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Spotify looks to be scaling back its live audio ambitions, as the company is ending production of several of its live audio shows. A spokesperson for the company confirmed to TechCrunch that “Deux Me After Dark,” “Doughboys: Snack Pack,” “The Movie Buff” and “A Gay in the Life” are all coming to an end. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.

The spokesperson said Spotify will continue to have live offerings from its shows “The Fantasy Footballers” and “The Ringer MMA Show.”

Spotify integrated its live audio capabilities from its companion app, Spotify Greenroom, within the main Spotify streaming app in April. Spotify acquiredthe app that would become Greenroom in March 2021 with its$62 million purchase of Betty Labs. Initially known as Locker Room, the app had focused on live audio’s intersection with sports content. Spotify rebranded the app, then introduced it as Greenroom in June 2021.

Spotify’s foray into the live audio market had initially seemed like a natural fit for the company as it had been heavily investing in podcasts and related technology in recent years. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic had driven increased usage of new audio streaming apps, such as Clubhouse.There was an obvious use case for Spotify where podcast creators had established fan bases who would likely want to audio chat with hosts in real time. But as pandemic lockdown measures ended and in-person live events returned, adoption of audio apps like Clubhouse declined. As a result, Spotify’s move to scale back its live audio ambitions isn’t exactly surprising.

It’s worth noting that Spotify isn’t the only company to pull back from live audio. Earlier this year, Facebook integrated its Live Audio Rooms offering, which is its Clubhouse clone, into its Facebook Live experience. The social media giant also discontinued its short-form audio Soundbitesfeature and itsAudio hub.

Spotify is ending production of several of its live audio shows by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

I’m thrilled to announce TechCrunch Live is filming live and in real life at CES 2023. We’re filming on the first day of the show at 11:00. If you’re not attending CES, that’s fine. Just like every TechCrunch Live, the show will be streamed live on TechCrunch.com, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter Spaces — basically anywhere I can blast the show.

The mission remains the same despite the change of location: TechCrunch Live helps founders build better venture-backed business. I do this by hosting conversations with successful startup founders and their early investors and board members. We talk through pitch decks, fundraising strategies, and founder/investor relations. But for this show, I’m featuring a hardware company and investor. Because CES.

I hope you can come and hang out. We’re filming at Stagwell’s Content Studio, located at booth 60488, in the Grand Lobby of theLas Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). We’re right next to the Starbucks, I’m told.

TechCrunch has a team of writers attending CES, and we’d love to connect. Fill out this form, and we’ll reach out if your company is a good fit.

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TechCrunch Live is filming at CES, and you’re invited! by Matt Burns originally published on TechCrunch

Tesla owners: Go check your cars. You have some new toys. The latest OTA update added a bunch of features; most notable, Steam, which brings along thousands of games. This app, however, is limited to Model S and X vehicles with 16GB of RAM (only found in vehicles made in 2022).

Elon Musk tweeted in July that Tesla was adding Steam support. The Beta version in this update even adds support for Steam’s cloud synchronization, allowing for games to be resumed in the vehicle or any Steam device. Better yet, the OTA update finally added Bluetooth support gaming controllers while using Arcade Mode. Tesla’s release notes state the PS5 controller works the best.

But this update has something for everyone, too. There’s an updated Dog Mode that allows owners to access the in-vehicle camera from the mobile app. Media controls were relocated, and Apple Music and Zoom was added, too. Tesla also updated the navigation UI, pinning the next turn information window to the top of the screen while the rest of the navigation information is located at the bottom. Drivers can relive Mario Kart memories and drive on a rainbow road, turn signals can automatically turn off and the door handles have new options while parked at home.

And just in time for the holidays, Tesla’s long-popular light show mode now allows it to sync with other Tesla vehicles. Now you and your buddies can line up your Tesla vehicles, and together, they’ll put on a show to the same song. Festive.

Tesla’s latest OTA update adds Steam games, Apple Music, Zoom and a wild light show mode by Matt Burns originally published on TechCrunch

Here’s another edition of “Dear Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

TechCrunch+ members receive access to weekly “Dear Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie,

We’re a pre-seed startup thinking about sponsoring an early employee’s H-1B visa to stay in the U.S. and work for us.

How does the process work?

— Seeking in San Mateo

Dear Seeking,

Thank you for granting peace of mind to your employee by planning now for H-1B sponsorship. This step means a lot to professionals early in their careers, many of whom paid full tuition for their U.S. bachelor’s and master’s degrees in order to have this chance.

Your startup can certainly register your employee for the H-1B lottery sometime in Q1 2023, but the government has not yet said when the registration window opens. If your employee is selected in the lottery, your startup can prepare, submit, and pay the required fees to U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for an H-1B filing.

I highly recommend working with an experienced startup immigration attorney to support the process, particularly since USCIS tends to scrutinize early stage companies more. An attorney can help you avoid missteps and submit a strong visa application while staying within your budget.

Consider the level of service you need

Most immigration attorneys charge flat fees for their services, but the fees, level of service, responsiveness, and the amount of counseling and guidance can vary significantly, so look for a law firm that meets your needs. It’s also important to find an attorney you feel comfortable with.

It’s never too early to start preparing

Start assembling the documents you will need to submit as soon as you can. Your startup will need to be incorporated and receive its tax ID number from the I.R.S. to prove that it is capable of sponsoring an individual for an H-1B. This needs to be done before your company submits a Labor Condition Application (LCA), which is also sent to the Labor Department. This application cannot be submitted more than six months before your employee will begin working on an H-1B.

An approved LCA must be submitted with your H-1B petition to USCIS. In addition to your startup’s tax ID, you’ll need some basics such as:

Dear Sophie: When can I register my employee for the H-1B lottery? by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch

It may seem like SaaS is everywhere, but there’s one sector that’s been slow to adopt it — manufacturing.

By itself, manufacturing drives almost 11% of the U.S. economy, contributing $2.77 trillion to GDP as of Q2 2022. All that activity also uses a lot of energy and produces a lot of greenhouse gasses. But if manufacturers could wring out extra production from their existing factories, they could go a long way to trimming the sector’s carbon footprint.

SaaS startup Guidewheel’s co-founder and CEO Laura Dunford had previously worked in manufacturing, and she knew just how inefficient plant operations could be. When equipment broke, it was often logged on paper or in spreadsheets, and much of the collation and analysis was done manually. Not only did these tasks take up the plant manager and maintenance staff’s valuable time, they also slowed production because machines were down longer than they needed to be.

Existing systems were “heavyweight and not a perfect fit for our size of operation,” Dunford told TechCrunch. That, along with the potential for energy and carbon savings, was what drove her and her co-founder Weston McBride to start Guidewheel, which allows factories to connect and monitor any piece of equipment from the cloud. TechCrunch has exclusively learned that the company has closed a $9 million Series A-1 led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

“Manufacturers care about whether their equipment is running as it should, because they only make money when their equipment is running and producing,” Dunford said.

“Of course, we’ve seen more and more customers who really care about the energy side. Two reasons there: One is the pressure from investors or customers, or the ability to open up new channels. There’s a lot of excitement. The second is that increasing cost pressure — energy is a big cost for a lot of the manufacturers we work with — has created another tailwind,” she added.

Guidewheel doesn’t lead its sales pitches with the energy savings. Usually, just being able to minimize equipment downtime is more than enough to get customers on board. After that, Dunford said companies continue to find ways to wring more out of their equipment, improving things like runtime, production costs, or overall equipment effectiveness by 10%–20%, sometimes more.

Guidewheel lands $9M Series A-1 for SaaS that boosts manufacturing and trims carbon emissions by Tim De Chant originally published on TechCrunch

Hello and welcome back toEquity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week,Natasha is bringing one of her favorite panels from Disrupt to your ears. She sat down with Clubhouse co-founder and CEO, Paul Davison, to talk about the core of Clubhouse, competition, and the impact of hype.

The conversation touches on the company’s hyper growth, celebrity power, and navigating social platforms and social patterns, with a round of questions from the audience at the end. If you love the conversation, share it with a friend. And if you want more on Clubhouse, Natasha dove deeper into the conversation here.

Equity drops every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has agreat show on crypto, ashow that interviews founders, ashow that details how our stories come togetherand more!

The impact of hype with Clubhouse’s Paul Davison by Theresa Loconsolo originally published on TechCrunch

Redwood Materials said Wednesday it will build a new battery materials and recycling facility on a 600-acre campus near Charleston, South Carolina that will eventually employ 1,500 people and make enough cathode and anodes components to supply one million EVs annually.

Little is known about the incentives deal the company struck with the state. However, Redwood, a battery materials and recycling startup founded by former Tesla co-founder and CTO JB Straubel, has agreed to spend at least $3.5 billion in the area within the decade. Notably, the company said its entire South Carolina operations will be 100% electric and won’t use any fossil fuel in its processes. Straubel emphasized to TechCrunch that they are not even pulling a gas line to the site.

The campus located at Camp Hall in Berkeley County will produce 100 GWh of cathode and anode components per year, the company said, which is enough to power more than one million EVs. Lithium-ion batteries contain three critical building blocks. There are two electrodes, an anode (negative) on one side and a cathode (positive) on the other. Typically, an electrolyte sits in the middle and acts as the courier to move ions between the electrodes when charging and discharging. Cathode foils, which account for more than half the cost of a battery cell, contain lithium, nickel and cobalt. Redwood is able to capture all of those materials through its battery recycling and processing.

Redwood added that there’s potential to expand its operations at the site to several hundred GWh annually to meet future demand. And that might happen considering the growth in EV industry and the site’s proximity to Redwood’s existing partners like Toyota, Volvo, Panasonic and Envision AESC, all of which have a strong foothold in this region.

Redwood plans to break ground in the first quarter of 2023 on its phased buildout. The company aims to have its recycling process running by the end of 2023 with anode and cathode component production to follow.

The announcement highlights the explosive growth within Redwood Materials, which last year raised $700 million in a Series C round led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates and that included Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Baillie Gifford, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Fidelity.

Earlier this year, Redwood landed a multibillion-dollar deal to supply Panasonic Energy of North America with cathode material for battery cells produced at a new factory currently under construction in Kansas. The new $4 billion Panasonic factory, which will be larger than the Tesla Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, is expected to begin mass production of its “2170” cylindrical lithium-ion batteries by March 2025.

Today’s announcement is also reflective of a bustling battery ecosystem that has expanded as automakers scramble to lock in supply chain as EV production ramps up.

While factories are popping up globally, it’s been particularly active in North America. That pace of new battery facility announcements in North America has accelerated since the August 2022 passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive bill that includes number of climate and energy provisions as well as places new domestic production and material sourcing requirements on EVs to qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit.

“The Inflation Reduction Act has really accelerated even what was already a fast process of a lot of companies locating or expanding battery production in the U.S., Straubel told TechCrunch in a recent interview. “You’re now seeing announcements every week and a good number of those are landing in the Southeast, or the so-called ‘battery belt’ between Michigan and Georgia.”

Redwood Materials is headquartered in Carson City, Nevada, where several years ago it began recycling the scrap from battery cell production at the Sparks, Nevada Gigafactory then extracting and processing materials like cobalt, nickel and lithium that are typically mined, and then supplying them back to Panasonic.

Redwood Materials to build multibillion-dollar factory in the U.S. “battery belt” by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

Global payments giant Visa says it will invest $1 billion by 2027 to expand its investments in Africa amidst a digital payments boom on the continent.

Visa chief Al Kelly announced this pledge on Wednesday during the U.S.-Africa Business Forum, a sub-event in the broader U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a three-day event where U.S. President Joe Biden invited heads of state and senior government officials from Africa to discuss several issues ranging from food security to climate change.

“Visa has been investing in Africa for several decades to grow a truly local business, and today our commitment to the continent remains as firm and unwavering as ever,” said the Visa CEO in a statement. “Every day, Visa supports digital commerce and money movement in every country across the continent, and Africa remains central to Visa’s long-term growth plans. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our partners to advance the financial ecosystem, accelerate digitization and to build resilient, innovative, and inclusive economies that will create shared opportunity and further spur Africa’s digital economy.”

Per the statement, the pledge will further scale Visa’s operations in Africa and deepen collaboration with strategic partners, including governments, financial institutions, mobile network operators, fintechs and merchants.

There are currently over 500 million people in Africa that are underbanked or unbanked, less than 50% of the continent’s adult population have made or received digital payments and more than 40 million merchants do not accept digital payments, according to Visa. After several years of investing via various partnerships and thus playing a significant part in Africa’s current digital payments boom, the payment giant believes this new investment, spread over five years, will further facilitate additional opportunities to expand financial inclusion on the continent.

“Africa is experiencing an unprecedented digital acceleration, with a growing number of consumers, merchants and businesses realizing the benefits of secure and convenient digital payments to fuel commerce and money movement,” said Aida Diarra, the senior vice president of Visa sub-Saharan Africa. “Over the past year, Visa has continued growing our investment in Africa through new offices, new innovations and solutions, and programs that are directly supporting financial inclusion. The investment pledge outlines our long-term commitment to Africa and the work we will do to help advance the financial ecosystem.”

As Diarra stressed, Visa, as part of its commitment to seeing the continued growth of digital payments (including the immense opportunity crypto payments) in Africa, has increased its number of offices across the continent to 10, recently establishing local operations for the first time in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. These offices support payments in 54 countries, Visa noted. Other strategic investments underscored by the firm to advance its Africa expansion include opening an innovation studio in Nairobi this April; introducing newer options for consumers and merchants to make and receive payments, such as the Tap to Phone; integrating Visa Direct, its global money movement network, into African solutions; and running the Visa Everywhere Initiative program, where various African startups have showcased their payment innovations.

Visa to invest $1B in Africa over the next five years by Tage Kene-Okafor originally published on TechCrunch

In 2005, three entrepreneurs — Vadim Vladimirskiy, Stuart Gabel and Niall Keegan — co-founded Adar, a Chicago-based company providing “streaming IT” and IT-as-a-service products mainly to small- and medium-sized businesses. Just over a decade later, Adar created an internal division, Nerdio, focused on helping other managed service providers move their customers to the cloud.

Recognizing an opportunity for further growth, Vladimirskiy and Nerdio’s co-founder, former Microsoft exec Joseph Landes, decided to spin-off Nerdio as a separate company and sell Adar to a private equity firm in January 2020. They contributed significantly to Nerdio’s first funding round in February of that year, which proved to be a wise bet. Nerdio today closed a $117 million Series B round led by Updata Partners that brings the company’s total raised to $125 million.

Vladimirskiy, speaking to TechCrunch via email, said the proceeds will be put toward Nerdio’s customer acquisition, product R&D and hiring efforts. “The market timing for this investment is ideal,” he added. “As many businesses are coming out of the pandemic with a new affinity for hybrid and remote work, modern technologies that can best enable the secure and efficient delivery and management of digital workspaces are in high demand.”

Nerdio’s platform lets customers deploy, manage and cost-optimize virtual desktops running in Microsoft Azure, extending the capabilities of Azure Virtual Desktop, Microsoft’s cloud-based system for virtualizing Windows. With auto-scaling, “license optimization,” security and compliance, and monitoring and reporting features beyond what Microsoft offers natively, Vladimirskiy claims that Nerdio can deliver significant cost savings while “non-disruptively” layering on top of existing Azure Virtual Desktop deployments. (Nerdio runs in a customer’s own Azure subscription as an Azure-based application.)

“With Nerdio, every deployment or management task in Azure Virtual Desktop can be done in a few clicks and by any level of IT staff,” Vladimirskiy said. “With powerful policy and access management features and RBAC roles, we’re providing a safety net for organizations employing the future generation of IT to fully grasp the power and value of Azure without getting lost in its complexities.”

Vladimirskiy said that business really took off during the pandemic as enterprises, affected by pandemic-related shutdowns and the subsequent move to hybrid and remote work, began to explore virtual desktop solutions for their workforces. Survey data illustrates the dramatic shift. A 2020 poll by TrustRadius, the business tech review site, found that over 50% of businesses expected to increase their spending on remote desktop software into the next year.

Between February 2020 and this month, Nerdio experienced an astounding 2,000% increase in annual recurring revenue, according to Vladimirskiy, and now has more than 5,000 customers, including managed service providers and system integrators. Meanwhile, Nerdio’s pool of channel partners grew to more than 1,000.

“[During the pandemic,] everyone, all at once, had to find solutions that allowed their workforce to continue working and to do so securely from their homes. As such, both manage service provider and enterprise adoption have been significant,” Vladimirskiy said. “We have been able to maintain capital efficiency and ensure we’re set up for success, even during times of economic uncertainty.”

It likely helps that Nerdio has a close working relationship with Microsoft. The startup has a number of Microsoft veterans on its board of directors, including Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft’s former head of global channnel partners, and it’s regularly featured in the tech giant’s marketing materials.

It also helps that Azure Virtual Desktop is seeing swift uptake, in spite of competition from incumbents like VMware and Citrix. An early 2022 survey from eG Innovations and AVD TechFest of around 500 organizations found that 58% intend to have Azure Virtual Desktop installations running within two years. The survey suggests that Azure Virtual Desktop is finding a niche with small businesses that normally wouldn’t consider Citrix or VMware because of cost or other constraints.

“In the managed service provider space, we don’t really see anyone else out there providing managed service providers the custom capabilities we do around cost and time management and scalability,” Vladimirskiy said. “Not only do we make Azure and its virtual desktop services palatable from a time and resource perspective — with Nerdio, every deployment or management task in Azure Virtual Desktop can be done in a few clicks and by any level of IT staff — but we address arguably the biggest inhibitor to adoption of these native technologies, which is cost.”

Nerdio, based in Skokie, Illinois, currently has a team of 100, which it plans to roughly double next year.

Nerdio lands $117M to build management tools on top of Azure Virtual Desktop by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

Deepika Padukone’s skincare startup 82°E, pronounced Eighty Two East, said Wednesday it has raised $7.5 million in seed funding, as the Bollywood star makes further push into the startup world.

DSG Consumer Partners and IDEO Ventures are among those who backed 82°E, said the startup, which began offering self-care products such as moisturisers and sunscreen drops to consumers in over 30 countries last month.

82°E says its products are formulated in-house by R&D experts and feature “time-tested Indian ingredients.”

“Jigar [Shah, the other co-founder] and I envisioned this brand as an extension of my personal as well as professional journey,” said Padukone in a statement.

“We set out to launch products which are high-quality, high-performing and an authentic reflection of my beliefs and practices. In this endeavour, we aim to make the practice of self-care simple, joyful and effective for all. With our launch category of skincare products, we have rigorously sourced, carefully crafted and clinically tested our products to achieve lasting results. I am honoured to have investors of global repute join us in our vision to establish 82°E as a modern self-care brand born in India for the world.”

The tech-savvy star, who is among the highest paid actresses in India, has emerged as a prolific investor in recent years. In 2017, she launched KA Enterprises, a fully-owned holding company, through which she has backed several startups including unicorn online beauty store Purplle, satellite, aerospace manufacturing firm Bellatrix, yoghurt firm Epigamia and pet store Supertails.

Bollywood stars and cricketers including Shahid Kapoor, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma, Hardik Pandya, and Priyanka Chopra have made over a dozen investments in recent years, sometimes in a sweat equity arrangement where they endorse the brand and collect part of the fee as shares.

Bollywood star Deepika Padukone’s skincare startup attracts VC backing by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch