TechCrunch+

Doorstead, a property management startup which offers “guaranteed” rental payments to homeowners, has raised $21.5 million in a Series B round of funding.

Ryan Waliany and Jennifer Bronzo started Doorstead in 2019, initially testing out its model for setting prices for rental properties on Craigslist. Over time, the company built out a pricing model through data science and machine learning that the pair says gives it the ability to better predict how much rent a given property can command.

That’s not to say that it operates without risk. The duo acknowledge that it is indeed a risky endeavor to guarantee rent to landlords considering Doorstead has to cough up the difference if it can’t get the amount it promised.

However, they claim their prediction model works so well, that it still comes out ahead. Doorstead makes its money strictly by charging an 8% management fee, so it is not incentivized to list properties at rents that might be higher than is realistic or fair. So, if the company is able to get a higher rent than guaranteed, it doesn’t pocket the difference. Instead, that extra cash goes to the property owner.

“Other companies might take that upside but we believe then that incentives are misaligned,” CEO Waliany told TechCrunch. “What we offer is a risk-adjusted guarantee based on the market.”

To request a guaranteed offer, property owners enter basic information about their property on Doorstead’s website. If the property is eligible, the company tells the owner the minimum amount they will receive each month and when they will start receiving their payments.

Says COO Bronzo: “We cover the difference if we rent out the property for less [than the minimum] or if it takes longer to find a tenant. So, the owner still gets the rent, and we pay the difference out of pocket, or it cuts into our 8%.”

Doorstead targets “getting above the baseline listing price 75% of the time,” according to Waliany.

“…It works out financially very well for us, and we’re helping eliminate unnecessary vacancies. Without a guarantee, sometimes property managers drag their feet,” he said.

The model does seem to be working considering the startup says it saw 270% property growth in 2022 and that its revenue “outpaced” property growth with “healthy unit economics.” Doorstead says it has served “thousands” of owners over the years, generated over 30,000 guaranteed rental offers and currently has north of $1 billion worth of properties under management. The startup operates in seven markets in California, Washington and Massachusetts with plans to “double or triple” its footprint this year.

Doorstead only works with individual landlords of single-family homes, condos or townhomes, not institutional landlords.

Waliany formerly worked in product at Uber and Bronzo has experience in property management. The pair believes their combined backgrounds have given them a good perspective on how to run a tech-enabled, “full-service” property management business, and then some.

“When we started, we thought that, ‘we’re just going to make a tech enabled property management company. We’re going to build like Uber Eats for property management.’ But when we started talking to customers, we realized that we were wrong,” Waliany told TechCrunch. “We realized that there was a bigger problem that was unaddressed in the market, and that was that property owners were getting overpromised rents. Their properties could sit vacant for three or six months and in some cases, it cost them their home. So we thought, ‘what if we can give them a guarantee upfront before we find a tenant?’ ”’

Avanta Ventures led the round, which included participation from MetaProp, M13 and Madron. Avanta is the venture arm of CSAA Insurance Group (also known as Triple A, or the American Automobile Association, AAA). Eric Wu and Tom Willerer (former CEO/CPO of Opendoor, respectively) are also backers. Doorstead has raised $37 million since inception.

Presently, the San Francisco-based startup has about 150 full-time distributed employees, with about 80 in the United States. Besides a geographical expansion, Doorstead wants to focus on capital efficiency and “improving unit economics” with an eye towards profitability.

“We’re shooting for growth, but profitable growth,” Waliany said.

Steve Bernardez, partner at Avanta Ventures, told TechCrunch via email that he was drawn to back Doorstead in part because he believes that “the rental property management space is a large and growing market historically underserved by legacy providers.”

“Despite a huge market opportunity, the rental property management space suffers from poor solutions that misalign incentives, fail to address financial risks, and can be painfully inefficient for all parties involved,” he continued. “…Using data-driven analytics trained on constantly refreshed local real estate data, Doorstead’s guarantee offers property owners confidence that they will get a minimum rental income stream at a guaranteed start date despite any volatile market conditions. Doorstead then helps the property owner prep the property for listing, secures a tenant, and manages ongoing repairs and maintenance, all within an efficient user interface that today’s property owners expect.”

