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Late last week, in a rare sit-down before a small audience, this editor spent an hour with Sam Altman, the former president of Y Combinator and, since 2019, the CEO of OpenAI, the company he famously co-founded with Elon Musk and numerous others in 2015 to develop artificial intelligence for the “benefit of humanity.”

The crowd wanted to learn more about his plans for OpenAI, which has taken the world by storm in the last six weeks owing to the public release of its ChatGPT language model, a chatbot that has educators and others both dazzled and alarmed. (OpenAI’s DALL-E technology, which enables users to create digital images by simply describing what they envision, generated only slightly less buzz when it was released to the public earlier last year.)

But because Altman is also an active investor — one whose biggest return to date comes from the payments startup Stripe, he said at the event — we spent the first half of our time together focused on some of his most ambitious investments.

To learn about these, including a supersonic jet company and a startup that aims to help create babies from human skin cells, you might tune in for the 20-minute-long video below. You’ll also hear Altman’s thoughts about Twitter under the stewardship of Elon Musk, and why he is “not super interested” in crypto or web3. (“I love the spirit of the web3 people,” Altman said with a shrug. “But I don’t intuitively feel why we need it.)

We’ll feature more from our fuller conversation soon. In the meantime, below is an excerpt from our discussion about Altman’s biggest bets: a nuclear fusion company called Helion Energy that, like OpenAI, is aiming to turn a long-elusive promise — this one of abundant energy — into reality. The excerpt has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

What makes a Sam Altman deal?

I tried to just do things that I’m interested in at this point. One of the things I have realized is, all of the companies I think I have added a lot of value to are the ones that I sort of like to think about in my free time on a hike or whatever, and then text the founders and say, ‘Hey, I have this idea for you.’ Every founder deserves an investor who is going to think about them while they’re hiking. And so I’ve tried to hold myself to the stuff that I really love, which tends to be the hard tech, [involving] years of R&D, [is] capital intensive or is sort of risky research. But if it works, it really works.

One investment that’s particularly interesting is Helion Energy. You have been funding this company since 2015, but when it announced a $500 million round last year, including a $375 million check from you, I think that surprised people. There aren’t many people who can write a $375 million check.

Or many people who would [invest it] in one risky fusion company.

Which have been your most successful investments to date?

I mean, probably on a multiples basis, definitely on a multiples basis: Stripe. Also I think that was, like, my second investment ever, so it seemed a lot easier. This was also a time when valuations were different; it was great. But, you know, I’ve been doing this for, like, 17 years, so there’ve been a lot of really good ones, and I’m super grateful to have been in Silicon Valley at what was such a magical time.

Helion is more than an investment to me. It’s the other thing beside OpenAI that I spend a lot of time on. I’m just super excited about what’s going to happen there.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had a nuclear fusion breakthrough last month. (Using an approach involving giant lasers, its scientists announced the first fusion reaction in a laboratory setting that produced more energy than was used to start the reaction.) I wonder what you think of its approach, which is very different froms that of Helion (which is building a fusion machine that’s reportedly long and narrow and will use aluminum magnates to compress fuel, then expand it to get electricity out of it).

I’m super happy for them. I think it’s a very cool scientific result. As they themselves said, I don’t think it’ll be commercially relevant. And that’s what I’m excited about — not getting fusion to work in a lab, although that is cool, too, but building a system that will work at a super-low cost.

If you look at the previous energy transitions, if you can get the costs of a new form of energy down, it can take over everything else in a couple of decades. And then also a system where we can create enough energy and enough reliable energy, both in terms of the machines not breaking, and also not having the intermittency or the need for storage of solar or wind or something like that. If we can create enough for Earth in, like, 10 years — and I think that’s actually the hardest challenge that Helion faces as we sketch out what it takes operationally to do that, to replace all the current generative capacity on Earth with fusion and to do it really fast and to think about what it really means to build a factory that’s capable of putting out two of these machines a day for a decade — that’s really hard, but also a super fun problem.

So I’m very happy there’s a fusion race, I think that’s great. I’m also very happy solar and batteries are getting so cheap. But I think what will matter is who can deliver energy the cheapest and enough of it.

