Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign uphereso you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. —Mary Ann

Helloooo and Happy New Year! Feels like it’s been a while since I sat down to write this newsletter. I’ve missed it!

Before I dive into the news, I wanted to say that I hope you all had a restful and fun holiday. Ours was super low-key but that’s not a bad thing. Still, I will admit it has taken a bit for my brain to switch back to work mode this week…so bear with me.

On Friday, I published an article on Doorstead’s $21.5 million Series B raise. The story was among the most read on the site that day, further evidence that people are really interested in technology that relates to the property rental market, specifically when it comes to investing. For its part, Doorstead says it’s more than a full-service property management company, in that it guarantees the homeowners it works with a minimum amount in rent. If it can’t get the amount that it promises, it will cough up the difference. If it gets more, well, the owner gets the extra — not the company. Doorstead says it intentionally opted to only make money by charging an 8% management fee so that its incentives are aligned with that of the homeowners it works with. By being willing to pay the difference, the company says that it’s able to reduce the amount of time rental properties sit vacant. So, homeowners are not only getting a guaranteed rental income, but they are also having their properties rented out faster and making more money that way, the company’s founders, Ryan Waliany and Jennifer Bronzo, say. Notably, Doorstead also announced that it picked up the Boston assets of another venture-backed proptech, Knox Financial, whose raise I had covered in 2021. I don’t have details as to what led to the latter company winding down its operations, but I suspect we’ll be seeing more of this sort of thing in 2023. And by “sort of thing” I mean startups acquiring assets from other startups. To hear the Equity Podcast crew’s thoughts on Doorstead’s model, head here.

Over the break, we published an interview that I had conducted with GGV Capital’s Hans Tung and Robin Li during the fourth quarter. For the unacquainted, GGV is a venture firm with $9.2 billion in assets under management that invests in startups from seed to growth stages across a variety of sectors, including consumer, internet, enterprise/cloud and fintech. Some highlights of the interview include Tung’s views on down rounds not being the end of the world. He told me that he’d rather see a startup raise a down round than shut down, and that what matters in the end is the outcome. Refreshing! He also shared some of the advice he’s giving to his own portfolio companies, among other things. Meanwhile, Li provided her thoughts on why embedded fintech will remain hot.

While I’m sure there were already many down rounds in 2022, Tung expects we’ll see even more in 2023 as startups that had raised in 2021 began to get low on cash. I agree with his view that there’s no shame in raising a down round. Valuations were overinflated and any down rounds that are announced this year are in most cases reflecting valuations that are more realistic and easier to defend.

Weekly News

On January 6, self-described family fintech Greenlightlaunched Greenlight Level Up, an interactive, curriculum-based financial literacy game. Clearly the company is trying to appeal to the younger generation’s love of playing games digitally, although one has to wonder what took it so long to include a game in its offering. Via email a spokesperson told me: “Kids can earn virtual coins, experience points, and engage with real-life money lessons through dynamic graphics, story-driven gameplay, and animations on their cell phones or tablets — taking the principles of gamification and applying them to one of the essential skills they’ll need for their entire lives.” Of course, the gamification of finances is not a new concept. Last year, I wrote about Truist, one of the nation’s largest financial institutions, acquiring fintech startup Long Game in its efforts to appeal to a younger clientele.

BaaS startup Synctera said it is teaming up with Wahed (meaning “One” in Arabic), a digital Islamic investment platform that describes itself as the world’s first halal investment app. Synctera says it is providing the infrastructure for Wahed to make its services available to the 3.5 million residents of Muslim faith in the U.S. Presently, Wahed has more than 200,000 clients in the U.K. and Malaysia and is using Synctera’s offering to build bank account products and roll out a debit card program linked to its app for Muslim Americans. Specifically, a Synctera spokesperson told TechCrunch that “Wahed currently offers halal investments, structured in accordance with established Islamic principles and standards, to US customers. With Synctera, Wahed will be able to provide their customers with bank accounts (making funds transfer easier and smoother) and debit cards (for convenient access to funds).” Synctera CEO/founder Peter Hazlehurst wrote via email: “We’re really excited to help Wahed launch banking products for their U.S. customers….We expect to see a wave of mission-driven companies like Wahed embrace embedded banking to help people brighten their financial futures.” In recent years, we’ve seen more and more fintechs shaping their offerings to cater to very specific demographics such as Hispanics, Blacks, Asian Americans and immigrants generally. Only time will tell if that sort of niche focus will pay off.

In that vein, Boston-based Mendoza Ventures — which describes itself as “a female and Latinx-founded fintech, AI, and cybersecurity venture capital firm” — announced that it has achieved a first close on its $100 million fund — its third. Unfortunately, the firm would not share how much it has raised so far but did say in a press release that the fund “will prioritize investing in early growth stage startups with a focus on diverse founding teams.” Hey, we’re always here for any initiatives aimed at elevating diverse founding teams. Notably, Bank of America led the initial close, which included participation from Grasshopper Bank and other undisclosed investors.