In conjunction with the raise, Doorstead also announced it has acquired the Boston assets of another venture-backed investment property-focused startup, Knox Financial, which wound down operations at the end of last year.

TechCrunch’s weekly fintech newsletter, The Interchange, launched on May 1! Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Got a news tip or inside information about a topic we covered? We’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at maryann@techcrunch.com. Or you can drop us a note at tips@techcrunch.com. If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.)

Doorstead closes on $21.5M to make sure you always have a tenant for your rental property by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch

Hello and welcome back toEquity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. To start off the year, we are welcoming on Rebecca Szkutak as a returning host who will be joining us while Alex is out on paternity leave. We’re lucky to have her for a few months, so give her a warm welcome!

With that, Natasha, Mary Ann and Becca returned to the mic to unpack the latest and greatest on this first week back. 2022 was a dreary, relentless storm at times, but it also surprised us with how much innovation continues to brighten up this downturn. The start of 2023 has been no different.

Here’s what we got into:

Some early standouts from CES, the annual consumer electronics show that is taking over Las Vegas right now. Yep, we’re talking comfort pillows that are even more comfortable than you think, a smarter smart laundry machine and a security dash-cam for ride-sharing drivers.
Then we jumped into deals of the week, which included Doorstead and USV’s $200 million climate fund.
Our first theme got into the latest development in the FTX and SBF saga. If you’re like us, there’s been so much happening that it’s hard to keep track of all the twists and turns. But it’s also evermore important to, as Becca gives us a Real Housewives angle to consider.
We end with a conversation about layoffs, which rolled in this week to impact employees at Stitch Fix, Amazon, Salesforce and others. We dug into Natasha’s latest feature story, in which she explores how laid off talent is rethinking risk for their next jobs.

As always, we’ll be back to chat with you on Monday! In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter @EquityPod.

Equity drops at 10:00 a.m. PT every Monday and at 7:00 a.m. PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyandall the casts. TechCrunch also has agreat show on crypto, ashow that interviews founders, one thatdetails how our stories come together, and more!

CES, NYE, SBF and FTX. Lol. by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

Investors and entrepreneurs began 2022 bright-eyed and optimistic as startups raised nearly $13 billion in the first quarter, making it the fifth-highest quarter for funding on record.

However, talk of a pullback in global venture capital has become louder and more widespread of late. It’s clear that the cash is not flowing as freely as it once was, and that has changed the landscape for ambitious startups looking to build and scale their propositions.

However, a challenging economic climate doesn’t necessarily mean that startups should accept the first offer that comes along, settle for lower valuations or bring on investors that have different values and ambitions for the business. It is now more important than ever for every party to approach the negotiating table with clear questions and expectations.

Here are three firm but fair questions that founders should consider asking their potential investors:

What value can you provide besides money?

Most investors worth their salt will demonstrate that they come with more than just deep pockets — value such as sector expertise, business experience or a global network. Founders should feel confident about proactively asking about what an investor can provide, particularly the networks and introductions potential investors can facilitate.

There is a significant difference between an introduction that was facilitated via an email and a clear handoff to someone whose relationship with the investor is deep and based on many levels of trust. Many investors pride themselves on having a robust and lucrative contact list, but not all introductions are the same — a LinkedIn profile rarely demonstrates the depth and quality of an investor’s network or knowledge.

My advice is to be clear about your commercial goals and push potential investors to offer names of individuals or organizations that will deliver the impact you’re looking for. For example, we recently introduced one of our portfolio companies to an $80 billion infrastructure firm with which we had developed deep relationships in order to set up pilots in a number of regions.

Introductions should not just forge connections; they should deliver tangible commercial impact.

How secure is your cash?

It always surprises me how many founders believe VCs are sitting on piles of cash that they are ready to distribute at any moment.

It is important to remember that VCs don’t have an endless pot of money — they are at the mercy of their LPs’ liquidity. It is therefore sensible (and necessary) to have answers to three key questions:

3 questions founders should be asking investors in Q1 2023 by Ram Iyer originally published on TechCrunch

Indian fintech KreditBee has raised an additional $100 million in a funding round, it said, as the lender looks to scale its business in the South Asian market.

