capital and take your idea to the next level?

At Disrupt SF in October, Redpoint’s Annie Kadavy, DocDend’s Russ Heddleston and Precursor’s Charles Hudson will sit down together and chat it out on the Extra Crunch stage.

Kadavy, Heddleston and Hudson can offer a unique perspective on the process of early-stage fundraising.

Kadavy joined Redpoint in 2018 after a four-year stint at Charles River Ventures, where she sourced or led deals with ClassPass, Cratejoy, DoorDash, Lauren & Wolf and Patreon. She’s also spent time within firms like Bain & Company, Warby Parker and Uber Freight. She understands the importance of operational experience, and knows better than most how to take a company from point A to point B.

Heddleston, co-founder and CEO of DocSend, has a completely different perspective. DocSend is used to securely send and track documents, and one of the most prevalent documents on the platform happens to be pitch decks. Heddleston can tell us about what characteristics get (and keep) the attention of investors, as well as what turns them off.

Hudson, managing partner at Precursor Ventures, has been on both sides of the conference room table. He founded Bionic Panda Games, which was acquired by Zynga in 2010. He moved on to SoftTech VC (now Uncork Capital), where he spent eight years working on seed-stage investments in the consumer internet space. At Precursor Ventures, he’s continuing to invest in early-stage companies that are tackling problems in new markets.

These three each have their own perspective on how to get the attention of investors and how to turn a conversation into a cap table.

“How to Raise Your First Dollars” is but one of many panels that will take place on the Extra Crunch stage at Disrupt SF. The Extra Crunch stage, much like Extra Crunch on the web, is meant to serve as a resource for aspiring entrepreneurs and VCs, offering practical, step-by-step advice on how to get to where you’re going.

We’re thrilled to have Kadavy, Heddleston and Hudson join us at the show.

Disrupt SF runs October 2 – October 4 at the Moscone Center in SF. Tickets to Disrupt SF are available here.

( function() {
var func = function() {
var iframe = document.getElementById(‘wpcom-iframe-661cf9b1b8f85f5aae09b8946cafadba’)
if ( iframe ) {
iframe.onload = function() {
iframe.contentWindow.postMessage( {
‘msg_type’: ‘poll_size’,
‘frame_id’: ‘wpcom-iframe-661cf9b1b8f85f5aae09b8946cafadba’
}, “https://tcprotectedembed.com” );
}
}

// Autosize iframe
var funcSizeResponse = function( e ) {

var origin = document.createElement( ‘a’ );
origin.href = e.origin;

// Verify message origin
if ( ‘tcprotectedembed.com’ !== origin.host )
return;

// Verify message is in a format we expect
if ( ‘object’ !== typeof e.data || undefined === e.data.msg_type )
return;

switch ( e.data.msg_type ) {
case ‘poll_size:response’:
var iframe = document.getElementById( e.data._request.frame_id );

if ( iframe && ” === iframe.width )
iframe.width = ‘100%’;
if ( iframe && ” === iframe.height )
iframe.height = parseInt( e.data.height );

return;
default:
return;
}
}

if ( ‘function’ === typeof window.addEventListener ) {
window.addEventListener( ‘message’, funcSizeResponse, false );
} else if ( ‘function’ === typeof window.attachEvent ) {
window.attachEvent( ‘onmessage’, funcSizeResponse );
}
}
if (document.readyState === ‘complete’) { func.apply(); /* compat for infinite scroll */ }
else if ( document.addEventListener ) { document.addEventListener( ‘DOMContentLoaded’, func, false ); }
else if ( document.attachEvent ) { document.attachEvent( ‘onreadystatechange’, func ); }
} )();

Source: Tech Crunch

MobiKwik, a mobile wallet app in India that has expanded to add several financial services in recent years, said today it plans to enter international markets as it approaches profitability with the local operation. The company is kick-starting its overseas ambitions with cross-border mobile top-ups support.

The 10-year-old firm said it has partnered with DT One, a Singapore-headquartered payments network, to enable international mobile recharge (topping up credit to a mobile account), rewards, and airtime credit services in over 150 nations across some 550 mobile operators. The feature is now live on the app.

The feature is aimed at Indians living overseas and immigrants in India, Upasana Taku, co-founder of MobiKwik told TechCrunch in an interview. Millions of Indians go overseas to pursue education or look for a job. Currently, there is no convenient way for them to either help — or receive help from — their families and friends in India when they need to top up their phones.