To kick off the year, Felicis Ventures‘ managing director Victoria Treyger penned a guest post for TechCrunch, offering up her predictions and where she sees opportunities in the fintech space. Meanwhile, Bessemer Venture Partners Charles Birnbaum told us via email that he believes that “With FedNow finally slated to launch more broadly in mid-2023, all eyes will be on opportunities around faster payments. While adoption of the Clearing House’s RTP scheme has been moderate to date, we expect FedNow’s use of the existing FedLine network to accelerate faster payment adoption beginning in 2023. There will be a lot of opportunity to build the enabling modern infrastructure for use-cases like payroll, insurance disbursements, supplier payments and more and at the application layer for more seamless b2b and consumer payments experiences.” He’s also still bullish on the continued institutional adoption of blockchain technology in some large areas of financial services. For example, he predicts that SWIFT “will continue to experiment with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) while more banks will join the USDF Consortium to facilitate compliant transfer of value over blockchains via bank-minted tokenized deposit stablecoins.”

Speaking of blockchain, Mercuryo, a crypto-focused startup that has built a cross-border payments network, has now launched a BaaS solution, which it claims “unlocks a unique feature — the ability to manage banking and crypto accounts within a single platform.” A spokesperson for the company told me via email the goal is to make it easier for traditional banks to open crypto accounts for their users and to give crypto platforms a way to open bank accounts that would allow their clients to store, transfer and pay in fiat/crypto. I covered the company’s raise in June of 2021.

It was cool to see a startup whose raise I covered last year be named a Time Best Invention of 2022. Altro raised $18 million last May to grow its offering, which aims to help people build credit through recurring payment forms such as digital subscriptions to Netflix, Spotify and Hulu. Personally, I am a fan of the startup’s inclusive credit-building efforts, which challenge the antiquated credit score model here in the U.S.

Last week, Darrell Etherington and Becca Szkutak were joined by Brex co-founder and co-CEO Henrique Dubugras to chat about what made him and his co-founder, Pedro Franceschi, decide to launch the corporate card company and why the friends, who met online as teenagers, decided to be co-CEOs, among other things.

According to pay transparency tracker Comprehensive.io, Stripe is not exactly so transparent about its pay. The fintech giant does not include salary ranges in its CA or NYC job posts. The tracker also found that a strategic account executive at fintech startup Bolt can make — you ready for this? — $374,000 to $462,000 OTE/year.(If you could see me, I’m making the Kevin in “Home Alone” shocked face right now).

As reported by Manish Singh: “Suhail Sameer, the chief executive of BharatPe, will leave the top role later this week as the Indian fintech startup scrambles to steer the ship after kicking out its founder last year for allegedly misusing company funds.” More here.

Fundings and M&A

While we’re not seeing many megarounds in the fintech space here in the U.S., TechCrunch’s Manish Singh reports that India saw two significant raises in the world of fintech in recent weeks:

Indian fintech Money View valued at $900 million in new funding

Indian fintech Kreditbee nears $700 million valuation in new funding

Meanwhile, in South Korea, fintech Toss bumped its valuation up to a staggering $7 billion:

South Korean financial super app Toss closes $405M Series G as valuation rises 7%

Other funding deals reported on the TC site include:

Gynger launches out of stealth to loan companies cash for software

Fintech Vint hopes to turn wine and spirits into a mainstream asset class

Early-stage Mexico fintech Aviva is making loans as easy as a video call

And elsewhere:

Saudi start-up Manafa raises $28 million to fund expansion

And, that’s a wrap. I’m not typically one for resolutions but I can say that I am trying to start this year off on a more upbeat note. Last year was challenging in a lot of ways, but it doesn’t help to be negative or doom and gloom. There is still so much good news and things to be grateful for. So, my wish for 2023 is more resilience and optimism for us all because while we can’t always control what happens, we can control how we react. Thanks again for reading, and for your support. I’m always here for your feedback! Until next week…xoxoxo Mary Ann

Does everyone want to be a landlord, or what? by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch

If you’ve been seeing a slew of new alternative meat and animal products popping up in your grocery store, Lisa Feria is at least partially to thank.

Feria has spent the last seven years investing in startups in the sector. She and her partners at Stray Dog Capital have invested in over 40 companies, from the well-established Beyond Meat to up-and-comers No Evil Foods, Kite Hilland Yo! Egg.

Based in Leawood, Kansas, the firm has been around since 2015. Feria, who is CEO and managing partner, has seen most of the ups and downs.

Recently, the big names have been struggling: Beyond Meat’s share price slid 80% over the past year. Milk alternative maker Oatly has been beset with production woes. And consumers have generally cooled on the products. As demand has sunk and companies have adjusted, with McDonald’s stalling rollout plans for its McPlant burger and meat giant JBS shutting down its plant-based meat division.

And yet Feria and others remain bullish on the sector. TechCrunch sat down with her to see why she’s still upbeat and what she’s telling her portfolio companies in these uncertain times.

Plant-based foods investor says her focus is more on teams than taste by Tim De Chant originally published on TechCrunch

You wait for years for a urine analysis company, then all of them hit their flow all at once. One of the notable trends at CES in Las Vegas this year was that the quantified-self movement is going deeper. No longer content with just measuring your heart rate, number of steps, and EKG on your wrist, a new generation of startups is inching towards full-on medical-grade analysis of its users.

Here are a few to keep an eye on:

Withings

Health hardware company Withings this week released the U-Scan in Europe, and announced it is working with the FDA to secure an U.S. launch as well. The product uses a hands-free system that can take up to three months worth of measurements with a single cartridge.

Olive

Israeli startup Olive recently raised a $10 million round of funding, and promises to use optics-only to analyze urine. The company uses a a special toilet seat, no strips or additional accessories required. It is initially aiming at care homes and vulnerable populations, but is hoping to find a user base across a number of healthcare sectors.

Vivoo

Vivoo has been making at-home urine test strips for a long time, and it showed off the next iteration of its business, with a smart toilet. It’s aimed at residential carie, elderly, and healthcare markets. It gives a convenient alternative for users who may struggle to perform urine testing with hand-held urine strips.

We can only imagine it was feeling a little awkward about its “world first” marketing messaging at its booth. Especially given that the Vivoo booth was right next to Withing’s, where it was showing off how it had beaten the ‘world first’ to market.

The product is a prototype, with a broader roll-out in the not-too-distant future. The company raised a $6 million Series A fundraise in June 2021. The round was led by Draper Associates.

Special Zone Master

Don’t worry, it wasn’t all urine at CES this year. We also found SZM – Special Zone Master – which promises to do ‘visual analysis’ of your other favorite bodily waste – poop. The company promises to analyze stool shapes and color, record the time and frequency of your bowel movements, and detect the presence of blood as well.

“Just by taking a closer look at the stool, we can find the first signs of a health problem and take action before it is too late,” the company said in its marketing materials. We were curious to learn more, but the company’s founders where nowhere to be found – presumably, they were taking a well-deserved restroom break. It wasn’t entirely clear how far along the Korean startup was in its journey toward bringing its tech to a toilet seat near you.

Urine luck: these CES startups want to take a closer look at your waste by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

As we were roaming the halls of CES in Las Vegas, one product category stood out across the board; there’s a lot of focus on portable (and less portable) power storage. These are more than your average charge-your-phone-once-or-twice battery packs, ranging from simple small power packs, to sophisticated power stations that can connect to portable or rooftop solar, and the biggest versions can power your whole home for weeks at the time.

The smallest portable power stations usually come with a few 110v sockets and some USB sockets, and maybe a 12V car cigarette lighter port for small peripherals. From there, it can get pretty advanced; solid-state batteries, 240V power, wireless charging ports, the ability to plug in additional batteries and the option to be powered from a number of power sources, including mains power, solar, car chargers, and even the high-end rapid chargers designed for electric vehicles.

It would be a complete fool’s errand to try to capture everything we saw at CES, but here are a few of the highlights:

EcoFlow’s travel-forward innovations

EcoFlow came out of nowhere a few years ago, and has established itself as a very serious player in the portable power space. At CES, the company launched a battery powered fridge with ice maker, a portable, an updated version of its battery-powered air conditioning unit, and a number of other innovations. The biggest news this year, however, is that it is rolling out systems for full-house battery backup systems later this year.

Yoshino’s solid-state batteries

Yoshino‘s portable power stations are built around a new solid electrolyte, replacing the bulky and flammable liquid electrolyte found in most lithium batteries. The company told me that improves performance, offering higher energy density. In other words: the same amount of power fits into a smaller, lighter package compared to traditional lithium batteries. A representative for the company claimed you could shoot the battery pack with a gun without it catching fire. We didn’t have a gun with us to verify the claim.

The company also suggests that the new batteries offer faster charging than the old chemistries, going up to 80% capacity in under an hour, and it claims up to twice the power per pound of traditional lithium batteries. Definitely one to keep an eye on. The power stations have oodles of ports, and the wireless charging pads on top of the power stations are a very nice touch.

Bluetti powers your whole house

The biggest news from Bluetti was its full-house power in the form of the B300S and matching inverter series. In normal use, the mains power (or a solar array) keeps the batteries topped up. When the power goes out, the battery packs jump in, like an uninterruptible power supply for your whole house. You can either keep power to everything, or design two separate circuits; one with essential power circuits (your fridge, cooking, and heating/cooling, for example), and one with less essential circuits (say, your washing machine and EV).

Zendure’s cooler-sized celebration of overkill

Zendure’s Superbase V really stretches the definition of what can be considered ‘portable’ Clocking in at a hefty 100 lbs of weight (46kg), at least it has a pull-out handle and motorized wheels to help you move it around. Once it’s in position, however, it can do just about everything – it has 6.4kWh built in. However, it also supports additional battery modules, for a maximum of 64kWh worth of storage available. Fully loaded out, that’s more than an entry-level Tesla Model 3 battery pack, and the company claims that’s enough to power a typical household for a week.

Packing both 120V and 240V voltage, it can power both small appliances like a fridge, and larger home goods like induction cooktops and electric clothes dryers. Hell, with up to 12,000W of power, you can charge two electric cars with it at the same time, should you need to. The price starts at $3,100. Fully maxed out with four external batteries, you’re looking at a price tag north of $15,000.

Geneverse drives the prices down

Geneverse has broad distribution in the US, being available at Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Costco, Sam’s Club, and online. It’s easy to see why: The company launched two new power stations. The HomePower One has 1,210Wh of capacity, 1,200W of rated power and 2,400W of surge power, while its bigger brother, the HomePower Two packs 2,419Wh of capacity, 2,200W of rated power and 4,400W of surge power. Both have three 120V outlets, two 100W USB-C outputs, and two USB-A quickcharge sockets.

None of these stats really move the needle – but the price point does. The smaller power station costs $1,500, and the bigger one is $2,500. You can add two or four solar panels to the power stations, respectively, bringing the price tag to $2,600 or $4,800. With prices like that, at-home backup power is starting to come into range for most home owners. The company didn’t skimp on the batteries either, opting for the ultra-high efficiency LFP/ LiFePO4 (Lithium iron phosphate) battery tech. These are very safe indeed, and provide a lifespan of around 3,000 charge cycles.

Schneider signals that battery storage is here to stay

We’ve seen a number of startups in the smart home panel space for a while. What’s new, is that the big boys are joining the fun.

Energy giant Schneider Electric entering the frey shows that battery power storage for the home is really starting to hit mainstream. Why is this a big deal? Around 40% of all homes already rely on the brand for its main breaker panels and other key components for the home electric.

App-controllable, the company launched a brand new energy management solution for home batteries, including a high-power solar inverter, smart electrical panels, EV chargers, along with a slew of additional features. It even picked up a CES Innovation Award for its troubles along the way. Seeing more large power-supply companies entering the market with fully integrated solutions means that the whole industry is well and truly off to the races. Not exactly the sort of thing you can install yourself, but a harbinger of things to come in the near and medium future.

A big CES 2023 trend: all battery power, everywhere, all the time. by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

At CES in Las Vegas this week, AnkerWork announced its brand new AnkerWork M650 Wireless Microphone. It’s a two-microphone kit that can be clipped (or magnetically attached) to your clothing. Perfect for video interviews or improving the quality on zoom calls.

The microphone includes high-quality audio and noise-cancellation technology wrapped up in a compact carry case, which includes a pair of microphones, and a USB-C or Lightning receiver. The package delivers up to 15 hours of battery life, and can recharge in just 90 minutes. The white cover pictured can be replaced with another color, to avoid fashion clashes.

The receiver is equipped with a high-resolution LCD touchscreen that can be used for adjusting volume, and keeping an eye on recording levels in real time. It also includes internal storage that can keep seven hours of uncompressed audio safe.

The AnkerWork M650 will be available on AnkerWork.com and in retail, starting in March,for$249. That puts it $70 under the DJI version of its comparable kit, which we reviewed last year.

Did you hear? AnkerWork is going after the wireless mic market by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

Packing battery tech nobody uses in consumer devices and a half-horsepower motor, BlenderCap is one of the most ludicrously over-engineered products we’ve seen in a hot minute. At CES in Las Vegas, we took a closer look at talked with the team behind the product to find out more.

Let’s start with, er, why do we need a portable blender in the first place?

“We originally invented this just for personal use for making smoothies after the gym. I was going to CrossFit, and I wanted a protein shake after that. I made myself a shake, and it just got sort of melted and lumpy after you have worked out for an hour or two,” says Dakota Adams, co-founder at the company. “Then the idea came along to put a blender onto these Hydroflask-style bottles. Matthew [Moore] and I became friends and began working on how to pack that technology into a tiny little cap.”

At the time, the duo was building a battery factory for Apple in China, working on the blender on the side. About a year ago, the duo quit their jobs at Apple to make the BlenderCap a reality. In the process, they created an absolute beast of a blender.

“We discovered you can make margaritas smoothies. In testing, we’ve done an entire Costco bag of ice on a single charge. You can make 10 of them in a row,” laughs Adams. “We filled an entire five-gallon Home Depot bucket of margaritas. What that translates to in real life, is that instead of charging it every day, you charge it once a week or every two weeks.”

Battery tech is the company’s strength, and the founders ended up using custom batteries with technology that is starting to show up in next-generation electric vehicles.

The blender cap weighs around a pound, and it’s super simple: There’s only one button. Press and hold to blend, or double-click to blend for 25 seconds. It charges with USB-C, and the company decided to use the same thread pattern that Hydroflask uses, which means it is compatible with a large number of thermos-like bottles that a lot of people already own.

“We sell it as a kit – it comes with a 32-ounce vacuum-insulated bottle that’s dual wall stainless steel, and dishwasher safe. It comes with a BlenderCap, a blade cover, and dual-twist cap, which transforms the wide-mouth bottle into a smoothie-mouth,” says Matthew Moore, the company’s other co-founder. “It charges over USB-C, and you can buy it for $129”

It isn’t yet possible to buy the blender cap on its own; the company says it’s because it’s trying to keep the number of products it sells manageable.

“In the future, we are probably going to offer it on its own, or with different size bottles etc, using more of a kitting methodology. Right now, just to limit the SKU count and make it simple for launch, we are just selling the one kit,” Moore explains. “We found that a single 32-ounce bottle is what most people wanted it in early testing.”

Pre-orders for the kit opened on January 4, and shipping starts late next month. The company says its products are already manufactured; it just have to figure out the logistics of getting it here.

Their own factory

Perhaps unusually, Cruz has its own factory building the BlenderCap.

“We’re leasing factory space at a really high-end manufacturer in Shanghai, and we own all the equipment and the robots building this. So we actually have on our assembly line – we designed the entire assembly line – and we’ve got more robots than people putting this together,” says Adams. “It’s crazy. There are glue dispensing robots, automatic screw dispensers. It’s beautiful. Frankly, that was a bit aspirational. And we’re really happy to have our own dedicated factory building.”

For its first batch, the company is manufacturing 6,000 of the BlenderCaps, and is ramping up to sustaining manufacturing.

The company claims it is going to be profitable from day one, and has started to look at what the next generation of products might be. We asked, but the company isn’t quite willing to share what’s next.

“We’ve got a secret product coming up,” laughs Adams. “Obviously, this battery tech can go into many different devices, and we have a whole product roadmap, and are excited to build out an ecosystem around what we have here, and then other new consumer products. One of the things that we’ve observed in the market, is all these DTC brands over the last 10 years came in basically just rebranding cheap Chinese commodity products, a lot of plastic enclosures and just junk. We have this design philosophy that we grew up on at Apple for 10 years of really putting our heart and soul into products. So we’ve got a whole bunch of products coming along the same philosophy: minimalist, super high end materials. From there, we’ll see where it goes”

Ex-Apple team creates BlenderCap, a delightfully over-engineered portable blender by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

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

Global app spending reached $65 billion in the first half of 2022, up only slightly from the $64.4 billion during the same period in 2021, as hypergrowth fueled by the pandemic has slowed down. But overall, the app economy is continuing to grow, having produced a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to multiple year-end reports. Global spending across iOS and Google Play last year was $133 billion, and consumers downloaded 143.6 billion apps.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.

Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters

Year-End App Scoreboards

Apptopia is first out of the gate with its full-year retrospective of the top apps globally. The app intelligence firm this week launched 33 top charts based on data from iOS and Google Play combined, except for data from China which is iOS only. The data was collected from Jan. 1 2022 through Dec. 20, 2022.

The company even created its own categories to highlight apps that don’t yet have their own app store category — like quick-serve restaurants. (McDonald’s topped Starbucks here.)

Overall, the firm found that the top app worldwide was TikTok with 672 million installs. It was followed by Instagram, WhatsApp, CapCut (riding on TikTok’s success), Snapchat, Subway Surfers, Facebook, Stumble Guys and Spotify.

Apptopia also chose to this year categorize TikTok as Entertainment, not Social Networking, which allowed it to top Netflix as the most-installed Entertainment app.

Besides Subway Surfers, an endless runner that first launched in 2012 (!!), other older games proved to have staying power, like Candy Crush Saga, 8 Ball Pool and Among Us!

Other highlights include the first-time appearance of SHEIN as the No. 1 Shopping app of the year, after previously ranking No. 2 last year and No. 4 the year prior. Wish, meanwhile, didn’t make the cut. Crypto apps were also absent from the top charts as was China’s Didi, as it was impacted by the country’s zero-Covid policy. However, the token-based plan for Sweatcoin made the workout app the No. 1 Health & Fitness app globally.

It will be interesting to compare Apptopia’s data with those from other firms as the 2022 reports begin to arrive.

Android and iOS

Google

Google’s Play Store will now allow parents to approve apps and in-app purchases initiated by kids. Parents will act as the family manager of the family account to approve the purchases when there’s no payment method, specifying how they want to pay for the app or other purchases.
Google is appealing a ruling by India’s antitrust body that claims the company engaged in anti-competitive practices surrounding Android mobile devices.
Google launched HD maps as part of its Google Automotive Services. Volvo and Polestar are first to integrate with it.
Android Auto introduced a new design intended to make it easier to navigate, play music and podcasts and communicate while on the go.
At CES, Google announced new media playback features, including better playback options for Spotify Connect-compatible devices and cross-device notifications for resuming media playback on the move.

Apple

Apple finally shut down Dark Sky, the weather app it acquired to improve its own Weather app offering. The app was well-liked by users but less so by meteorologists, a Slate article noted.
Apple had to temporarily pull the new HomeKit architecture from its iOS 16.2 update to fix a Home sharing issue.
A French court fined Apple €1 million over its abusive App Store practices with regard to “significant imbalances” in its relationship with app developers.

App Updates

Messaging

Amazon-owned encrypted messaging app Wickr Me has stopped accepting new sign-ups and will shut down on Dec. 31, 2023, the company announced. The app had come under fire previously for enabling people to trade child sexual abuse material.
WhatsApp ends support for a large number of older devices including phones from Apple, HTC, Huawei, LG, Samsung, Sony and others.
WhatsApp also launched official proxy support for global users, allowing users to stay connected even if their connection is blocked or disrupted. The feature relies on servers set up by volunteers and other organizations.
Telegram was updated with new features like hidden media, which adds a layer to blur an image; new tools for managing the storage space used by media, files and music; and new drawing and text tools; and other changes for profiles and groups.

Gaming

Cryptic tweets from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney have people wondering if Fortnite will be returning to the iPhone in 2023. In a post, the exec tweeted “Next year on iOS!” — suggesting, perhaps, the game maker will release the game again on Apple’s platform. Epic is currently appealing its antitrust lawsuit with Apple and is engaged a similar suit with Google.
The FTC also fined Epic Games $520 million for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and manipulative “dark patterns” that tricked users into making purchases. The money will be refunded to customers and is the largest refund in a gaming case, and the largest FTC administrative order in history.
Amazon brings its subscription-based Prime Gaming to India, offering games across PC, Mac and mobile. Top titles include League of Legends, DeathLoop, Quake, COD Season 1, EA Madden 23, FIFA 23, Apex Legends, Destiny 2 and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.
China’s online gaming regulator approved 45 foreign games, ending the crackdown on gaming releases from outside the country. Pokemon Unite was among the newly approved titles.
Nvidia upgraded its $20/mo GeForce Now plan (Ultimate) with new servers with better hardware components. The service works across Windows, macOS, Android, Android TV, and select web browsers, including Safari on the iPhone and iPad.

Social

Tumblr added support for livestreaming on its mobile apps for iOS and Android. The service is powered by Livebox, which allows users to tip streamers. The service, dubbed Tumblr Live, can be found in a new Live tab and arrives at a time when the app has seen a surge of growth thanks to the Twitter exodus.
TikTok is now telling users why a video is on the For You feed. Users will be able to access a new feature, “Why this video?” from a question mark icon to learn why a video was recommended to them — for example, because of content they’ve previously watched, searched for, comments they had posted, or videos they shared.
Snapchat’s subscription service, Snapchat+, added three more features — the ability to add custom backgrounds for chats; gift a subscription to a friend; or change the camera button to a heart, soccer ball or another image.
Twitter’s subscription service Twitter Blue now supports video of up to 2GB, 60 mins in length, and 1080p on iOS; Android is limited to 512MB, 10 mins.
Twitter added support for crypto to its “cashtags” featurefor tracking a given coin’s market price. It also added publicly visible tweet counts, which used to be a private analytics feature. It also saw a 12+ hour outage in Australia and New Zealand. Yikes.
Instagram added a Reels template for making a 2022 recap of up to 14 photos. In the past, users had often turned to third-party apps, like Top Nine, for recaps.
Meta closed down a Cameo clone called Super which had offered virtual meet and greets with creators.
Mastodon has climbed to 2.5 million monthly active users, thanks to the Twitter exodus, up from around 300K users in October. The company is largely financed by Patreon, bringing in around $31,000 per month, up from $7,000 in November. The company has rejected offers of investment from VCs, saying they don’t understand its aims and want to commercialize the platform.

A.I.

Quora launched an A.I. chatbot in its iOS app that lets users ask questions and engage in back-and-forth conversations. The bot, called “Poe,” is currently invite-only and offers access to a number of text-generating A.I. models, including ChatGPT. (It’s unclear if the company has a partnership here — but ChatGPT doesn’t offer a public API).
Apple launched A.I.-powered book narration in Apple Books. The company said the feature will help independent authors who might not be able to convert their titles to audiobooks because of “the cost and complexity of production.”
Picsart debuted aniOS app, SketchAI, that turns photos and drawings into digital art using A.I.

Streaming

YouTube beat out Apple for the NFL Sunday Ticket streaming deal. The landmark deal will allow the company to offer the subscription as an add-on to YouTube TV or YouTube Primetime Channels. The multi-year deal is pegged at $2 billion.
Amazon is developing a standalone app for streaming sports content, The Information reported. The move could help Amazon better promote its live sports content, including the NFL’s Thursday Night Football.
Spotify may also be working on HealthKit integrations possibly to suggest songs based on the exercises users were performing.
Snap shut down its desktop camera app, Snap Camera, which offered filters for video calls on Skype, YouTube, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Zoom.
TikTok expanded its audience controls feature which now gives creators the ability to restrict their videos to adult viewers. Previously this was only available on TikTok Live.
TikTok partnered with IMDb to introduce a new feature that lets users tag movies and TV shows in their TikTok videos. The link takes viewers to an in-app page with IMDb info about the title and allows creators to save titles to a new Favorites tab on their profiles. MovieTok is going to love this.

Shopping

Pinduoduo’s discount marketplace app Temu became the most downloaded U.S. app from November 1 to December 14, Sensor Tower data found. The app saw 10.8 million U.S. installations from September 1 on.

Fintech

The IRS decided to delay a requirement that would have forced e-commerce apps like Venmo, PayPal, Cash App and Etsy to send tax forms to SMBs with $600+ in transactions.

Government, Policy and Lawsuits

France’s data protection watchdog, the CNIL, fined Apple €8 million (~$8.5M) for not obtaining mobile users’ consent prior to placing (and/or reading) ad identifiers on their devices related to its display of personalized ads on the App Store.

Security

An Android malware known as “Godfather” is using overlaid login screens to gain access to users’ credentials on over 400+ banking and crypto apps.
A ByteDance internal inquiry found that company employees had obtained user data of a small number of U.S. TikTok users, including two journalists. Four employees were fired over the offense, which was an attempt to discover the reporters’ source for leaks inside the company.
U.S. Congress passed a spending package that includes a bill banning TikTok on federal government devices over security concerns. The U.S. House also banned the app from all Representative-managed devices due to its “high-risk” nature.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission opened an inquiry into Twitter over reports of a leak of approximately 5.4 million users’ personal data last year.

Funding and M&A

Viva Republica, which runs the South Korean finance super app Toss, raised $405 million in Series G funding, valuing the business at 9.1 trillion won ( $7 billion). Previously, the company was valued at 8.5 trillion won in June 2021.
Indian fintech app Money View raised $75 million in a Series E funding round led by Apis Partners, valuing the business at $900 million. The company is looking to scale its credit business and build more products for the South Asian market.
Jakarta-based fintech app Akulaku raised $200 million from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), the largest bank in Japan. The strategic investment will help the company expand into new markets and build products together with MUFG.
Product Science, the maker of mobile app performance-monitoring tools, raised $18 million in seed funding to date from backers, including Slow Ventures, Coatue, K5 Global, Mantis Ventures, Benchmark’s Peter Fenton, Insight Partners co-founder Jerry Murdock and unnamed Snap VPs.
Indian fintech KreditBee has raised an additional $100 million led by Advent International as part of a larger Series D funding now closed at $200 million.

