TechCrunch+

In many ways, 2022 was a year of growth for the cloud technology space. Unpredictable macroeconomic developments saw many organizations thinking about and preparing for greater wins in the years to come instead of right away.

In 2023, much of this preparation could come to fruition as the growth achieved in 2022 contributes to a stronger economy and rapid advancements, particularly in tech.

Global IT spending is projected to climb by 5.1% to $4.6 trillion in 2023, according to Gartner, driven by a 11.3% increase in investments in cloud applications to $879.62 billion. What does this kind of increased spending and investment mean for organizations? C2C Global, a Google Cloud customer community, has identified five cloud trends to watch in 2023.

AI and ML tech adoption will rise

Every organization wants to harness the many and varied capabilities of AI and ML technology. Some want to use their data to enhance analytics and build predictive models, and others want to automate repeatable processes.

Currently, many AI and ML models require extensive testing and training before they can be implemented at scale across large organizations hosting petabytes of data or serving wide customer bases. In fact, C2C’s researchhas found that only 47% of respondents are currently using AI and ML. However, these technologies ranked high among the ones that respondents hope to adopt in the future.

The promise of these technologies is too significant to ignore. As models are refined, and training and testing become more reliable and automatic, organizations will come to rely on these technologies more.

5 cloud trends to track in 2023 by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch

The decade-long summer of free money is over. Venture funding declined by $90 billion (53%) in the third quarter of 2022 from a year earlier and fell $40 billion (33%) compared to the second quarter, per Crunchbase data. That makes Q3 2022 the slowest quarter for VC funding since the start of the pandemic.

However, in spite of all the crazy stories this year, there are real opportunities for aspiring fintech startups to become the new heroes of the multitrillion-dollar banking and embedded finance industry.

In particular, I’m hearing that investors are reluctant to fund future potential unless it comes hand in hand with concrete customer traction. So if you’re building a fintech idea and you need funding today, it’s vital to get your product into the hands of customers quickly.

How will you do that? By gathering feedback, using it to sharpen your focus and prioritization and ultimately rewarding your customers for helping you.

Here are three tips for achieving those goals:

Get feedback and insights from your customers with a working product.
Aim high for the long term, but don’t work on anything except your minimum viable product (MVP) in the short term.
Always remember the problems you’re trying to fix for people and reward them for choosing you.

It’s critical to gather feedback and insights from your customers

In this operating environment, startups have a better chance of impressing investors if they can point to tangible results.

What does that look like in reality? Prepare for these common questions before you head to an investor meeting with your pitch deck:

Who are your users?
What are the problems you’re trying to fix for them?
What do they like and what do they want?
Where are you going to meet them?

The only way to find these answers is to ship something real — a working product that people can interact with and use. That means everything you’re building right now should be in service of getting an MVP out the door.

I’m not saying, “Build it and they will come.” Far too many tech companies shut down shop because they were making solutions in search of problems. It is really easy to slow yourself down by thinking too far ahead in terms of what you need to create.

For instance, if you’re building a consumer fintech startup, do you really need to build your own payments processor? In my experience, that would take 10 to 20 engineers, about 18 months and millions of dollars, and they’d likely end up building something that may never see the light of day.

Eighteen months is a very long time in an environment where fintechs and embedded banking startups can get to market in three months, if not faster, according to Bain & Co. research. Moreover, speed begets opportunity: The study expects embedded finance transactions in the U.S. to surge to $7 trillion over the next four years, up from $2.6 trillion at present.

How can fintech startups outlast the VC winter? by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch

Superscript, an insurance broker and tech platform targeting SMEs and “high-growth” tech firms, has raised £45 million ($54 million) in a Series B round of funding

Founded out of London in 2015, Superscript constitutes two core insurance businesses: an online-only “self-serve” platform that’s available to U.K. customers including SMEs, sole traders, and landlords, and an advised broking service called SuperscriptQ that’s available in the U.K. and across the European Economic Area (EEA). This is targeted at tech businesses with complex risks that are more difficult to insure such as medical malpractice or professional indemnity, with customers including London-based fintech unicorn Paddle.

The underwriting factor

As with just about every other sector, the insurance tech industry has been hit hard by the global economic downturn, with the likes of Policygenius andNext Insurance all cutting back their headcount over the past year, while publicly-traded firms such as Lemonade, Hippo, and Root all trading way down on last year.

But for every yin there’s a yang, and there are signs that the insurtech realm is still very much alive and kicking. Germany’s Wefox last year raised $400 million at $4.5 billion valuation, while Ohio-based Branch reached unicorn status off the back of a $147 million raise. And now, it’s Superscript’s turn to remind the world that insurtech might be doing just fine after all..

But what separates the wheat from the chaff in insurtech — why do some float while others flounder?