The new cash infusion is part of the larger Series D funding, which KreditBee said has now closed at $200 million. The new funding, led by Advent International, values the Bengaluru-headquartered startup at about $680 million, according to a source familiar with the matter.

KreditBee, which also counts Mirae Asset Venture Investments, Premiji Invest and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group among its backers, offers instant micro loans starting at as low as $12 to new-to-credit customers and credit of over $3,500 to salaried professionals.

India’s credit bureau data book is thin, making most individuals in the South Asian market unworthy of credit. Fintechs use modern-age underwriting systems to lend to customers and a maze of regulatory arbitrage — increasingly getting closed— to operate.

KreditBee works with 10 banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to finance the loans, it said.

“We are delighted to welcome a long-term financial and strategic partner in Advent. This reinforces the confidence in our profitable business model and the long-term sustainability of it. The latest round will help us to achieve our vision of serving over 400 million middle income population in the country,” said Madhusudan Ekambaram, co-founder and chief executive of KreditBee, in a statement.

The startup said it is on track to bulk its asset under management to over $1 billion in the next six to nine months.

Its new funding comes at a time when the dealflow activity has slowed down dramatically in India as investors grow cautious of writing new checks and evaluate their underwriting models after valuations of publicly listed firms take a tumble.

“KreditBee has witnessed several credit cycles and has come out stronger each time reflecting adaptability and resilience of its business model. With this investment, we are strengthening our commitment to back KreditBee’s vision,” said Ashish Dave, chief executive of Mirae Asset Venture Investments in India, in a statement.

Indian fintech KreditBee nears $700 million valuation in new funding by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Samsung Electronics’ operating profit plummeted 69% to $3.4 billion in the quarter that ended in December to an eight-year low, according to its preliminary estimates, as the global demand for memory chips and smartphones wanes due to high inflation and slowing economy.

“Amid continued external uncertainties, including a potential global economic downturn, overall earnings decreased sharply quarter on quarter as we saw a significant drop in the memory business results due to lackluster demand and weaker sales of smartphones,” the company said in a statement.

The memory chipmaker and smartphone producer saw sales of 70 trillion won ($55 billion) in the quarter, down roughly 8.6% over the same period a year ago.

The sharp drop in demand for memory chips, including DRAM and NAND, which are used in gadgets and data centers, has also pushed manufacturers and vendors to lower their price, according to TrendForce.

“For the memory business, the decline in the fourth quarter demand was greater than expected as customers adjusted inventories in their effort to further tighten finances by concerns over deteriorating consumer sentiment,” the market researcher said. “Profits from the mobile experience business declined as smartphones sales and revenue decreased due to weak demand resulting from prolonged macro issues.”

Many chip firms, including Micron and SK Hynix, plan to slash their capital expenditure and reduce inventories this year. Samsung has previously said it doesn’t plan to reduce its capex.

Geopolitical risk is another concern for semiconductor companies tangled in the tech war between the U.S. and China. Last October, the U.S. rolled out new export controls requiring companies to obtain licenses to sell semiconductor chips for supercomputers and artificial intelligence to Chinese firms.

Samsung reportedly has received a one-year waiver from the US government to continue ordering U.S. chip manufacturing equipment to its fabs in China, such as the NAND flash memory chip plant in Xi’an and a chip-packaging facility in Suzhou. Despite the exemption to maintain the facilities in China, there is always a risk that the U.S. restriction could broadly hit chip firms with customers in China.

South Korea said earlier this week that it plans to increase tax breaks for semiconductor companies in a bid to support Korean chip companies and beef up the country’s critical industry. The move comes after Samsung and SK Hynix paid the highest corporate taxes in 2021 among other top 100 global chip makers, including TSMC, Intel and SMIC.

The large chip conglomerates in South Korea will benefit from a tax credit of 15%, up from the planned 8%, on investment in manufacturing facilities; small and mid-sized semiconductor companies will get a tax break of as much as 25%, up from 16%, according to South Korean finance ministry.

The tech giant will announce a full earnings statement, including net profit, for the fourth quarter and provide more details on at the end of this month.

Samsung’s quarterly profit hits 8-year low amid weak demand for memory chips, smartphones by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch

Snap is shutting down its camera app for the desktop that allows users to apply filters like cat ears and pirate hats on video calls. The company said on a support page that the product will be discontinued on January 25, but did not say why it was abandoning the app. Users won’t be able to download or use the Snap Camera after the deadline.

The company first introduced Snap Camera in 2018 for creators to use with video conferencing apps like Skype, YouTube, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Zoom. The app, available on both Windows and Mac, allowed users to switch between different face filters during a video call or a live stream.

Users might get a blank screen after the Snap camera gets disabled later this month, so it’s better to uninstall the app and switch to your default camera.

The company said that compatible AR lenses will work with the web version of its app, which was launched last July.

In response to a creator on Twitter, Snap said that it is focusing more on expanding Camera Kit access for the web.

“We’re adjusting our web-based investments for the AR creator & developer community to focus on expanding access to Camera Kit for Web. Stay tuned for more info this year, and you can keep using Lenses on your computer with Snapchat for Web,” it noted.

The discontinuation of the Snap Camera app — spotted first by The Verge— is not entirely surprising. Last year, it cut 20% of its staff and shuttered its drone product months after first launching it.

In December, the company also announced that it is planning to shut down the location-based social app Zenly, which was acquired in 2017. As the company will now focus on ecommerce partnerships and paid lenses to generate more revenue with a sized-down team, side projects like a desktop camera app will be expectedly slashed.

Snap is shutting down its desktop camera app that allows users to apply filters during video calls by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Earlier today, Tesla quietly announced new pricing for the China market. The Model 3 and Model Y saw their prices cut drastically, and Tesla finally revealed the pricing for the high performance Plaid edition of the Model S and Model Y, both of which were not previously sold in market.

This is the second pricing cut by Tesla for the lower priced models in three months. In late October, the automaker announced price cuts up to 9% on the Model 3 and Model Y.

The Model 3 is now priced at CNY 229,900 ($33,415), down from CNY 265,900, a reduction of CNY 36,000 ($5,240). The Model Y is now priced at CNY 259,900 ($37,775), down from CNY 288,900, a reduction of CNY 29,000 ($4,220). The Model S Plaid will cost 789,900 ($114,809) and the Model X Plaid will cost 879,900 ($127,890).

Today’s announcement came days after the company’smost recent financial report, revealing lower than expected worldwide vehicle shipment numbers. Specifically for China, earlier today, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) reported Tesla vehicle shipments dropped 44% to 55,796 in November as the automaker reduced factory output and cut prices amid reduced demand.

The CPCA report shows that Tesla was outside by two rivals: BYD and SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co, the joint venture of General Motors in China. BYD notably outside Tesla over four to one, delivering 234,598 vehicles.

SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co, the joint venture of General Motors in China making small budget EVs, also outsold Tesla by 53%, according to the association.

Still, Tesla saw growth in China over the year. The CPCA report notes that Tesla delivered 50% more vehicles produced by its Shanghai plan over 2021 levels.

Tesla’s Shanghai plant had temporary paused production in December, and is reportedly set to run at a reduced output in January.

Tesla’s China division recently saw a major leadership shakeup. Reuters reported two days ago Tesla CEO Elon Musk promoted Tom Zhu to run its US assembly plants and sales operation in North America and Europe. This makes him the second highest executive at Tesla, surpassed only by Elon Musk. It’s unclear if Zhu will retain his current titles and duties as well, as Reuters notes.

Tesla slashes Model 3, Model Y prices in China for the second time in three months by Matt Burns originally published on TechCrunch

It’s the first official day of CES and our team has already located dozens of the coolest new gadgets, features, and weird concept cars that probably will never see the light of day.

Halo (not Amazon’s Halo) has a wearable for babies that tracks heart rate, rollover, skin temperature, and movement. 10,000 steps a day may seem tough when you can’t walk, but it’s important to have goals.

Aeolus Robotics made a humanoid robot, Aeo, that’s meant to help out at schools and hospitals by disinfecting, delivering food, and doing basic patrolling. It can also apparently take selfies.

Since we’re all eventually going to live in the metaverse, let’s scan our rooms so the transition won’t be too shocking. MeetKai turns smartphone video into detailed 3D environments.

Amazon is stepping up its Sidewalk network with a bunch of low-bandwidth IoT things and partners. We’re all clearly still figuring out this whole “smart home” thing.

Labrador Systems has upgraded its elder-care robot with an Echo Show, using it as a sort of frontend for the bot. It’s an “early proof of concept,” which is good because I’m not sure it’s the way to go.

Alexa can now tell you where the nearest public charging spot for your electric vehicle is. It’s sad this is necessary but if that’s the extent of your hardship, maybe that’s something to be happy about.

Still on the Amazon tip, Ring is bringing back the Peephole Cam. Why get up from the couch?

Plex is finally — two years after announcing it at CES 2020 — launching its rentals marketplace. “It was a lot harder than we thought,” said co-founder Scott Olechowski. Now fix the PS5 app, Scott! It’s a disaster! (Is there a problem level a level of triviality above first-world? I have lots.)

Ossia and its Cota wireless power were on stage at Disrupt 2023… sorry, 2013. But they’re still putting it out there and now have a security camera that runs on wireless power instead of batteries. That seems like a pretty good idea, though the battery ones go for like a year now.

Have things you want to lock away? Put them in a shiny high tech box from Trova that only opens with permission from your phone. Sure, you could use a regular lock of literally any kind, but that’s not very CES.

I chatted with the guys from StudioBox at Disrupt, and was planning on writing up the pro-remote-video-studio-in-a-box, but Haje ate my lunch. Read up on how they’re adjusting their business to the post-pandemic world:

Smart speakers are nice until you have 2 or 3 of them, then you have no idea where your music will go when you hit play. Google has a solution, kind of. More like a way to manage the problem.

Google also provided some more information on its Android Auto UI refresh, and an HD upgrade for its car maps that will have more precise lane markings, objects, and other stuff included. Volvo will get it first, as well as Polestar, apparently a real car company.

Power1’s AirPods charging case is now smaller, but it still looks like a weird humpback ziggurat to me. If you’re running out of battery so much you need this thing… you’re probably super successful. Congratulations.

To me, AirPods charging things aren’t practical but dog communication devices are. FluentPet Connect has programmable buttons that don’t just speak the word, but send a message to your phone. You’re about to do about 50 walks a day, because good luck saying no to messages like HELP FRIEND PLAY:

Typhur offers a sous vide cooker with a 12-inch display. How big is the display on your sous vide cooker? Thought so.

Qualcomm picked CES to announce that it will be bringing satellite messaging to “select Android devices,” like those with its latest flagship chipset. Not me, then.

Breakout portable power company EcoFlow now makes a lawnmower, portable air conditioner, and portable fridge. This is why we are going to have a lithium shortage, people!

Car stuff below this line

Sony and Honda collaborated on a definitely real car under the baffling “Afeela” brand. You’ll be able to order one starting in 2025, supposedly.

BMW isn’t even pretending its i Vision Dee is real. They hired Schwarzenegger to do the intro video, and the exterior can be customized with different colors of E-Ink (all ugly). It also has some kind of crazy HUD.

I tried to dismiss this but BMW’s CEO Oliver Zipse said it “cannot be simply dismissed as science fiction because it will inspire our Neue Klasse.” Touché, Oliver.

Stellantis is expanding its car sharing, rental, and subscription service Free2move in the U.S., though of course it isn’t free at all. Free floating, yes. If you’re in Denver, Portland, Columbus, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Detroit, Dallas, Miami, Chicago or Tampa, prepare yourself.

In completely unrelated news, Stellantis formed a new business unit to convert vehicle data into money.

That’s all as of now, but our tireless reporters will churn out content for you well into the Las Vegas night.

Today at CES: Baby wearables, texts from dogs, and E-Ink cars by Devin Coldewey originally published on TechCrunch

The COVID-19 pandemic brought video production to its knees, but the show must go on, and necessity is the mother of invention. Studiobox leapt into the breech, creating an interview studio in a box. For the interviewee, a rugged case shows up, delivered by a friendly FedEx delivery person. They open it, plug it in, and call the production team to say they’re good to go. Everything else is controlled remotely. Today at CES in Las Vegas, we took a closer look at the company’s vision for the future of video production and the software it is developing to control it all.

“We are here in Vegas controlling every aspect of the shoot all the camera settings – zoom, pan and tilt, lighting and audio, all from one computer, with one operator,” explains Ian Smith, co-founder of StudioBox, in an interview with TechCrunch at the company’s booth as part of the Dolby.io demo space at CES 2023.

“Basically, the software is doing the work of about six crew members. It is great for interviews and talking-head content. Imagine things like newscasters and sports commentators, but also CEOs and top-level executives who want to do internal communication while looking and sounding great,” Smith explains. “I truly believe this box can replace an interview crew.”

During the pandemic, the team got its baptism of fire when Amazon decided to reboot the Kids in the Hall TV series.

“I grew up watching that sketch comedy show and I was super, super happy to get that call. They needed to do these little two-minute comedic segments with eight different celebrities, that were spread out all over the world,” says Smith. “We just sent boxes to each of them and got that shoot done with a lot of ease. The interviewees very much appreciated it because no crew members were stomping through their houses. That’s an example where crews might otherwise have had to use Zoom – and using our boxes, they were able to get super high-quality content.”

From hardware to software

The company doesn’t want to be in the business of video production, however, and spent most of the pandemic creating a software suite that makes this functionality available to any film crew that wants to create high-quality content remotely. Right now, the company uses BlackMagic cameras and pre-configured boxes, but the next iteration of the software supports more cameras, starting with Sony and Canon. From there, the company wants to make its solution completely hardware agnostic, and put the power of production fully in the hands of its software.

The software is still in development, but what the team showed off at CES was deeply impressive. Any number of crew can take control remotely; you can have someone zooming, while someone else adjusts exposure, and a third person adjusts the lighting, while a fourth tweaks the audio, all from the comfort of their wherever-the-hell-people-work-from-these-days.

“We haven’t quite figured out the business model yet: there are a lot of potential options. One option might be seats-based pricing tiers where you can hand different permissions to various crew members. I might have a cinematographer and an audio guy here at the same time controlling their respective controls, and you might be paying for those seats. I can also imagine tiers in terms of how much bandwidth you’re going to use for the quality you want,” Smith muses, without committing to anything specific quite yet. “We have a lot of testing to do over the next three months to figure out that pricing structure, but we’d love to do a subscription model where you’re getting a box and the software all as a subscription package. A lot of people that don’t necessarily want to own the gear but want to take advantage of the cost savings of having a box.”

Collaborative production

Collaborative editing and post-production is a well-worn path in the film and TV world, but the production itself has seen a lot less innovation over the years.

“Editors can collaborate together from anywhere and tap into virtual machines and use tools like DaVinci or Frame.io to work together. Nobody has really done anything to create the content for production,” says Max Ostrove, another of StudioBox’s co-founders. “Nobody has done real-time video collaboration from anywhere in the world, with remote access to gear. Traditionally on a film set you have one person running a camera. I’d be running the lights. We’re having a conversation, as we dial things in. This is the first time a single piece of software is talking to all of these things at once.”

The company hired Ali El-Shayeb, who previously founded Nugget.ai, to take the helm of the technology at StudioBox as its CTO. He is using his AI background, and StudioBox’s ultimate goal is to create a fully AI-driven production workflow.

“Part of the future plans and what we were excited about is the AI. Automation of the lights and the cameras and audio too. AI is getting very good about being able to isolate the sound of my voice even though the microphones 10 feet away, in real time, so all that technology is getting better and better and better,” Ostrove explains. “That’s one of the benefits of working with Dolby.io – we can actually tap into their enhanced audio API. We were able to start using things like noise cancellation and applying pop filters – all virtually.”

The ultimate goal is to let the AI dramatically save the amount of time it takes to set up and create high-quality video content.

“We are currently using AI to stream content in real time and optimize the content as we are streaming it, using Dolby’s APIs,” explains El-Shayeb. “There are several hundred data points that we are planning on tracking in the background. They all contribute to features we use to build scalable data pipelines for production. I think what’s really unique about what we’re doing, is that all of this happens in the cloud. This is not a local solution. Just being able to do that in real-time and stream all those data points and do all those computations to be able to optimize everything. For example, making my voice sound better, controlling the camera’s parameters, or optimizing the lighting.”

El-Shayeb points to the cornucopia of sliders in the company’s software. They control every aspect of the video setup we are looking at and suggests that if he has his way, the AI robot overlords will be moving the sliders, whether to help or replace an operator.

The cloud + local

Even with the best will in the world, internet connectivity can be flakey, but the company has gone a fair way out of its way to ensure that recording can continue even if a location has poor internet connection – or none at all.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why controlling actual hardware is unique is because an operator can trigger a recording on the camera,” Ostrove says. “Ifthe internet drops out momentarily, perhaps the remote viewers see a loss of resolution, but that won’t affect the camera at all, and the final result still looks perfect.”

“We did a shoot at a hospital where we couldn’t get the up and down speeds ahead of time. We knew we might be walking into craziness,” Smith says, laughing, and described that the upload speed turned out to be 0.1 Mbit. That isn’t even enough for a Zoom call, let alone a high-quality video production. “I mean, you can look at the footage. It’s great, and I’m very proud. It’s very clean. You can run this whole thing locally, too, without any internet at all, in a pinch. We’ve done that.”

The company is at CES looking for customers, partners, and its first round of institutional investors. The software suite will launch in the spring this year.

Studiobox is a remote video team’s high-def dream by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

Stellantis is launching a new business unit dedicated to turning all that vehicle data into marketable products — and revenue.

The business unit called Mobilisights, which was announced Thursday at CES 2023 in Las Vegas, is a key piece of the global automaker’s bid to generate 20 billion euro in annual revenue from software-related services by the end of the decade.

The intent is to grow the company’s data-as-a-service business by developing and licensing products, applications and services. Those Mobilisights products will be sold to private enterprises, public-sector utilities, education and research institutions, according to Stellantis.

The idea is to take data generated by its millions of connected vehicles (including information generated from sensors on its cars, trucks and SUVs) and turn it into applications and services that customers might want. For instance, the data could be used to provide personalized usage-based insurance, detect road hazards and provide information on traffic.

Other automakers have launched similar efforts in recent years. For instance, General Motors started in 2020 an insurance service leveraging the vast amounts of data captured through its OnStar connected car service.

The new Mobilisights unit is the latest move by the company to make revenue beyond selling, repairing and financing vehicles. In December 2021, Stellantis laid out the basic framework of a plan to generate billions in annual revenue from software in its vehicles, a vast portfolio that includes 14 brands such as Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Peugeot and Ram.

Stellantis has said it will invest more than $33.7 billion through 2025 into software and electrification. That investment will include employing 4,500 software engineers by 2024.

The end goal is to have 34 million connected cars on the road by 2030 that Stellantis can generate revenue from for years after they’re sold to consumers. To reach its target, Stellantis is leaning on partnerships with BMW, Foxconn and Waymo. Today, the company has more than 12 million “monetizable” connected cars globally. Stellantis defines “monetizable” as the vehicle’s first five years of life.

Mobilisights has exclusive access and rights to license vehicle and related data from all Stellantis brands to external customers, according to the automaker. Stellantis contends that controlling this volume and density of data will make it less reliant on other data suppliers.

Of course, collecting all of that data and turning it into products raises privacy questions. The company says it — and its partners — will operation “within a very strict data governance and privacy policy” that includes using anonymized and aggregated data, and only sharing personal data of customers with their consent and only for the specific services of their choosing.

The company added that customers are able to opt out of information being collected even if they had previously given consent.

“The foundation of this whole business is trust,” said Mobilisights CEO Sanjiv Ghate. “Trust in our custodianship of data and trust that we are here to create a better world.”

Stellantis launches new business unit to turn vehicle data into cash by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch