Month: February 2023

Daily Crunch: Remote workspace platform Gable raises $12M Series A

Published by skeptic

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. TikTok just can’t dodge the watchful eyes of the watchmen: Earlier this year, Taylor reported that a string of universities banned TikTok from devices. Last week, Paul reported that the European Commission threw the kibosh on having TikTok on work devices, and today, Amanda reported that Canada followed suit for its government devices. The bans are coming down over concerns that China-based TikTok can be used to spy on its users. — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Raise the roof: Continuing to work remotely in 2023 remains a hotly contested issue in today’s workplaces. What if we told you that Gable can give your company better remote working options? Still with us? Okay, Haje writes about how Gable raised $12 million to not only show your remote employees a nearby workplace, but also show them if any of their colleagues are there so they can connect. The world in the …

Startup inks $65M deal to help Air Force make ‘sustainable’ jet fuel on bases

Published by skeptic

Air Company, a startup that turns carbon dioxide into things like perfume, vodka, hand sanitizer and aviation fuel, is now on the U.S. Defense Department’s payroll, so to speak. The JetBlue and Toyota-backed company struck an up-to $65 million deal to help the Air Force capture CO2 and turn it into “sustainable” aviation fuel on base. Air Company said the carbon will initially come from industrial facilities — which is how the startup currently makes fuel at its “pilot plant” in Brooklyn, New York. But the startup also has its hands in direct air capture, which is “part of the technology that Air Company would be building out on site,” a spokesperson for the firm said. The goal is not for Air Company to supply fuel but to provide the Air Force with tech to make the fuel itself. The company called this “harm reduction” to “avoid fuel transportation as a target for explosives.” “The contract is tiered out over the next several years,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch, and Air Company aims to work with …

Rivian shares fall on missed revenue expectations, production forecast

Published by skeptic

Electric vehicle maker Rivian generated $663 million in revenue in the fourth quarter and $1.66 billion for the full year, a result that was buoyed by an uptick in production and deliveries towards the end of the year but still wasn’t enough to meet Wall Street’s expectations. Yahoo analysts surveyed expected Rivian to generate $742.4 million in the fourth quarter and 1.73 billion for the full year. Shares dropped on nearly 8% the news as shareholders focused on missed expectations, a recall and an increased, but still lower-than-expected production forecast for 2023. The company reported a net loss of $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter and $6.8 billion for the full year. On an adjusted basis, it reported a loss of $1.5 billion and $5.2 billion for Q4 and full year, respectively.  The company attributed its net loss to high inventory costs, specifically the cost of components, which were higher than what Rivian could realize per vehicle. Rivian also said it suffered losses on firm purchase commitments worth $920 million. Rivian said it expects these …

Mozilla leads Mastodon app Mammoth’s pre-seed funding

Published by skeptic

Mammoth, a recently launched Mastodon app that’s trying to make it easier on users who want to join the decentralized social web, has a notable financial backer. The company confirmed that its leading pre-seed investor is Mozilla, a proponent of the open web, who invested in the company’s first general round alongside others, including Long Journey Ventures and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff. The company has a unique founding story as well. The app was originally built by iOS developer Shihab Mehboob, the creator behind a number of apps including the whimsical music app Vinyls and the Twitter client Aviary 2. The latter was impacted by Elon Musk’s Twitter API changes which put an end to third-party Twitter clients, prompting Mehboob to turn his attention to the decentralized and open source Twitter alternative Mastodon. Mammoth was the result of those efforts, but it has since been acquired by the company that’s now running the project, led by principal developer Bart Decrem. Now, the team at Mammoth is just three full-time employees and a handful of contractors. And …

TIDAL will cut ‘direct artist payout’ program to invest more in emerging artists

Published by skeptic

The Block-owned music streaming service TIDAL is shifting the way it pays artists after an experimental program failed to generate results. Unlike Spotify and other market leaders, which pay musicians small fractions (…of fractions) of pennies for each play, TIDAL has taken a more imaginative approach to artists payouts. The platform, which targets consumers who seek a higher-quality audio experience, introduced a novel direct artist payouts (DAP) program last year. For customers on the $19.99/month HiFi Plus tier, each individual subscriber’s most-listened artist would get 10% of their subscription fee. As it turns out, that plan didn’t work. In April, TIDAL will end the DAP program. “The DAP program focused only on a listener’s #1 artist, which left much, much less room for emerging artists to get paid,” TIDAL CEO Jesse Dorogusker wrote in a Twitter thread today. He said that 70,000 artists were enrolled in the program, but they only paid out $500,000, which was “far short” of TIDAL’s goal. In lieu of DAP, TIDAL is investing more money into its TIDAL Rising program, …

Ethereum NFT marketplace passes $1B in volume for first time since May as the creator royalties war heats up

Published by skeptic

The NFT market may be finding its footing again as the market for non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain surpassed $1 billion for the first time since May 2022. Amid the recent rebound, NFT marketplace Blur has also bested the once-largest NFT marketplace OpenSea in monthly volume for the third month in a row as the crypto market debates the issue of NFT creator royalties. Earlier this month, Blur also released its highly anticipated token airdrop, which disbursed about 360 million Blur tokens to users, or about 12% of the project’s total supply. Many speculated that Blur activity would fall off after its airdrop lure concluded. Instead, trading volume on the marketplace continued to grow. The rise of Blur in the NFT market has helped reignite a debate concerning royalties. In previous quarters, OpenSea tried to balance creator royalties as it held the top position for NFT marketplaces, but Blur’s aggressive stance is causing OpenSea to change its tack. Blur’s NFT marketplace has a 0.5% royalty fee, which many view as so nominal it’s basically …

Jack Dorsey-backed Twitter alternative Bluesky hits the App Store as an invite-only app

Published by skeptic

Bluesky, the Twitter alternative backed by Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, has hit the App Store and more testers are gaining access. Though the app is still only available as an invite-only beta, its App Store arrival signals that a public launch could be nearing. We haven’t heard much from Bluesky since October 2022, when the team behind the project shared an update on the Bluesky blog, detailing the status of the social protocol that powers its new Twitter-like app, also called Bluesky. AT (originally called ADX, or “Authenticated Transfer Protocol,”) is Bluesky’s main effort while the Bluesky mobile app serves to showcase the protocol in action. Similar to the ActivityPub protocol that powers Mastodon, AT offers the means of creating a federated and decentralized social network. However, there’s been some criticism of the project, notably from Mastdon and other developers, who pointed out that ActivityPub — a recommended W3C standard — already powers a large and growing “Fediverse” of interconnected servers. And that Fediverse has been gaining traction following Musk’s Twitter acquisition as users …

Dish confirms ransomware attack allowed hackers to steal personal data

Published by skeptic

U.S. satellite television provider Dish confirmed that a ransomware is to blame for an ongoing outage and warned that intruders exfiltrated data from its systems. The multiday outage, which began last Thursday and was confirmed by Dish on Monday, is affecting Dish’s main website, apps, and customer support systems, along with the company’s Sling TV streaming and wireless services. Now, in a public filing published Tuesday, first spotted by Bleeping Computer, Dish said it had “determined that the outage was due to a cyber-security incident and notified appropriate law enforcement authorities.” Dish initially blamed the outage on “internal systems issues.” The company goes on to say that the filing relates to expectations “regarding its ability to contain, assess and remediate the ransomware attack and the impact of the ransomware attack on the corporation’s employees, customers, business, operations or financial results.” Dish said in the filing that the attackers extracted “certain data” from its IT systems, noting that this data may include personal information. It’s unclear whether this personal information belongs to Dish employees, customers, or both, and …

Tesla’s next factory will be in Mexico, president confirms

Published by skeptic

Tesla plans to build a new factory in Monterrey, Mexico, the country’s president said Tuesday confirming speculation that the automaker would set up shop there. Notably, Tesla has agreed to use recycled water, addressing a major environmental concern in northern Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said. Tesla will share more information about the new factory during its investor day event scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, said López Obrador who is also known as ALMO. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expected present the long-awaited and often teased Master Plan 3 during the company’s investor day that will be held at the company’s Gigafactory Texas located near Austin. Investors will be able to see its production line and discuss with its leadership team topics like the company’s long-term expansion plans, generation 3 platform and capital allocation, according to the company. Tesla has several factories in the United States, including in Fremont, California, where vehicles are assembled, a plant near Sparks, Nevada which is a joint project with Panasonic and its headquarters in Austin, Texas. Tesla also has factories …

Typeface emerges from stealth with $65M to bring generative AI to the enterprise

Published by skeptic

Typeface, a startup developing an AI-powered dashboard for drafting marketing copy and images, emerged from stealth this week with $65 million in venture equity backing from Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV (Google Ventures), M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund) and Menlo Ventures. Founded by former Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis, Typeface attempts to combine generative AI with a brand’s tone, audiences and workflows to — as Parasnis rather aspirationally puts it — “reimagine” content workflows and corporate content development. “We provide a generative AI application that empowers businesses to develop personalized content,” Parasnis said. “CEOs, CMOs, heads of digital, and VPs and directors of creative are all expressing a growing demand for combining generative AI platforms with hyper-affinitized AI content to enhance the future of content workflows.” Using Typeface, customers can type in a command like “Write a fun blog post about apple juice” to have the platform execute it, writing a several-paragraph draft piece complete with images. The tone of any images and copy can be customized to target certain demographics, or to align with a brand’s style …