“Insurance has a more complex value chain than most tech businesses, in that you need to focus on both your acquisition strategy as well as the going performance of the policies that you’re selling,” Superscript cofounder and CEO Cameron Shearer explained to TechCrunch. “While fast-growth in customer numbers is typically seen as a good thing, if the underwriting is not right then claims — in other words, losses — will start to compound overtime. If you carry long-term liabilities, then you might not experience the business’s ‘true’ results for a number of years.”

Superscript’s underwriting partners include a slew of well-known names from the insurance world, including AXA, Beazley At Lloyd’s, RSA, and MS Amlin. And this multi-carrier approach, spanning regions and sector-specific expertise, is partly why Shearer thinks that Superscript is well-positioned to flourish as it looks to scale over the long-term. It’s all about providing bespoke coverage for the types of risks that SMEs specifically need.

“Historically, many investors have mirrored the tech-investment models and focused on acquisition,” Shearer added. “More recently, now with the hindsight of more mature insurtechs and a number of IPO experiences, we’ve seen investors shifting focus towards underwriting differentiation and strength. Superscript has focused on sustainable growth and quality underwriting from day one to give us more favourable loss ratios. Sophisticated underwriting, tech and data capabilities enable us to provide a highly personalised user and underwriting experience.”

From a technology and data perspective, Superscript says it uses “proprietary machine learning technology” to set itself apart, including throughout the acquisition and onboarding process in its self-serve product which guides would-be customers toward the correct channels. And big data insights is also a big part of its promise, where it uses machine learning models to price its risks “more accurately” through crunching a range of data points.

“Other parts of our tech looks at data we’ve collected about the insurance market to assess the probability of where risks are likely to be accepted by insurers and carriers, and what data points are key to a particular insurer’s underwriting process,” Shearer said. “This again drives operational efficiency for both our process and the insurers.”

The company had previously raised around $24.4 million, including a roughly $20 million tranche raised across two rounds in 2020. With another $54 million in the bank, the company said that it plans to bolster its underwriting and broking capabilities, and continue investing in its machine learning tooling.

While Superscript is limited to the European market, it has longer term ambitions to become a global player. In fact, it already claims some clients in North America, Australasia, and the Middle East, though apparently they are customers who need access to the European insurance markets.

Superscript’s Series B round of funding was led by Comparethemarket owner BHL UK, with participation from The Hartford, and Concentric.

Superscript, a bespoke insurance provider for SMEs, raises $54 million by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

Releaf, a Nigerian agritech startup that supplies ingredients (starting with the oil palm) to consumer goods manufacturers and their food factories, has received $3.3 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A round.

The Jack Ma Foundation-backed startup, which announced a $4.2 million (including a $1.5 million grant) seed raise in September 2021, said the funding will support the launch of two new technologies: Kraken II and SITE.

Releaf focuses on value chains where smaller factories are set up near smallholder farmers, allowing them to get better processing yields and less expensive logistics costs. The oil palm is the first, and for now, the only crop Releaf works on; the oil palm market is a $3 billion market that consists of over 4 million smallholder farmers. These farmers drive about 80% of the crop’s production using rocks or inefficient hardware, responsible for producing low-quality vegetable oil. That’s why the agritech launched Kraken, its static palm nut de-sheller machine built to process this crop and efficiently extract “high-quality” vegetable oil for farmers.

“Our seed round was focused on essentially getting the first evolution of Kraken and proving that we can be the first company to take multiple species of very poor quality smallholder palm nut and turn them into high-quality palm kernel oil,” Uzoma Ayogu, co-founder and CTO, told TechCrunch in an interview.

“After proving that, we needed to figure out how to best place this technology dynamically and, over the last couple of months, made progress on Kraken’s evolution from being static to being portable and reducing the cost significantly [Kraken II] while adding new products [SITE] to complement the suite of tech that we have already.”

Kraken II is a mobile and less expensive version of the palm nut de-sheller, costing half as much and eliminating over 80% of margin-eroding costs. On the other hand, SITE is a geospatial mapping application that discloses food processing assets. SITE was developed in collaboration with Stanford University’s Professor David Lobell, a MacArthur Fellow, and Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment, whose team refined the age identification process for oil palm trees in Nigeria.

According to Ayogu, the YC-backed Releaf figured out that just building tech wasn’t enough to get the best margins for farmers and manufacturers but that the tech needed to be in the right places and at the proper season across different regions in Nigeria. Hence the reason for Kraken’s portability and SITE’s placement and route planning capabilities. The combination of both enables the Uyo-based Releaf to target the best opportunities across Nigeria’s oil palm belt rather than being limited to sourcing crops within 100 kilometers of a fixed processing site like existing food processors.

“The biggest benefit to them [farmers] with this new evolution of Kraken and SITE is that many offer farmers poor prices because they have to pay a lot for logistics. But now that we can eliminate 80% of the logistics costs and process much closer to the farmers, we can pass a lot of that profit back to them while also keeping more of it for ourselves while improving even the quality of the end product,” said Ayogu, who co-founded Releaf with CEO Ikenna Nzewi on why this new technologies matters for farmers.

In Nigeria’s food processing industry, there’s more competition downstream, dominated mainly by middlemen and traders, usually single-person or few-person outfits that tend to be closer to consumers and have better pricing power. It’s different for Releaf, which operates upstream and has less competition, at least when the application of tech is considered. Offering farmers better prices and providing working capital are two ways Releaf uses to gain market share in this segment, Ayogu noted.

The startup has used its supply chain technology to process more than 10 million kilograms of palm nuts since the launch of Kraken in 2021. As a result, Releaf has grown its monthly revenue 7x year-on-year, which is set to increase this year following the securement of over $100 million in supply contracts from consumer goods manufacturers in Nigeria.With this funding, the agritech, whose valuation has tripled since its seed round, will be looking to expand the regions where it processes palm and extend the crop types it works with.

“Our insights have shown that downstream is capped by supply, which is upstream,” the CTO mentioned. “And so our focus is via the first mover advantage with differentiated technology, we can capture a significant amount of supply in a fragmented market and then over time verticalized to increase margins and market position.”

The pre-Series A funding was led by Samurai Incubate Africa, who re-invested after leading Releaf’s seed round, with participation from Consonance Investment Managers. Stephen Pagliuca (Chairman of Bain Capital) and Jeff Ubben (Board member at World Wildlife Fund and Founder of Inclusive Capital Partners) also invested. Rena Yoneyama, managing partner at Samurai Incubate Africa, speaking on the investment, said: “Releaf’s success with its pilot Kraken validates its thesis, and we are excited to continue supporting their ambitious vision to create efficient supply chains within Africa’s agricultural market.”

Nigerian agritech Releaf gets more capital as it launches new tech for food processing by Tage Kene-Okafor originally published on TechCrunch

An influential industry group that represents Google, Meta and Amazon among other tech firms has expressed concerns about the digital competition law recommended by an Indian parliamentary panel that seeks to regulate their alleged anticompetitive practices, calling the proposal “absolutist and regressive” in nature.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance recommended last month that the government enact a digital competition act to regulate anticompetitive business practices by Big Tech companies on its platforms, prohibiting them from preferentially promoting their in-house brands or not supporting third-party systems. The competition act, the panel said, “will be a boon not only for our country and its nascent startup economy but also for the entire world.”

Industry group Asia Internet Coalition said in a statement that the proposed digital competition law may hurt digital innovation in India and could impact the investments by businesses in India and have “disproportionate costs” to consumers in the South Asian market. “The report put forward by the committee is prescriptive, absolutist and regressive in nature,” it added.

The Indian panel said last month that its recommendation was systemically important to counter monopoly and warned that tech giants “must not favour its own offers over the offers of its competitors” when acting as mediators to supply and sales markets.

The parliamentary panel’s recommendation cites the EU’s proposed Digital Markets Act and the U.S.’s American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Market Act.

The industry group AIC said that both AICOA and OAMA have “failed to attain bipartisan support due to substantive disagreements and concerns for unintended consequences on consumers, growth, and innovation. In sum, there is no consensus that a DMA-style ex ante legislation is the way forward for addressing potential competition concerns in the digital space,” it said in the statement.

India is the world’s second largest internet market and has attracted over $75 billion in investment from firms including Google, Meta, Amazon and investment shops Sequoia, Lightspeed, SoftBank and Tiger Global in the past decade. New Delhi has enforced and proposed a number of policy changes in the past three years to bring more accountability and fairness in how the tech firms operate in the country in moves that have rattled many U.S. giants.

New Delhi is entering 2023 with several more such policy changes, including a telecom law that would tighten the government’s grip on internet firms.

“We urge the government to first observe whether these overseas regulatory developments bring about benefits that outweigh costs. Specifically, it is important to note that the government has recently proposed two significant bills, i.e the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill and the Competition Amendment Bill (CAB), both of which seek to protect consumers, preserve competition and promote tech innovation, with a special focus on digital markets,” said Asia Internet Coalition.

“Accordingly, it is critical to first understand the effects of these two bills on the digital ecosystem before introducing any new legislative proposals.”

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said last month that India was going through an important period of time as it drafts several key regulations and asserted that it stands to benefit from open and connected internet.

US tech giants say Indian panel’s recommended competition act ‘absolutist and regressive’ by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

This wasn’t Mark Warner’s first CES rodeo. The senior senator from Virginia was on-board with this whole tech thing well before being elected the state’s governor back in 2002. His time at Columbia Capital found him knee-deep in the mobile world during its formative years, including his early support of one-time telecom giant, Nextel.

After years away, the CTA invited Warner back to appear on a panel alongside fellow senators Jacky Rosen of Nevada and New Mexico’s Ben Ray Luján. The program was part of a broader, on-going initiate bring law makers to CES, as technology grows ever more central in our lives and the policies that govern them.

Warner has, fittingly, made tech a centerpiece of much of the work he’s done in Congress’ upper chamber, from social media accountability to the long-standing technological cold war between the U.S. and China. He also serves as the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was astrong proponent of the CHIPS act.

We sat down with the senator in a Las Vegas Convention Center meeting room, to discuss some of the day’s most important technology concerns, from cybersecurity and TikTok/Huawei to Elon Musk’s Twitter roller coaster and the rise of killer robots.

But first, because it’s all anyone was speaking about this week, Kevin McCarthy’s propensity for stepping on rakes on the way to becoming House Speaker (note: McCarthy won on the 15th vote, roughly six hours after our conversation).

(Editor’s note: This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.)

What are your thoughts generally on the McCarthy situation?

I don’t know how he gets out of this. I know him, because I’ve dealt with him as part of the Gang of Eight, and frankly, my interactions with him have been fine. […] I’m a little surprised that he’s made all of these concessions he said he wouldn’t make, and he’s not had more push back from the moderates.

By the 10th or 11th vote, you start making more concessions.

People, I understand, can be critical of Nancy Pelosi on things, but you could have never have envisioned this kind of scenario happening to her.

Everyone seems to be following this.

And the fact that it was the two-year anniversary of January 6th. The idea that they’re coming in at 10PM on a Friday night.

How did you make the jump into politics?

I started with the interest in politics. I graduated from college, I had no money, and I had done fundraising as a young guy for the Democratic National Committee and Jimmy Carter’s campaign. I remember somebody who went into $300,000 debt after he lost in a race. I couldn’t imagine that. The idea was that, if I’m ever going to have [a political career] as a possibility, I’m going to go and get a financial base first. I failed miserably at two businesses. The third was cell phones, and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

You have a technology background, but I think there’s a lack of tech knowledge in leaders generally, and in the government more broadly. Given how much tech touches every piece of legislation, what can we do to catch congress up to speed?

I think people are trying. The good news is that most of the technology issues don’t fall on a liberal-conservative continuum. My tired phrase is, ‘it’s more future-past than left-right.’ I think that makes it easier at times to find coalitions. With Huawei and the semi-conductor – I’ve been up to my eyes in both of them – that technology competition is national security. If we have a conflict with China, I don’t believe it’s going to be who has the most aircraft carriers and airplanes. It’s going to be who dominates satellites, can you turn off the power?

You may never need to get to conflict if you have a communications medium operated by the China Communist Party that has 100 million kids on it, called TikTok. I think people are getting that, and there is a willing bipartisan concern about China and national security. Both make members more willing to learn about technology and realize it’s something that we have to focus on. But it’s been an evolution.

You mentioned Huawei. I, perhaps naively, thought that when Trump left office, there would be a rolling back of the entity list and other issues. These things have remained firmly in place.

Huawei’s a national security threat. Huawei scared me, being a wireless guy. I grew up in a world with Motorola and AT&T and Nortel, Erickson, Nokia, Samsung. You turn around, and all of the North American companies are gone. You suddenly not only have a Chinese company, but you have the Chinese setting the ground rules for the international telecommunications union and all of these standard-setting bodies, which we used to dominate, and then they flooded the zone. We’re starting to tell other countries Huawei’s a challenge. But we didn’t have any alternatives.

You’re talking about infrastructure.

Yeah. Huawei’s cheap and it’s a soup to nuts solution setup. But one of the things that I think is very positive is that even the European companies that went down the Huawei path are doing some version of rip and replace. I think the awareness that these Chinese companies come with national security risks has grown beyond America.

Is it time to start having a serious discussion about legislation around police and killer robots?

Truthfully, I have probably not thought about it enough. Using technology without some guardrails – I think we make a mistake with the notion of ‘go out and innovate, break things.’

Move fast, break things.

I think that’s created some real issues. It’s one of the issues I’ve made the pitch that we need to be involved in the standard setting entities around the world. You build your values of transparency or privacy protection. I do think that if you combine technology with AI, you sometimes take the human being out of the decision making. That scares the dickens out of me. How will you go about legislating those guardrails on the front end? We’re not very good at it. We usually legislate after the fact, and it blows my mind that we still haven’t done a single thing on social media.

That’s a subject I wanted broach, with the recent Twitter news.

I’m a big supporter of Elon Musk, especially with Space X.

As a technological innovator.

Yeah. My concern with him on Twitter is not about putting Trump back on Twitter, it’s because his real source of wealth is Tesla, whether he’s going to be dependent so much on the Communist Party of China in terms of the source of all of his batteries. If you look at the comments he’s made about the regulatory structure in China, it’s all been positive. And the comments he’s made about infrastructure in Europe or America are generally negative. I worry about undo influence.

So the worry is him using this as a platform to promote these ideas?

I would be concerned that suddenly Twitter prohibits negative comments about the Communist Party in China.

There was an argument [prior to Musk purchasing Twitter] about ‘free speech’ and how it applies to a platform run by a private sector company. If it’s a company he owns, it’s his purview.

I think you can put some restrains on Section 230. I’m not where a lot of the tech community might be. I support free speech. I think you don’t have the right to necessarily have it amplified eight billion times.

Should the FTC be more aggressive with regards to acquisitions and potential monopolies?

Yes. There are some that argue we don’t need additional legislation, they just need a stronger review. I do think that some of the transactions that were allowed could have been precluded. I think, in the long run, it would have made sense. You made the comment that tech companies are virtual utilities. I am of the view – and I’m not an anti-trust expert by any means – that consumer price being the only thing–

Purely capitalistic motives.

Yeah, but also, how do you measure price? People say ‘Facebook is free, Google’s free.’ It’s not free. I’m not saying it’s morally bad they take our data and monetize it–

I’ll say that.

I’m more squishy than that. But people ought to know what it’s worth.

And they ought to know what data they’re giving up.

Right, right. It’s crazy to me that we’ve still never had a data privacy law in this country.

Senator Mark Warner on cybersecurity, Musk’s Twitter and legislating killer robots by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Major streaming services have upped their game in 2022 with the launch of ad-supported tiers, new live sports deals, hugely successful original series and more. As the streaming wars continue to heat up, media companies have no choice but to raise the stakes. From the HBO Max/Discovery+ merged streaming service to Netflix’s password-sharing offering, here’s what SVOD (subscription video-on-demand) streaming services have planned for next year and beyond.

What HBO Max/Discovery+ is Planning for 2023

Earlier this year, Discoveryacquired WarnerMedia to form Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), becoming one of the biggest media companies in the United States.

As TechCrunch has reported many times, HBO Max and Discovery+ are combining in 2023. This spring, WBD will launch a merged streaming service that pairsHBO originals and Warner Bros. films with Discovery+’s content library of unscripted shows, documentaries and more. In total, subscribers will have access to nearly 200,000 hours of programming and over 100 brands, such as CNN, TBS, TNT, TruTV, Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, Food Network, TLC, HGTV, ID, Animal Planet, and many others.

The streaming service will reportedly be called just “Max,” and will make its debut in the U.S. before launching in Latin America and then in Europe in 2024. While there will be an ad-free and ad-supported option, its ad-free offering will likely cost more than what subscribers pay now for HBO Max’s premium plan, which is $14.99/month.

“Max,” or whatever the company decides to call it, will be a major contender in the streaming wars. HBO, HBO Max and Discovery+ ended Q3 2022 with a combined total of 94.9 million global subscribers.

WBD is also busy planning a free ad-supported streaming (FAST) service to keep up with competitors in the FAST market, including Peacock, Pluto TV, Tubi and Amazon Freevee, among others.

Recently, the company pulled over a dozen HBO originals from HBO Max that will soon move to third-party streaming services. This includes “Westworld,” “The Nevers,” “Raised by Wolves,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “Love Life,” “Made for Love,” “Minx,” “Finding Magic Mike,” “Head of the Class,” “FBOY Island,” “Legendary,” “Gordita Chronicles” and “The Garcias.”

We predict that once WBD launches its FAST offering, it will offer these titles.

What Netflix is Planning for 2023

Netflix had an eventful 2022. The company launched its $6.99/month ad-supported tier, giving consumers the ability to save a few bucks on their streaming habits. The move validates a common trend in the industry right now—ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) is in. In 2023, Netflix’s “Basic with Ads” plan is predicted to have 7.5 million domestic subscribers, according to JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth.

Netflix’s subscriber base also rebounded in Q3 2022 after increasing by 2.41 million subscribers, bringing the total to 223.09 million. The company previously experiencedtwo bleak quarters, losing a total of1.2 million global subscribers.

As far as we know, the streamer has three notable projects in the works for 2023 and beyond.

In early 2023, Netflix will launch an “Extra Members” feature to monetize password sharing. The feature will prompt account members to pay an extra fee to add a subaccount for people sharing the streaming service.

The company has already launched a “Profile Transfer” feature, which lets a member on an existing account transfer their profile to a brand-new account and a “Manage Access and Devices” feature, which allows account owners to remotely log out of devices they don’t want to be signed in to the account.

Also coming to the streaming service next year is a livestreaming capability, with Chris Rock to be the first to test the offering for his upcoming comedy special. Live content could help the streamer attract new subs.

Unfortunately, Netflix is not planning to launch a live sports offering. During the UBS Global TMT Conference, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said, “We’ve not seen a profit path to renting big sports.”

Beyond next year, the company is continuing its investment into gaming. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, Netflix VP of Gaming Mike Verdu revealed that a cloud gaming offering is on the horizon. This is a smart move for Netflix as the global cloud gaming market had $1.6 billion in revenue in 2021.

Similarly, there’s a possibility that Netflix will get into PC gaming since it’s looking to hire a game director who’ll be in charge of launching a AAA PC game.

Netflix’s mobile gaming library continues to expand. Entering 2023, Netflix will have launched 50 mobile games so far.

What Disney+ is Planning for 2023

Looking back on 2022, Disney+ experienced a lot of major changes, including the launch of its ad-supported tier as well as the unexpected return of Bob Iger as CEO.

The “Disney+ Basic” plan is $7.99/month and was launched in order to give Disney+ more subscribers. The company wants to reach 230-260 million Disney+ subscribers by 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Disney+ reported164.2 million global subscribers in total.

However, there is one major issue with the ad launch: Disney+ Basic is unavailable on Roku devices. TechCrunch estimates that Disney and Roku will reach an agreement to change that sometime in late 2023—but that’s just a guess.

Alongside Disney+’s new subscription plan, the streamer introduced changes to the Disney Bundle as well as a price hike to its ad-free plan.

In November 2022, Bob Chapek stepped down as CEO of Disney and was replaced by Bob Iger, the former CEO, who had only vacated the spot in 2021. Hopefully, Iger can help the company achieve profitability by its fiscal 2024. In Q4 2022, when Chapek was still CEO, Disney’s direct-to-consumer division lost $1.5 billion in revenue.

In 2023, Disney+ is planning an international expansion to 30 additional countries, which would bring the total toover 160 countries. Over the summer, the streamer launched in 42 countries and 11 territories.

Also, beginning next year, Disney+ will be the exclusive international home for new “Doctor Who” episodes.

One significant feature coming to the streaming service is an exclusive shopping experience for Disney+ subscribers. The online shop, which is currently in the testing phase, offers users merchandise from Disney-owned brands, such as Star Wars, Marvel, Disney Animation Studios, and Pixar. The company is also reportedly exploring the idea of a membership program similar to Amazon Prime. There are no official launch dates for either feature.

What Hulu is Planning for 2023

Not much happened for the Disney-owned streaming service Hulu this year, apart from annoying price increases and losing titles to rival Peacock. The streamer did however reach a milestone of58 Emmy nominations. Hulu is also beginning 2023 with 47.2 million subscribers.

If you’ve been following the Disney/Comcast spectacle, then you know that Disney is expected to buy Comcast’s stake in Hulu by the end of 2024. Comcast owns 33%, whereas Disney owns 66%. However, when Chapek was still CEO, he alluded in a Variety interview that Disney could buy the rights sooner than that—perhaps in 2023. This depends on if Comcast “is willing to have discussions that would bring that to fruition earlier,” Chapek said.

Whenever Disney ends up buying Comcast’s stake in Hulu–either by 2023 or 2024—the company may be planning on merging Hulu with Disney+ and ESPN+. “You know the term soft bundle and hard bundle, right? Soft bundle is, hey, buy all three services for the low price of X. The hard bundle is when things become seamless and without friction. Right now, if you want to go from Hulu to ESPN+ to Disney+, you have to go out of one app to another app. In the future, we may have less friction,” Chapek told Variety.

If Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ were to live inside one platform, many subscribers who already have the Disney Bundle would be overjoyed. While it most likely won’t be a full integration like HBO Max and Discovery+, it will still be an amalgamation of epic proportions. Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ have a combined total of 235.7 million subscribers.

What Amazon Prime Video is Planning for 2023

Prime Video had a successful 2022, becoming the exclusive home of the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football,” which had its first game watched by 15.3 million viewers, and its “The Lord of the Rings” spinoff was the most-watched series with over 100 million viewers worldwide.“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is confirmed for a second season.

It’s fair to say that Amazon is heavily investing in content and will continue doing so for the next few years. For instance, the streaming service keeps putting money toward live sports. In 2023, the company will be the home of an exclusive NFL Black Friday game, the first-ever Black Friday game for the league.

Amazon may also take a gamble with theatrical movies, according to Bloomberg. The publication wrote that Amazon might begin spending more than $1 billion a year to produce 12 to 15 films that will premiere in theaters before they make their debut on the streaming service. This would be a notable yet expensive gamble for the company, as it has yet to invest this much into original movies.

The streamer has various original series in the pipeline, including the greenlit limited series “Blade Runner 2099,” a “God of War” live-action series and even at least one “Warhammer 40,000” title that will have “Man of Steel” actor Henry Cavill as the lead.

Speaking of DC actors, Amazon is in the process of closing a deal with Warner Bros. to develop animated DC series for Prime Video. At the Content London conference, the Chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group, Channing Dungey, said, “We are in the process of closing a big deal with Amazon that’s going to feature some of our DC branded content in animation.” For HBO Max to share IP, especially DC content, is extremely notable and will likely boost subscription growth for Prime Video.

As more SVOD streaming services shift to AVOD, we wouldn’t be surprised if Prime Video considers launching a cheaper ad-supported tier. It’s possible that such an offering would pay off big for Amazon. It’s estimated that Netflix will see $600 million in advertising sales in 2023 alone.

The move makes sense for Amazon as it already has an ad-supported service, Freevee. Amazon Prime Video is also testing an ad format called virtual product placement, which the company announced in May.

What Apple TV+ is Planning for 2023

Apple TV+ announced its first foray into live sports this year. We suspect Apple TV+ will keep up with the trend in 2023.

In March 2022, Apple TV+ closed its first live sports deal with Major League Baseball, bringing fans “Friday Night Baseball” games as well as a live show “MLB Big Inning.” The company is launching its subscription service for Major League Soccer fans, “MLS Season Pass” in February 2023.

Like Amazon, rival Apple TV+ would benefit greatly from an ad-supported tier. Especially if it wants to close a billion-dollar deal with the NFL, the tech company is going to need an additional revenue stream. Apple TV+ recently increased its subscription price to $6.99/month or $69/year.

What Paramount+ is Planning for 2023

Paramount+ is ending 2022 with 46 million global subscribers, which was mainly driven by the new partnership with Walmart+, which has a reported 16 million subscribers, as well as offering its premium subscription on The Roku Channel and YouTube. More recently, Paramount+ reported a record number of subscriber sign-ups in November when it premiered its latest hit series “Tulsa King,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

Looking ahead, Paramount+ plans to reach 100 million subs by 2024 and increase streaming content spending to $6 billion, up from $2 billion in 2022. It also has plans to expand international growth, which includes 150 international original titles by 2025.

With the release of high-budget films like “Top Gun: Maverick” and Paramount+ continuing to rely on popular IP, the streamer will likely achieve substantial subscriber growth in 2023. Plus, Paramount+ recently launched an in-app Showtime bundle, giving subscribers access to more content.

That being said, a merger between Paramount+ and Showtime is likely imminent. During Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology Conference, CEO of Paramount Global, Bob Bakish, confirmed that talks of a merger had taken place internally. While a decision hasn’t been made yet, integrating Showtime into Paramount+ would be the best move for the company.

A price increase is also in the future plans for Paramount+. During the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Paramount Global Executive Vice President and CFO, Naveen Chopra, said that “opportunities to increase price on Paramount+” is to be expected.

What Peacock is Planning for 2023

Peacock had a big win in 2022 as it doubled its number of paid subscribers to 18 million this year alone. This was mainly thanks to NBC and Bravo next-day episodes that it pulled from Hulu earlier this year. Peacock was also the Spanish-language streaming home for all World Cup games.

In terms of other content coming to the streaming service in 2023, Peacock will premiere the “John Wick” prequel series, “The Continental,” as well as original series like “Poker Face,” starring “Russian Doll” star Natasha Lyonne. The streamer also recently announced its first original adult animation series, “In the Know,” which will feature “Beavis and Butt-Head” creator Mike Judge and “Silicon Valley” actor Zach Woods.

Beginning in 2023, Peacock will be the exclusive streaming partner of JetBlue, marking a notable deal that will broaden its service to more subscribers.

While things are looking up for Peacock next year, some non-paying subscribers might be very disappointed in the next 12 months or later. NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell stated that “at some point” the company wants to convert Xfinity users to paid subscribers of Peacock. This means customers of Comcast’s Xfinity cable and internet services might not be able to get the streaming service as a free perk anymore. However, this move would make sense for Peacock since 30 million monthly active users can access the streaming service at no additional cost.

What each streaming service has up its sleeve in 2023 by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

Stellantis revealed during CES 2023 its answer to an increasingly crowded battery-electric truck market: a broad-shouldered pickup loaded with tech, a longer cabin with third-row jump seats, cup holders in the frunk and even a movie projector.

The Ram 1500 Revolution BEV concept isn’t exactly what the Stellantis brand plans to put into production by 2024. (That version will be shown later this year). Still, it provides the clearest picture yet of Ram’s plans for its next-generation of trucks and how it aims to compete with other entrants in the nascent EV truck market, including the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Chevrolet Silverado EV.

It starts with a body-on-frame architecture designed for full-size EVs that integrates the battery pack as well as underbody aero panels and an active diffuser to improve the car’s aerodynamic properties. Two electric drive modules are mounted on the front and rear axles to provide all-wheel drive and a rear-axle steering system allows the driver to pivot the rear wheels up to 15 degrees.

Ram didn’t reveal some important EV specs like range and battery pack size; expect those later this quarter. The brand did say that the Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept can add up to 100 miles of range in about
10 minutes with 800-volt DC fast charging at up to 350 kW. That, of course, suggests that the production version will have an 800-volt electric architecture that allows for speedy fast charging.

The automaker did stuff a lot of features, tech and new design language into the Ram 1500 Revolution. Here’s what stood out.

New face, Saloon doors

There are all sorts of interesting exterior design choices in the Ram Revolution such as new “face” that includes more modern badging and an animated LED tuning fork headlight design.

Perhaps the most notable design feature is the lack of a B pillar, which allows for a grand saloon style door opening. The design decision makes the spacious interior look even more cavernous. The cabin is actually four inches longer than Ram’s gas-powered equivalent trucks. The saloon style doors simply hammer that idea home.

3D printed sideview mirrors

The sideview mirrors are smaller than those found on any other Ram truck, a design choice meant to reduce drag and increase aerodynamics. The sideview mirrors, which use a digital camera to capture the truck’s surroundings, are also made using 3D printed parts.

The truck concept is also equipped with a backup camera and a rearview mirror that communicates with biometric cameras that observe the truck’s environment.

Mobile movie projector

The truck is outfitted with multiple built-in projectors to visually communicate information to the user. But really, we care about this because the projectors also double as a mobile movie theater.

Electro-chromatic roof

The Ram Revolution concept is outfitted with a full glass roof with electro-chromatic panels and integrated roof rails. From inside the cab, occupants can use the overhead console to operate ambient lighting.

They can also use Ram’s tactile swiping technology to configure the sun visors or the entire electro-chromatic roof to adjust the opaqueness.

Personal assistant

Like so many vehicles today, the Ram Revolution has a personal assistant. A 3D Ram avatar acts as the vehicle’s face and will respond to various voice commands from users, according to Ram.

One neat feature is that the personal assistant will even follow commands from the owner while they’re outside the vehicle. A user can tell the vehicle to close the windows, play music, take a picture, and “follow me” with Shadow Mode.

Shadow Mode

Yeah, shadow mode, a feature that allows the vehicle to automatically follow a driver who is walking ahead of the vehicle. This feature, which using sensors and camera technology to navigate around obstacles, is being marketed to folks who might be at a job site and might want the truck to follow along and carry tools.

Adjustable and removable lower display

The lower display (pictured above) can be used as a tablet, passenger display, truck bed workstation, vehicle control, or video game controller, according to Ram.

The two 14.2-inch displays can also be combined to provide a larger viewing area.

Jump seats

What do you do with a spacious interior? Add third-row jumps seats, of course.

The third row jump seats, handy for when you want to fit six-people inside the truck cab — say what? — are folded until needed for use. The jump seats are mounted to the mid-gate with a removable lower section.

The interior layout is actually flexible, allowing for users to remove the center console and reconfigure seating.

Frunk hole

Speaking of flexibility. The flexible layout includes a pass-through that travels through the center console and into the frunk. I’m officially dubbing this a frunk hole. This feature allows for objects as long as 18 feet to fit into the truck.

It should be noted that this hole is narrow. One could imagine a metal or PVC piping fitting in here or perhaps a pair of skis.

Not sure if an object will fit? The concept also comes with a mobile app that helps users measure objects to determine if they can be transported with their vehicle. Users can scan the product’s barcode or use a built-in augmented reality camera measuring tool. The mobile app will show users how the object can best be positioned in their vehicle. Internal and external cabin projectors can also be used to display guides on the target storage location, according to the company.

Frunk cup holders

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a peek inside the powered front trunk, or frunk. But I was told that if you look under hood, which has one-touch open-and-close functionality, there are cup holders. (It’s a tailgating thing.)

Other powered features on the vehicle includes a powered charge-port door that is located on the driver’s side front quarter panel, a powered tail gate, flush-mounted door handles, powered side steps and a powered rear step.

All the tech (and other flashy features) stuffed into the Ram 1500 Revolution EV truck by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

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