CES highlights

10-year old Chipolo explains why it’s not worried about Apple’s AirTag: Chipolo still runs its own app for its AirTag-like tracker, but it’s also embraced Find My integration. Unlike Tile, the company told the DoJ it wasn’t worried about Apple’s entry into its market.
FluentPet’s talking button system lets you get a ‘text’ from your dog: FluentPet launched an app-connected talking button system, FluentPet Connect, that integrates a mobile app with its dog communication tools — programmable buttons that, when pressed by a doggie’s paw, say words you have recorded. The new product is an update to the model first made popular by a dog named Bunny, whose 9 million+ social media followers landed the sheepadoodle on Forbes’ list of the top 50 social media creators of 2022.

This Week in Apps: 2022 in review by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Humans are eternally curious about the night sky, but figuring out how to use a telescope is non-trivial. At CES in Las Vegas, Unistellar believes it has the perfect solution with its Equinox 2 Smart Telescope.

“When I was a young teenager, I had a telescope that I used during the long summer nights. Fast forward to being an adult – I didn’t have any more time to do astronomy. With a friend of mine, we started to think about what we can do to bring astronomy back to our busy daily lives,” says Laurent Marfisi, co-founder and CEO of Unistellar in an interview with TechCrunch. “We thought up a telescope that is easy to use, that is powerful enough to see through the light pollution, and that has the possibility to reveal galaxies and nebulae, all those things that we could not see even when we were teenagers. The aim is to bring a lot of the power that professionals have in astronomy into the daily lives of consumers who just want to have fun, spend good quality time with their children and their friends around astronomy.”

The telescope doesn’t have an eyepiece, so you’ll need to use the app both to control and to capture the magic of the night sky. The app knows about more than 5,000 celestial objects you can explore, and uses the phone’s GPS to know where in the world it is. It then looks around and recognizes certain stars to pin point exactly where it’s looking.

The eQuinox 2 smart telescope will retail for $2,499, with pre-sales available now, and it’s globally available next month.

Unistellar’s telescope turns your smartphone into a stargazer by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

Something wasn’t working. In late 2020, Magic Leap announced a major change spearheaded by incoming CEO, Peggy Johnson. “[W]hat I found was nothing was really broken,” she told the press at the time, “It just needed to have a bit more focus.”

From the outside, certainly, it seemed like typically understated Chief Executive speak. It doesn’t take a business genius to point out that things weren’t working. It wasn’t a reflection on the technology, certainly. Those who’ve managed to try Magic Leap’s mixed reality headsets have been impressed. I spent time with the product at CES this week, and it certainly feels like the future.

But the company ran afoul an issue that plagued countless others in this category – the consumer audience for a $2,300 mixed reality headset simply wasn’t there. So it did what any extremely well-funded but struggling company does. Magic Leap pivoted. It suddenly found itself in the business of business, chasing the same enterprise audience that lured in Microsoft and Epson.

The pivot was very much on display on the show floor this week. The demos weren’t games, they were the output of developers looking toward profoundly serious use cases. In one, a 3D scan of the human brain emerges, pointing the way toward use in medical settings. In another, A mountain pops up. In the foreground, a wildfire advances. Tiny helicopters circle around in the air above.

CTO Daniel Diez tells TechCrunch, that the shift in focus began in earnest at the tail end of 2019. The timing was certainly fortuitous, as the prolonged financial slowdown of the past three years have made a $1,000+ item of luxury technology even more unattainable for the average consumer.

“We really saw that there was a value to be derived from AR much sooner from enterprise,” Diez explains. “The feedback we were getting from them was that. It also gave us insight into how the product needed to evolve to be truly purpose built for enterprise, and that’s what you see in the Magic Leap 2.”

While others, like Meta and HTC, are doing their best to be all things to all people in terms of content, Magic Leap appears to be in no specific rush to get their systems into the hands of more consumers – or at least not to make the sorts of sacrifices to the hardware required in order to get there.

“We see an immediate opportunity in enterprise,” says CTO, Julie Larson-Green. “I think on consumer, you kind of have to have some other consumer content business alongside that, really. So we’re not really focused on that side right now.”

In recent weeks, the company has made more headlines for its fundraising than any specific piece of content or hardware. At the tail end of the year, Saudi Arabia snagged a controlling stake through its public investment firm. The new influx of funds joined nearly $3.5 billion previous raised by the company, with help from GV, Alibaba and Qualcomm, among others. Magic Leap’s public struggles, coupled with massive fundraising, have created some open-ended questions about the firm’s future.

Asked whether recent funding will have a direct impact on Magic Leap’s future roadmap, Diez says, “We’re very lucky to have a very supportive investor base. They are very much in-line with our vision of really focusing on enterprise and making sure they devices can amplify the ability of folks to do really complicated things. Our board and our financers are all on the same page.”

After struggling with consumers, Magic Leap hang its hopes on enterprise by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Hey, folks, it’s Kyle, filling in for Greg, who’s out for the next few weeks on parental leave. While he enjoys time with his beautiful, healthy newborn (what better gift for the holidays, eh?), I’m learning the ropes of Week in Review to make sure y’all stay up to date with the latest in tech. Hope I do Greg justice — they’re big shoes to fill!

Longtime readers know the drill, but for the newbies, WiR aims to pithily recap the past seven days of TechCrunch stories. We publish on the site and send WiR to subscribers’ inboxes every Saturday (sign up here if you haven’t already) to make things convenient. Like a buttery croissant, WiR goes great with a morning cup of coffee — or tea, if that’s your preference. Or hot cocoa. Take your pick — no judgment over here.

Before we dive into the news, a reminder that the TC Early Stage event in Boston is fast approaching. Tickets won’t last — they never do — so get ’em before they’re gone if you’ll be in the Greater Boston area toward the end of April. We’d love to see your smiling face.

most read

TikTok bans abound: The U.S. might be getting all the attention for banning TikTok on government devices, but India did it first — two and a half years ago now, in fact. In recent remarks, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr said that the U.S. should follow India’s lead more broadly to “weed out … nefarious apps.” India hasbanned hundreds of apps besides TikTok, including PUBG Mobile, Battlegrounds Mobile India and UC Browser, with ties to China amid skirmishes at the border of the two neighboring nations.

I’m feeling Afeela: ‘Tis the season for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which continues to become increasingly car-centric. Case in point, Sony and Honda unveiled Afeela, their joint EV brand, at a flashy press conference on Wednesday, where they rolled a four-door sedan onstage. Preorders of the Afeelas are scheduled for the first half of 2025, the companies said, with sales to begin sometime same year. Initial shipments will be delivered to customers in North America in the spring of 2026.

No appetite for risk: My colleague Natasha wrote an excellent piece about how tech workers, burned by recent layoffs, are reevaluating their relationships with the industry — particularly in light of potentially tumultuous economic times ahead. Some are working multiple full-time jobs in adjacent industries, while others are opting for part-time contracting gigs to make ends meet. Few seem eager to leave tech altogether — but they’re certainly more cynical than they used to be.

For the birds: Bird Buddy, a startup behind “smart” bird feeders, took the wraps off of its latest model at CES, which caters to hummingbirds. Like its original bird feeder, Bird Buddy’s new feeder — which features recyclable and sustainable materials — has a camera that’s triggered by motion, which prompts it to take photos of bird visitors. Those are then run through an AI algorithm to help identify the species, alerting owners through a companion mobile app.

I didn’t do it, I swear: Sam Bankman-Fried’s not guilty plea to several federal fraud charges was a tactical response, according to experts Jacquelyn spoke with. The former CEO of the crypto exchange FTX, whose company collapsed in November, might be buying time to strike a deal with prosecutors, they said. A trial date in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is set for October 2.

Cutting the sales force: Salesforce announced this week that it’s cutting roughly 10% of its workforce, impacting more than 7,000 employees, while it shutters offices in “certain markets.” Similar to other companies hit by significant layoffs over the past year, CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce hired too many people through the pandemic during the boom times. The company claimed 79,000 employees last February, a 30% increase on 2020.

Billions for Bezos: Amazon secured an $8 billion loan, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch that the loan adds to the range of financing options the company has tapped in recent months to hedge against the “uncertain macroeconomic environment.” It also comes on the heels of a disappointing year for the retailer, which over-expanded during the pandemic; in its most recent cost-cutting measure, Amazon internally announced plans to lay off around 18,000 people.

I see you: Speaking of Amazon, at CES, Amazon-owned Ring brought back the Peephole Cam, a camera that fits over existing door peepholes to record goings-on outdoors, in apartment building hallways and so on. Now starting at $129 — down from the original price of $199 — it ships with software that brings its capabilities in line with the rest of Ring’s portfolio, like motion detection and real-time streaming video.

audio roundup

Have an appetite for podcasts to kick off the new year? Good, because TC’s serving ’em up like hotcakes. On The TechCrunch Podcast, I talked with Darrell about CES-related AI product announcements while Natasha spoke on the effects of the mass layoffs in tech. Meanwhile, the crew of Equity, TC’s startup-focused show, took a look at some early standouts from CES, USV and Doorstead’s deals of the week, plus the latest development in the FTX and SBF saga. And last but not least, Found sat down with Brex co-founder and co-CEO Henrique Dubugras to chat about his corporate credit card and expense management startup.

TechCrunch+

Don’t subscribe to TC+ yet? Shame, ’cause there’s great content coming out of there. Some of the most popular this week were:

Fintech predictions and opportunities for 2023: It’s been an eventful year in fintech. The market has fallen a long way from the highs of 2021, and while 2022 was largely about the reset of the funding environment, Victoria predicts 2023 is going to be a year of recalibration for fintech companies. Read her thorough piece for more.

5 failure points between $5M and $100M in ARR: Tracy Young, the former CEO of PlanGrid, a construction app for project managers, breaks down PlanGrid’s key failure points and what she’s learned from them over the years. As she says in the opening paragraphs: “If these reflections help even one founder make one less mistake, I would consider this effort worthwhile.”

Is generative AI already becoming a bubble?: Rebecca surveyed more than 35 investors working in different geographies, investment stages and sectors about how they were feeling about generative AI — that is, ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion and other tech along those lines. Interestingly, while several investors said they were bullish on the new tech overall, they also admitted that the sector was likely to get lost in its own hype.

Sony and Honda unveil Afeela, Bird Buddy launches a new smart feeder, and Amazon secures an $8B loan by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch