Funding-round stories are TechCrunch’s bread and butter.

For early-stage companies, the fact that an investor has put thousands, millions (or billions) into an idea that will likely fail, and might never make money, is big news. That’s a story that we can tell every day.

From time to time, a debate pops up about the role of funding-round stories: Are financings the right metric to focus on? Should the trend be scratched and reinvented? After all, raising money is not indicative of making money. Let’s be real: news needs news to be published. There needs to be a tension, or a surprise, but most of all, a reason for the reader to keep reading.

It’s a healthy conversation, and one the Equity crew decided to discuss last Friday:

• Alex Wilhelm: Funding rounds are largely rose-tinted trade journalism, but they’re worth writing
• Danny Crichton: I hate funding announcements but write them anyway
• Natasha Mascarenhas: The stories are so much more than the dollar signs

Alex: Funding rounds are rose-tinted trade journalism, but they’re worth covering

It’s easy to mock funding-round coverage: There are far more rounds than hands to write them, so the coverage is inherently partial; they are a poor milestone to use as a benchmark for growth; and coverage of the startup in question nearly always has an overly positive tilt, given that the piece in question centers around something that is a win for the company.

Yet, I still think they are worth writing and try to get to a few each week.

There are good reasons for doing so that run counter to the obvious complaints. Sure, there are more rounds than we could ever cover, but in theory we’re filtering as best we can for the most interesting, the furthest outlying and the trend-elucidating rounds that we can use as a light to better illuminate how the broader startup and technology worlds are changing.

I think TechCrunch does a reasonable job of picking the right companies to cover and we spend a good amount of time aggregating discrete funding events into trends. It’s super-hard work, as covering a single round is time-consuming and ultimately not incredibly well-read.

And yes, funding rounds are not really milestones to celebrate. The startup isn’t suddenly destined to win. Capital just means that the venture class has increased its wager on the startup generating more wealth for themselves and their backers, whom are largely already rich.

But trying to lever any information from private companies is an exercise in sadistic dentistry, and startups tend to open up the most around funding rounds. So, if you want to chat with a CEO on the record for half an hour, the next time their startup raises is probably your best chance.

And there is signal in a venture round. Someone felt strongly enough about the company’s prospects to inject it with more capital, making a funding event a reasonable signal that something is going on at the company.

Then there’s the issue of positive bias. All publications have a bias. TechCrunch has many biases, the most important and salutary of which is that we think that startups are cool. We do! Quickly-growing, private companies are inherently interesting and I came back to this publication in part so that I could keep writing about them. I am never bored.

So, yes, funding-round coverage tends to be a bit more on the positive side of balanced than I would like, but I balance that by becoming increasingly orthodox as a startup scales. When a young company raises its first few million, the chat with the CEO is her telling me about her small team, first customers and fitful progress.

By the time she raises a $50 million Series C, we’re talking gross margin expansion, YoY ARR growth and diversity metrics. Before she takes her unicorn public, I’m asking pressing questions about GAAP results, the public markets and what sort of external offers are coming in for the whole concern.

Being slightly optimistic about startups when they’re young is, then, tempered by increasing scrutiny as the company grows. That seems like a fair balance for the company and our readers.

So I won’t stop covering funding rounds. Even if I didn’t have this job I probably still would for my personal blog. I always learn something from high-growth companies; they have a window into the market that is dynamic and far from ossified. And early-stage founders tend to not be overly media-trained, so they are still interesting.

And sometimes something you write winds up changing the direction of a startup. That’s always a very weird and disconcerting feeling. But as this impact is nearly always good for the company in question, you’ve only accidentally made the lives of others a bit better for a short while. It’s not so harsh a sentence.

Danny: I hate funding announcements but write them anyway

Covering startups is one of the hardest news beats out there (trust me, I’m unbiased — I cover startups for a living).

If you cover the Senate, you report regularly on 100 individuals, their staffs and interactions. If you cover banking, you watch a handful of banks since no one gives a flying rat’s tushy about the industry’s middle market. There’s generally a limited scope in political and general business reporting where you know the key players and the key newsmakers.

In startups, you cover … everything. There are a couple of hot sectors that everyone is talking about … and then there is every other sector that might be the next hot sector, but no one has ever heard of it. It’s probably not important. But it might just be. That startup you talked to this week sounds boring. Four years later, it sells for $20 billion. The startup world is constantly changing, and unless you blow up your whole worldview on a regular basis, you’ll never keep up.

Source: Tech Crunch

Welcome back to Mixtape, the TechCrunch podcast that examines diversity, inclusion and the human labor that drives tech.

This week, Megan moderated a panel at Sight Tech Global, a conference dedicated to fostering discussion among technology pioneers on how advances in AI and related technologies will alter the landscape of assistive technology.

The panel featured three heavy hitters in the accessibility space: Haben Girma (pictured above), the first deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School and who is a human rights lawyer advancing disability justice; Lainey Feingold, a disability rights lawyer who was on the team that negotiated the first web accessibility agreement in the U.S. in 2000; and George Kerscher, the chief innovations officer for the DAISY Consortium.

Among the topics they discussed were communicating via Zoom and other video platforms in the days of COVID, how tech companies have adhered to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the need for a culture shift if we’re going to realize any significant change.

“It’s all about a culture change to really make sure technology is accessible for everyone,” Feingold told Megan. “And you can’t get a culture change, I don’t believe, by hammering people. You get a cultural change by having conversation and relying on civil rights laws, but not as the hammer.”

And then there are the robots. Girma acknowledges that people in the disability community and people in the AI community are having conversations about technological advancements and accessibility. But she says that not enough of the people how are building the robots and using AI are having these conversations.

“Don’t blame the robots,” she says. “It’s the people who build the robots who are inserting their biases that are causing ableism and racism to continue in our society. If designers built robots in collaboration with disabled people who use our sidewalks and blind people who would Use these delivery apps, then the robots and the delivery apps would be fully accessible. So we need the people designing the services to have these conversations and work with us.”

Source: Tech Crunch

SpaceX is launching a new spacecraft during its 21st Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission for the International Space Station this morning. The launch is set to take off at 11:17 AM EST (8:17 AM PST) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and will be the first ever flight of an updated version of SpaceX’s cargo-specific Dragon spacecraft, which can carry more supplies and experiment materials and which can dock all on its own with the Space Station . Prior Dragon cargo craft required docking assistance from the robotic Canadarm guided by astronauts on board the ISS.

This redesigned version of Dragon can carry 20 percent more than the one it replaces, and it has twice the amount of powered locker cargo storage, which are used for transferring science experiments that require specific transportation environment conditions. It can also stay at the Space Station for over twice the max duration of the original, and each capsule is made to be reused up to five times. This new cargo craft is a modified version of the Crew Dragon, which SpaceX created to transport astronauts to the ISS. One of those is already docked at the station, so when this cargo Dragon arrives on Monday, there will be two SpaceX spacecraft attached to the ISS at once.

SpaceX realizes a bunch of performance improvements by using the new cargo Dragon design, but it also should mean that its supply chain is simpler since it’s essentially building the same Dragon spacecraft with modifications required depending on whether it’s intended for human crew use, or for a pure cargo mission like this one.

Today’s launch also uses a Falcon 9 first stage which flew the Demo-2 crew mission for SpaceX back in May, as well as a Starlink launch and the ANANSIS-II mission. It will attempt a landing at sea on SpaceX’s drone landing ship following separation from the second stage, so that SpaceX can reuse it again in future.

Source: Tech Crunch

With one fell swoop, WarnerMedia eradicated the status quo in Hollywood, turning its 2021 feature film schedule on its head. Well, not quite. By moving 2021’s theatrical releases to both physical and digital theaters, the AT&T affiliate gave us a reason to sign up for its HBOMax streaming service. With a simultaneous window of one month per title, the idea is that the vaccines will govern the timetable for viable return to movies plus popcorn.

Streaming has picked the lock on our path to the future. Even Donald Trump thinks so. Faced with open refusal by the networks to carry his rants about the election, he’s taken to Facebook Live to produce “press conferences” with his own cameras and no press. These shows are designed to fuel contributions of (so far) 200 million dollars to fund what in essence will be a nonstop infomercial campaign for the 2024 election. One problem: I don’t think it will work.

Instead, millions of Americans will begin to turn working from home into living through work. Digital networks like Zoom are becoming a superhighway for transforming ideas into post-pandemic realities. As the vaccines take root, we’ll inexorably restore the dream of mobility, the feeling of hitting the open road in search of our dreams. Only this time, we’re taking our families, friends, and coworkers with us. The rise of digital devices and notifications is disrupting the old business models and replacing them with next best step workflow.

We know what the office gives us: a place for hallway conversations that harness the elastic essence of the team. It’s based on inspiration, camaraderie, shared values, and just plain good timing. Don’t believe me? Ask anybody how their parents met. In the rush to virtualize the hallway conversation, we’re missing the fact that it’s really the only thing that’s working by default. The notification channel dominates our attention, and in aggregate who we give that to creates successful business outcomes.

Zoom is a perfect example of hallway serendipity. A brain dead simple on boarding process starts by clicking on a notification. If you have the Zoom client installed you’re in; if you don’t the download starts, and then you’re in. Zoom takes care of what device you’re using, what software tools are necessary to gather multiple people together across time zones and latencies, and provides in our case the recording and switching tools to stream the meeting across the network. If you can’t make the scene in real-time you can time shift until later.

How does Hollywood compete with that? The short answer is they don’t. HBO is saying the old way of business is over. It may seem like it will return to the good old days of the Saturday afternoon matinee (and it will) but the way it will happen is infused with digital. If you’re embedded in the Zoom economy you first hear about things over that channel. News, pitches, reminders, delivery arrivals, early voting, everything that can most efficiently alert you will succeed. If the networks you use produce effective service and empathetic trustworthy processes, they will be rewarded with your attention.

HBO has decided to run a vaccine trial where they give out a dose of the what will be alongside a placebo, what has been working up til now. Same product, two different experiences. What they’re really saying is: at some point, we’ll feel safe enough to return to the theaters. But will we? Sure, for the big experiences, the blockbusters, the roar of laughter and shared relief of having made it through. But that blockbuster is not the experience we crave, and the new streaming shared water cooler experience has its own joys and power.

How else do you explain the success of streaming shows like The Queen’s Gambit, where millions of us watch a small story about a young girl’s path to chess stardom. A chess movie? You betcha. Or The Crown, which blatantly makes up stories about the Royal Family with an underlying central truth that the show’s writer proclaims. To paraphrase, if I tell the essential truth about these people, I can get away with making up the dialogue. These shows are the thing the blockbusters can’t deliver, the emotional truth that soothes us as we shelter in place. HBO is betting on that model, plus the blockbusters when they’re safe again. Make America Safe Again.

__________________

The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary, and Steve Gillmor . Recorded live Friday, November 29, 2020.

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

@fradice, @mickeleh, @denispombriant, @kteare, @brentleary, @stevegillmor, @gillmorgang

For more, subscribe to the Gillmor Gang Newsletter and join the backchannel here on Telegram.

The Gillmor Gang on Facebook … and here’s our sister show G3 on Facebook.

Source: Tech Crunch

“Happiest Season,” a new film on Hulu, feels like a traditional, Christmas-themed romantic comedy — with one important exception.

The movie stars Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis as Abby and Harper, a lesbian couple who are visiting Harper’s parents for the holidays. As they drive back to Harper’s childhood home, she makes a big confession: Despite what she’s told Abby previous, she never actually came out to her parents, which means Abby has to spend five days simultaneously ingratiating herself with Harper’s family while hiding the true nature of their relationship.

As we discuss on the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, “Happiest Season” can feel predictable or even formulaic at times. But in some ways, that’s what makes it so worthwhile — it demonstrates how a broad, crowd-pleasing comedy can just happen to star queer characters.

Despite the frequent laugh-out-loud moments, the movie also feels surprisingly honest in its depiction of how hurtful Harper’s secrecy can be,  and it enters surprisingly painful and emotional territory as it approaches the end.

In addition to reviewing “Happiest Season,” we also name our favorite Christmas movies and discuss the news that that Warner Bros. will release its entire 2021 slate (including “Dune” and “The Matrix 4”) on HBO Max at the same time that the movies are released in theaters.

You can listen to our review in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also follow us on Twitter or send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

If you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:39 Listener email
2:07 HBO Max discussion
13:15 “Happiest Season” review
34:09 “Happiest Season” spoiler discussion
44:33 Favorite Christmas movies

Source: Tech Crunch

Tesla’s top leadership positions skew white and male with just 4% of those roles going to Black employees, according to the company’s first diversity and inclusion report released Friday.

The report shows that overall the company, which has factories in California, Nevada and New York, has a workforce that includes women as well as Black, Hispanic and Asian employees. Some 60% of its workforce is made up of people who are Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American and Pacific Islander. However, the vast majority of its workforce is male at 79%. That male representation ticks up to 83% when looking at leadership positions. It also gets whiter with 59% of leadership positions held by white people.

Here are some of the stats of its U.S. workforce:

• Black employees: 10% of workforce. This group has experienced a 60% increase in representation in management with 4% holding “director level and above” roles. Some 12% of its new hires in 2020 are Black and African American, a 9% increase from the previous year. Black employees received 10% of promotions in 2020, an 11% increase from 2019.
• Asian employees: 21% of workforce. Some 25% of Asian employees hold leadership positions.  Asian employees comprise 20% of all new hires and 23% of all promotions — a 15% increase from last year.
• Hispanic and Latinx employees: 22% of workforce and 4% of Tesla’s Director level and above employees. Hispanic and Latinx employees represented 24% of all promotions this year — a 14% increase. About 27% of all new hires in 2020 were Hispanic and Latinx.
• Women:  represent 21% of Tesla’s overall U.S. workforce and 23% of all promotions — a 5% increase from last year. Women hold 17% of “Director” and “Vice President” positions. In 2020, nearly 25% of all U.S. hires have been women.
• Men: represent 79% of its workforce in the United States and hold 83% of leadership positions.
• Veterans: represent 4% of its U.S. workforce.
• Additional groups: a designation that Tesla gives to employees who Native American, Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native, and other Pacific Islander or multiracial, represent 7% of its workforce and 1% of leadership.

Tesla did not provide additional details on retention of its minority workforce, information that can provide insight into the company’s culture and whether its efforts at inclusion are successful. The report didn’t release data on how many of its employees have disabilities. And while Tesla mentions LGBTQ employees receiving support at the company, there is no breakdown of how many are employed there or hold leadership positions.

The company acknowledged it had “work to do” to improve its numbers.

“While women are historically underrepresented in the tech and automotive industries, we recognize we have work to do in this area,” the company said in its report, one of several areas it is seeking employment. The report added that Tesla is “taking active steps” to increase outreach to women and build an inclusive culture that supports their development and retention. “Increasing women’s representation at all levels, especially in leadership, is a top priority in 2021,” the report said.

Tesla listed a few efforts to attract and retain women and minorities such as recruiting at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and expanding its internship program. However, the company didn’t provide targets or a timeline to reaching its goal to improve its diversity and inclusion metrics.

Source: Tech Crunch

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People now spend three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.

This week, Apple and Google announced their editorially curated lists detailing the best apps of the year, and Apple also revealed those that were downloaded the most. Apple also made a notable new hire for an App Store role and opened up its anticipated App Store Small Business Program to developers.

Top Stories

Best Apps of the Year

Image Credits: Apple

Both Apple and Google released their “best apps of 2020” year-end lists and there were some similarities between the two, as well as some differences. Both companies’ lists reflected the tough and stressful year 2020 has been, with everyone being stuck at home during a pandemic that changed how we worked, attended school, connected with friends and family, and entertained ourselves.

Apple and Google, as a result, both selected at least one “de-stressing” app among their year-end winners. In Apple’s case, it was Endel, an iOS app that won for Apple Watch App of the Year. Google, however, awarded sleep app Loóna the title of best app of the year.

Disney+ also made both Apple and Google’s lists, the former as Apple TV App of the Year and the latter as the User’s Choice for app of the year. The new streaming service was a godsend for families with younger children, who often struggled in 2020 to keep kids entertained. New releases like Onward and Mulan in 2020 helped give families something to look forward to, while Marvel and Star Wars content, including new series “The Mandalorian,” were hits with streamers, as well.

Another pandemic-prompted choice was Zoom, which won as iPad App of the Year. Though Zoom was around before the coronavirus outbreak, it’s now become a part of our everyday lexicon as an interchangeable term for “online video meeting” — as in, “let’s do a zoom call about that.” The iPad app at least made these endless virtual meetings a little less painless.

And home workout companion Wakeout! become Apple’s iPhone app of the year, as most people gave up the gym due to coronavirus risks. The app’s quick one-minute breaks helped users stay moving, even when stuck at home for days on the couch or working on their laptop in bed.

Image Credits: Genshin Impact (screenshot via Sensor Tower)

Meanwhile, gacha-based action role-playing game Genshin Impact won as “best game” of the year on both Apple and Google’s lists. While a cynical take is that the app stores wanted to point users to a huge moneymaker — the game reportedly earned $245 million its first month and nearly $400 million in two months on mobile — it also highlights consumers’ desire for console-like experiences on mobile.

The game, however, has been heavily criticized for its gacha game monetization techniques, which though common to games in China, Japan and South Korea, are basically gambling mechanics. And addictive ones at that. But as a Wired report noted, some of this comes down to cultural differences. U.S. users grew up on cartridge games, not arcade games, where you were constantly inserting more money to keep playing. Western users just aren’t as comfortable with this “spend to keep playing” business model, which they feel is predatory.

Apple’s other top apps of the year included perennial favorite Fantastical as Apple’s Mac App of the Year; Legends of Runeterra as iPad Game of the Year; Disco Elysium as Mac Game of the Year; Dandara Trials of Fear as Apple TV Game of the Year; and Sneaky Sasquatch as the Apple Arcade Game of the Year.

Google’s list also included SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off as users’ choice for best game, and it highlighted a variety of top titles in various gaming subgenres in a dedicated section of its Play Store.

2020’s most downloaded apps

Apple also gave a peek into the “best” apps of the year, as determined by app downloads. The pandemic played a role here as well, making Zoom the most-downloaded iPhone app of 2020.

Also of note, TikTok was the biggest social media app by downloads, ahead of all the Facebook-owned apps making the list, including Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Square’s Cash App hit No. 10, as the pandemic saw increased demand for contactless payments and direct giving to people in need.

The most-downloaded apps and games of 2020 were, as follows:

Top Free iPhone Apps

1. ZOOM Cloud Meetings
2. TikTok
3. Disney+
4. YouTube
5. Instagram
6. Facebook
7. Snapchat
8. Messenger
9. Gmail
10. Cash App

Top Paid iPhone Apps

1. TouchRetouch
2. Procreate Pocket
3. Dark Sky Weather
4. Facetune
5. HotSchedules
6. AutoSleep Track Sleep
7. The Wonder Weeks
8. SkyView
9. Shadowrocket
10. Sky Guide

Top Free iPhone Games

1. Among Us!
2. Call of Duty: Mobile
3. Roblox
4. Subway Surfers
5. Ink Inc. – Tattoo Drawing
6. Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game
7. Brain Test: Tricky Puzzles
8. Brain Out
9. Coin Master
10. Cube Surfer!

Top Paid iPhone Games

1. Minecraft
2. Plague Inc.
3. Heads Up!
4. Monopoly
5. Bloons TD6
6. Geometry Dash
7. NBA 2K20
8. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
9. The Game of Life
10. True Skate

Top Free iPad Apps

1. ZOOM Cloud Meetings
2. Disney+
3. YouTube
4. Netflix
5. Google Chrome
6. TikTok
7. Amazon Prime Video
8. Gmail
9. Hulu
10. Google Classroom

Top Paid iPad Apps

1. Procreate
2. GoodNotes 5
3. Notability
4. Duet Display
5. Teach Your Monster
6. LumaFusion
7. Affinity Designer
8. Toca Hair Salon 3
   9: Toca Life: Hospital
9. Toca Kitchen 2

Top Free iPad Games

1. Among Us!
2. Roblox
3. Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game
4. Ink Inc. – Tattoo Drawing
5. Call of Duty: Mobile
6. Subway Surfers
7. Dancing Road: Color Ball Run!
8. Tiles Hop – EDM Rush
9. Mario Kart Tour
10. Save The Girl!

Top Paid iPad Games

1. Minecraft
2. Monopoly
3. Bloons TD 6
4. Plague Inc.
5. Geometry Dash
6. The Game of Life
7. Five Nights at Freddy’s
8. Human: Fall Flat
9. Stardew Valley
10. Terraria

Top Arcade Games

1. Sneaky Sasquatch
2. Hot Lava
3. Skate City
4. Sonic Racing
5. PAC-MAN Party Royale
6. SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit
7. Oceanhorn 2
8. Crossy Road Castle
9. WHAT THE GOLF?
10. LEGO Brawls

Josh Elman joins Apple to focus on App Store discovery 

VC Josh Elman announced this week he was joining Apple in a role that will see him helping customers “discover the best apps for them.” In other words, app discovery.

Elman’s background includes RealNetworks, LinkedIn, Zazzle, Facebook and Twitter, and later moved into VC. Elman worked at venture firm Greylock in 2011 as a principal, and by 2013 he had become a general partner. While there, he invested in SmartThings, as well as social networks like Musical.ly (now the massive No. 2 app of the year, TikTok), Nextdoor, Houseparty and Discord. He later moved to fast-rising fintech startup Robinhood and now, he’s heading to Apple.

Weekly News

Platforms

• Apple opens up enrollment into the App Store Small Business Program. The program will reduce App Store commissions to 15% for qualified developers with revenues under $1 million.
• Google announced Android’s winter update will include an expanded Emoji Kitchen in Gboard, auto-narration for Google Play Book without narration, a “Go Tab” in Google Maps for frequent destinations, Android Auto soon arriving in more countries, support for app sharing in Nearby Share and Voice Access improvements.
• Google launches the first version of Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) on the Canary channel, along with Android Gradle plugin (AGP) version 7.0.0-alpha01. The release is also notable for moving to a year-based system more aligned with IntelliJ IDEA, the IDE upon which Android Studio is built. Going forward, the number scheme will work like this: <Year of IntelliJ Version>.<IntelliJ major version>.<Studio major version>. The new version of Android Studio includes over 200 improvements and bugs, including those in the code editor, app inspection tools, layout editor and the embedded emulator.

Services

• Amazon will now let iOS users text Alexa to ask for things instead of using their voice.

Security & Privacy

• Twitter now supports hardware security keys for iPhones and Android.
• Google Authenticator app for iOS adds a dark theme and support for bulk 2FA account transfers, helpful for switching between devices.
• Google launches Android Enterprise Essentials, an MDM for SMBs that will require their employees to use a lock screen and encryption to protect company data and can remotely wipe devices. It also prevents users from installing apps outside the Google Play Store via the Google Play Protect service.

Accessibility

• iPhones can now automatically recognize and label buttons and UI features for blind users using Screen Recognition in iOS 14.
• Android’s winter update, similarly, will introduce a new version of Voice Access that will use ML to understand interface labels and buttons on devices.

Apps in the News

• Google now lets anyone contribute to Google Maps’ Street View using the Street View app and Android phone that supports ARCore.
• Telegram is the first third-party app to use Apple’s Announce Messages with Siri feature for AirPods.
• Google adds the messaging feature every iMessage user dreams of: the ability to schedule sending of messages in Google’s Messages app.
• Reddit reveals DAUs for first time: 52 million.
• Google Assistant can now reply to messages from WhatsApp, Google Voice and more.
• Google Maps gets a Facebook-like news feed with business updates, local reviews and more.
• TikTok tests three-minute long videos. (But we don’t need longer versions of its viral hits like M to the B).
• Triller claims 321 million downloads and 65 million MAUs. (Former employees have accused the TikTok rival of inflating its numbers, which Triller denies.)
• Evernote rolls out a redesign on Android. The updates include a new note editor, faster search and improved navigation.
• Google’s learn-to-code app Grasshopper is now available in Spanish.
• WhatsApp will now allow users to set custom wallpapers, adds doodle wallpaper in more colors and adds new stickers.
• E-commerce app Wish accused of selling counterfeit products. 
• 7-Eleven adds its own mobile wallet to its app to allow customers, including cash customers, a contactless way to pay at its stores using their phone.
• Match-owned dating app Hinge refreshes design and adds a “Standouts” feature to show users outstanding prompts and photo prompts from their best potential matches, and can answer with a new paid feature, Roses.
• Quibi is really gone now.

Trends

Image Credits: App Annie

• App download rates have declined by 4% since 2015, but active engagement has grown.
• Messaging app usage is up 13% (four-year CAGR), and users spend 67% more time in messaging apps than in social media apps.
• Messaging apps that offer privacy features see, on avgerage, 30% more active users than alternatives.
• Q3 smartphone sales down 5.7% in Q3 to 366 million.
• Mobile shopping climbed 25% on Black Friday to $3.6 billion. 
• U.S. shopping app downloads on Black Friday reached a record 2.8 million per Sensor Tower, or 2.7 million per App Annie. App Annie also said shopping shopping app downloads topped 2.3 million on Thanksgiving and 2.1 million on Cyber Monday.
• On Black Friday, Walmart was the No. 1 U.S. shopping app download, followed by Amazon. On Cyber Monday, that was reversed, also per App Annie.
• In-app revenue was 150% higher on Black Friday than the average of the previous 30 days, says AppsFlyer.
• App Store and Google Play consumer spending topped $100 billion from January 1-November 29, Sensor Tower says.

Funding and M&A

• Salesforce buys Slack for $27.7 billion.
• VSCO acquires the tech and team from the AI-powered video editing app Trash to move further into the video market. Deal terms weren’t available, but Trash was backed by $3.3 million.
• Teen banking app Step raises $50 million. The app is TikTok star Charli D’Amelio’s first startup investment. Other investors included lead Coatue; returning investors from Stripe, Crosslink Capital, Collaborative Fund and Will Smith’s Dreamers VC; and celeb investors D’Amelio, Justin Timberlake and The Chainsmokers, Eli Manning, Kelvin Beachum, Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Iguodala.
• Ivanti acquired security firms, including enterprise mobile security firm MobileIron and corporate VPN provider Pulse Secure. Ivanti bought MobileIron for $872 million in stock.
• U.K. challenger banking app Monzo adds £60 million in funding.
• AR gaming startup Krikey raises undisclosed funding, including from Jio Platforms. The company has raised $22 million to date.
• Wellory raises $4.5 million for its anti-diet nutrition app.
• Airbnb to IPO with shares priced between $44 and $50.
• ESL app for kids Novakid raises $4.25 million.
• Virtual fitness app Salut raises $1.25 million.
• Video app Supergreat, a TikTok for beauty products, raises $6.5 million.
• Mental health app Intellect raises undisclosed round led by Insignia VP.

Review

We tried the Apple Watch Family Setup with a tween. They weren’t impressed with the apps or the controls, but did like the Memoji. No Roblox group chat on the small screen? Boo.

Downloads

Iconboard

Image Credits: Iconboard

If you find it too frustrating to use Apple’s Shortcuts to build your own custom icons, you can turn to Iconboard instead. This newly launched app lets you design a style for your icons and apply it to all of your icons at once. It can even create invisible icons to give you a way to space out items on your screen.

Cardlet

Image Credits: Cardlet

While I’ve been enjoying Punkpost’s custom designs for when I’m too lazy…err I mean busy…to send my own handwritten notes and cards, Cardlet is ready to give my go-to app a run for the money. Like Punkpost, Cardlet will send a real paper card on your behalf, but it adds a modern-day touch: The app includes a hidden AR experience that brings the card to life when viewed with the camera.

Heynote

Image Credits: Heynote

Some people don’t trust to-do lists, reminders or calendar notifications to always get the job done. When there’s something we really need to remember, we stick it directly on our home screen. (Okay, this one may only appeal to a small niche of scatterbrained users like me.) But if you have, in the past, also designed your own temporary wallpaper just so you won’t forget a super critical appointment, the Android app Heynote, (hat tip to Android Police!) might help. Instead of a widget or reminder, this app lets you put custom text directly on your home screen as a custom wallpaper. Doctor appt. at 11 AM? You can’t forget it when it’s there every single time you look at your phone.

Source: Tech Crunch

Who says that chats about enterprise software have to be boring? They don’t, we learned during our conversation earlier this week with Sapphire’s Jai Das, a pleasant time that touched on a host of topics including startup sectors, his investing group’s capital base and, of course, the Slack-Salesforce deal.

Our conversation took place about an hour before the deal was formally announced, but the tea leaves had been read by the market far in advance, so we were able to chat about it as if it was already consummated. Which it became a little while later.

Our conversation with Das was part of our Extra Crunch Live series, which you can learn more about here. If you’re not a member, head here to get started. Extra Crunch Live has previously hosted Bessemer’s Byron Deeter and Sequoia’s Roelof Botha, among others.

The whole chat with Das was interesting and good, but his comments explaining why Slack’s sale to the larger CRM giant stuck with me all week. Using Salesforce’s acquisition of MuleSoft (a company in which Das invested) as a prism, here’s how the venture capitalist discussed the plusses and minuses of selling to a bigger company.

After noting that MuleSoft might have been able to earn a larger revenue multiple as an independent company in today’s markets than it managed by selling to Salesforce, Das then detailed the sort of boost that a huge company can bring to one that is merely big (quote has been edited and condensed):

Going into your question about Salesforce and Slack, Salesforce, like any large company, does add a lot of value. When I talked to [former MuleSoft CEOs] Simon [Parmett] and Greg [Schott], they were astonished how much account control these large companies have with CIOs and CMOs.

MulesSoft would be beating on the door to get a meeting with the CIO and it wouldn’t happen. And you know, the Salesforce management team would just make one phone call, and Simon and Greg would be presenting to the CEO on down.

So I think that is the thing that people forget, that these large companies have so much ability to increase your sales velocity with large accounts, [so] it makes a lot of sense for some of these [smaller] companies to end up in Salesforce or SAP or Oracle, or WorkDay.

So perhaps Slack will find more oomph under Salesforce’s auspices than it could as a solo project. We spent the majority of our time talking about startups and smaller companies, so hit the jump for the full video and a few more quotes I transcribed for you.

Have fun!

Jai Das

Source: Tech Crunch