Similarly, millions of people come to India in search for a job. The new functionality from MobiKwik will allow their families and friends to top up their mobile credit as well. Taku said there is no processing fee for customers as MobiKwik is absorbing all the overhead expenses.

For MobiKwik, mobile recharge is just the entry point to assess interest from users, Taku added. “This is the first service we are launching. We will eventually add other essential services as well. Mobile recharge will offer us good data points and will help us understand different markets,” she added.

MobiKwik is also studying different regulatory frameworks in overseas markets and holding conversations with stakeholders, she added.

The announcement comes at a time when MobiKwik is inching closer to profitability, a feat unheard of for a mobile wallet app provider in India. The firm, which claims to have grown its revenue by 100% in the last two years, expects to be profitable by this year and go public by 2022. (Interestingly, MobiKwik was looking to raise a big round at $1 billion valuation two years ago — which never happened.)

In the last one year, the firm has expanded to offer financial services such as loans, insurances, and investment advice. MobiKwik competes with a handful of payment services in India including Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay that either support, or fully work on top of a government-backed payment infrastructure called UPI. In April, UPI apps were used to carry out 782 million transactions, according to official figures.

The big numbers have attracted major investors, too. With $285.6 million in funding, India emerged as Asia’s top fintech market in the quarter that ended in March this year.

Source: Tech Crunch

Another day, another Target checkout outage.

Many took to social media to complain that checkouts at the retail giant went down for a second day in a row. Many stores were only taking cash and gift cards. It comes after Target suffered a global point-of-sale machine outage on Saturday. Checkouts were down for more than two hours.

Target said in a statement yesterday that it could “confirm that this was not a data breach or security-related issue” and “no guest information was compromised at any time.” Instead, the company blamed the outage on an “internal technology issue” without disclosing specifics.

The retail giant was forced to pay $162 million in expenses related to a data breach in 2013.

A spokesperson for Target didn’t immediately return a request for comment. We’ll update once we know more.

Source: Tech Crunch

American Airlines, the world’s largest airline by fleet size and passenger traffic, has finished rolling out satellite-based broadband Wi-Fi to its entire mainline narrowbody fleet of over 700 aircraft (that is, the Boing 737s and Airbus A319 and 320 that typically fly the company’s domestic routes). All of these satellite-equipped planes also offer access to 12 free channels of live TV that you can stream to your personal device, including on international flights where this hasn’t traditionally been an option.

Unless you are comfortably sitting in business class and sipping on your pre-departure champagne, modern air travel isn’t exactly a fun or relaxing experience, no matter the reason for your travel. If you need to get work done on a flight, though, having access to fast and reliable Wi-Fi can often make a huge difference.

Today’s announcement from American follows a similar announcement from last year, after the airline finishing bringing the same system to all of its widebody fleet. At this time last year, though, American had only brought this same system to a meager 13 percent of its narrowbody planes.

One thing worth noting is that it’s my understanding is that American isn’t counting some of its oldest MD-83s in this count. These will never get a Wi-Fi upgrade because they are currently being phased out for more modern jets.

As for the technology that powers all of this, American Airlines is betting on satellite-based systems that use either Gogo 2Ku or ViaSat Ka. Unlike some of the earlier ground-based systems, satellite systems have the obvious advantage of offering a larger coverage area (including over oceans) and more consistent connectivity. These new satellite-based systems also allow for significantly faster connections. Among American’s competitors, Delta is currently in the process of updating most of its fleet to satellite-based systems, too, while the situation at United remains a bit complicated.

“Elevating the travel experience is one of our top goals at American and we’ve been working hard to provide our customers with the same level of entertainment and connectivity options they enjoy in their own living rooms,” said Kurt Stache, Senior Vice President for Marketing, Loyalty and Sales for American. “In less than two years, we completed broadband internet installation on our entire mainline fleet and we will continue setting new standards in the industry to show our customers we value the time they spend with us.”

Soon, American will also bring power outlets to every seat in its mainline fleet, as well as its two-class regional fleet. Since American, just like most of its competitors, is also removing most of its in-seat entertainment systems in favor of personal device entertainment that is streamed to your phone or tablet, it is also now bringing tablet holders to most of its narrowbody fleet as well.

Unlike some of its competitors, American doesn’t offer free Wi-Fi access to chat apps — or even free Wi-Fi in general. Still, if you are an American loyalist, you’ll be happy to see that the airline now offers a consistent Wi-Fi product that is clearly a step up from some of the legacy systems that are still in use by some of the other carriers.

Source: Tech Crunch