Why is Helion’s approach superior to what dozens of nations are working on in Southern France?

Yeah, well, that thing, Iter, I think probably will work, but to what I was just saying earlier, I think it will be commercially irrelevant. They [those involved with Iter] also think it’ll be commercially irrelevant.

The thing that is so exciting to me about Helion is that it’s a simple machine at an affordable cost and a reasonable size. There’s a bunch of different elements of it other than the giant [experimental machine being developed by these nations], but one that is very cool is that what comes out of the reaction is charged particles, not heat. Almost all other [alternatives], like a coal plant or natural gas plant or whatever, makes heat that drives a steam turbine. Helion makes charged particles that push back on the magnet and drive an electrical current down a wire. There’s no heat cycle at all. And so it can be a much simpler, much more efficient system.

I think is missed out of the whole discussion on fusion but [is] really great. It also means we don’t have to deal with much nuclear material. We don’t ever have dangerous waste or even a dangerous system. You could touch it pretty shortly after it turns off.

It’s building a big facility right now. Has it proven its thesis yet?

We’ll have more to share there shortly.

A peek into the future as Sam Altman sees it by Connie Loizos originally published on TechCrunch

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! Last week wasn’t the most successful for spaceflight missions. We’ll get into that a bit more below.

In this issue:

First up, a botched launch from Virgin Orbit…
…followed by one from ABL Space Systems
News from Rocket Lab, World View and more

Virgin Orbit’s botched launch highlights shaky financial future

After Virgin Orbit’s launch failure last Monday, during which the mission experienced an“anomaly” that prevented the rocket from reaching orbit, I went back over the company’s financials — and things aren’t looking good.

For Virgin Orbit, this year has likely been completely turned on its head. The company was aiming for three launches this year, but everything will remain grounded until the cause of the anomaly has been identified and resolved. It’s unclear how long that will take, but likely at least three months. Add this delay to Virgin’s dwindling cash reserves and you have a foundation that’s suddenly much shakier than before.

ABL Space Systems’ rocket experiences simultaneous engine shutdown shortly after lift-off

Launch startupABL Space Systems’ first orbital launch attempt ended in failure last Tuesday after all nine engines on the RS1 rocket’s first stage shut down simultaneously. The rocket subsequently hit the launch pad and was destroyed on impact.

ABL President Dan Piemont told TechCrunch that while the investigation into the failure is still in its early stages, “The simultaneity of the shutdown is a strong piece of evidence but it will take more time for the team to narrow down contributing factors and a root cause.”

More news from TC and beyond

Capella Spaceadded $60 million in growth equity financing to its Series C through investor Thomas Tull’s US Innovation Technology Fund. (Capella)
Elon Musksaid that SpaceX has a “real shot” at attempting Starship’s first orbital flight test as soon as next month. (Twitter)
Europe’sfirst spaceport on the mainland, in Sweden, was inaugurated by Swedish dignitaries and other officials. (High North)
ispace’sHAKUTO-R lander completed its second orbital control maneuver, and has now been in deep space for over one month. (ispace)
Israel’sAir Force will set up its own “space administration,” similar to the U.S. Space Force. (i24)
Planet Labscompleted acquisition of Salo Sciences, a climate tech company. (Planet)
Rocket Factory Augsburgand the U.K.’s SaxaVord Spaceport have signed a multi-year launch agreement, which includes RFA conducting its first launch from that site as soon as the end of this year. (RFA)
Rocket Labis now targeting January 23 for its inaugural Electron launch from Virginia. The launch will carry three satellites for HawkEye 360. (Rocket Lab)
Russiawill send an uncrewed Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station to bring three astronauts back to Earth, after a coolant leak was discovered on the Soyuz currently attached to the ISS. (The New York Times)
Slingshot Aerospacehas brought on Thomas Arend, who was most recently VP and head of product management at Astra, as its new chief product officer. (Slingshot)
The Federal Communications Commissionvoted to establish a brand-new Space Bureau that will handle all business related to satellite communications and more. (TechCrunch)
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and SpaceWERX are backing a Space Regulatory Bootcamp for founders and regulatory professionals looking for guidance on navigating the complex world of space regulation. The Bootcamp will be held in February. (ACSP)
United Launch Alliance’sVulcan Centaur rocket is starting to make its way to the launch pad prior to its first test flight. (ULA)
World View, a startup that uses stratospheric balloons for earth observation (and soon…tourism?!) is going public via SPAC merger. (TechCrunch)

Max Q is brought to you by me, Aria Alamalhodaei. If you enjoy reading Max Q, consider forwarding it to a friend.

Max Q: Anomalous by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

The connected home gym gear craze probably experienced its zenith during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with indicators like Peloton’s fortunes pointing to waning interest as people get back to using their gym memberships. But the category still has plenty of potential, especially if the gear in question can combine smarts with other key value propositions, including a small footprint that can fit into anyone’s home. Vitruvian’s Trainer+ offers that and more, nailing the tricky proposition of offering a comprehensive weight training experience at home while keeping things small and simple.

The basics

The Vitruvian Trainer+ is not cheap. At $2,990, it’s around the cost of six years of gym membership at the average rate paid in the U.S. per month, and that doesn’t include the Vitruvian All Access recurring subscription fee for access to advanced workout features including guided sessions, which is a hefty $39 per month after the first 12 months, which are included free with the purchase of the machine.

That the recurring sub is itself more expensive than the average American pays for their monthly gym membership is a very steep hill to climb, and clearly Vitruvian knows it since they don’t make it very easy to find that pricing on their website — even in the FAQ question that specifically asks how much the membership costs. You can opt to pay for a subscription that lasts the lifetime of your machine for a one-time fee of $990, which is definitely a better deal if you actually are using the machine consistently and plan to continue. Finally, you can always opt not to use the subscription features, which still gives you a very capable piece of workout hardware as long as you’re good at charting your own workout path.

Speaking of the hardware, it’s actually easy to see why even with a base price of nearly $3K, Vitruvian needs to also ask a hefty recurring fee from its users: The Trainer+ is a fantastic piece of kit that no doubt incurred high development and production costs.

What you get is a compact but solid platform with two clips that connect external accessories including various handles, a barbell and ropes to an active resistance mechanism contained within. The platform itself is easy to tuck under a couch or table, and measures just around 46 by 20 inches and weighs only 80 lbs. Considering the range of workouts the Trainer+ offers, and the fact that it can provide anywhere up to 440 lbs of resistance, the fact that it comes in such a relatively small package is incredibly impressive.

The Trainer+ is super easy to set up and pair with your smartphone using a QR code on the machine itself, and the quick clipping system it uses to connect to handles and other accessories is incredibly smart and useful for rapidly switching between different items during a structured workout.

Resistance is controlled by the app, and every time you start a workout the machine requires three setup reps to establish your proper range of motion before you get into doing the exercises with actual weight. Once you do get into an actual exercise, there are three possible modes for each, including one that adds 1 kg (2.2 lbs) with each clean rep, once that decreases weight over time, and a sustained mode where weight stays the same.

Design

On the surface, there’s not much too the Trainer+’s design: The flashiest thing about it is the customizable LED lighting that also offers some helpful visual cues about whether you’re competing reps properly or not. Otherwise, it looks like an overgrown Wii Balance board if you’re old enough to remember what that is, or basically just an elevated stand. The Trainer+’s top surface is made from a carbon-fibre composite, which is fine to use on its own with training shoes, but you can also opt to get the additional soft, tacky mat that is included in either the Entry or Pro level accessory kit (I received the $500 Pro kit in my sample package).

As mentioned, the Trainer+ is around 80 lbs, and it comes in one solid pre-assembled piece. Setup is therefore a breeze compared to just about any other home gym equipment, but you probably should get another person to help you moving it, say, up and down stairs. For moving it around your space, there are wheels on the underside that come in contact with the ground when you tip one end up, making it easy to slide across floors for storing under a couch or desk.

The key to Trainer+’s versatility are its two recessed “Quick Connection System” receptors, which are themselves permanently connected to retractable cables that tie into the device’s programmable active resistance system. The quick connectors allow the included handles and ankle straps to easily snap in, and they release via a simple collar push mechanism that won’t come loose in use but that is dead simple to change out between exercises. This replaces a much more cumbersome carabiner system on the Trainer+’s predecessor, and it’s a fantastic, intuitive upgrade.

Another area where Trainer+’s overall cost of ownership creeps higher still is with the various attachments on offer. There’s a ‘Basic’ kit that adds a long bar, a tricep rope, “premium” handles, the aforementioned workout mat and safety cables. Then the ‘Pro’ kit that I tested the Trainer+ with includes all that, along with a short bar, a belt, and even a bench. You can accomplish a lot with the Trainer+ without any of these things, but the truth is that the experience is greatly enhanced by adding them in – especially the bench and bar – and you can’t buy them piecemeal.

The Trainer+ works with a dedicated Vitruvian companion app, which connects to your machine via Bluetooth. The good thing about the expensive All-Access membership is that it’s tied to the machine, not the individual – meaning anyone in your household (or even visitors) can create their own profile in the app on their own phone and pair with your machine to access all training options and guided workouts. The app itself is great, offering multi-week programs you can follow, trainer-led classes, and a wide range of individual exercises that you can assemble into your own custom workouts if you’re a subscriber, too. I used the app’s guided video on my gym Apple TV via AirPlay and that worked flawlessly as well.

Performance

The Trainer+ is probably going to feel different from other workouts you’ve tried if you haven’t used an active resistance machine in the past: it’s different from either all-in-one cable and weight-based equipment, or free weights. To Vitruvian’s credit, though, the learning curve is not at all steep, and it only takes a couple of sessions before using the Trainer+ feels like second nature.

Vitruvian’s app provides everything you need to use the Trainer+ to max effectiveness, too, whether you’re just starting out, or you’re experienced with personal fitness and looking fro something to fit into or supplement your existing routine. It’s basically as guided or as self-directed as you want, and anywhere in between.

The Trainer+ is also great at making real-time adjustments to your workout based on your strength and performance level. There’s a strength assessment that the app will ask you to do initially to establish your baseline suggested weights for all the various workouts, and you can jump back into that at any point to change that calibration, which is useful to do every few weeks as you progress with your training.

In a month of testing, with near daily use, the Trainer+ had been incredibly consistent. Once you’re done with a workout, you can just let the handles or attachments drop and the cables retract, without having to worry about damaging the durable carbon composite material of the hardware itself. The clips come in and out easily, and the platform is easy to wipe down with simple soap and water when needed. The connection is rock solid and remembers your phone so long as you toggle that option in the app, and the Trainer+ automatically sleeps so you can leave it plugged in all the time if you want.

One issue I found with the machine: The power cable seems to sit rather lightly in the socket on the machine, and until I learned how to steer well clear of it, it was relatively easy to cut power to the Trainer+ just by even lightly brushing the cord itself. That hasn’t been an issue since identifying it as a problem and avoiding any contact with the cord, and it’s possible this was included intentionally as a kind of safety backup, but I’d appreciate a more snug fit between cable and machine.

Bottom line

There’s no question that the Trainer+ is a fantastic piece of home workout hardware, with a smart, useful app that’s at once far more approachable than something like Peloton, but also much more flexible for people who take working out very seriously and want to be able to customize their experience to match.

The real sticking point with Vitruvian’s offering, however, is the price: With the Pro kit, which I do recommend, you’re already at $3,500, and that’s before you start adding in the ongoing cost of the app subscription. That could pay for a fair amount of gym membership, along with some personal training thrown in.

With the Trainer+, however, you get a number of things that are basically impossible to get anywhere else, including a solution that’s so portable it not only works in just about any home or condo setting, but can also easily pack into the car for a road trip – or fit into your #vanlife if that’s what you’re into. It’s much more versatile in this regard vs. other similar active resistance products like the Tonal, too.

If you place a premium on flexibility with almost zero sacrifices vs. a full set of free weights or a much more cumbersome home tower or complete gym, then the Trainer+ is easy to recommend. It’s clearly well-engineered and designed, with a focus on delivering value to actual athletes and fitness buffs who can be notoriously hard to please, and yet it’s also a great place for people to start out their home exercise journeys – so long as they want to commit the the upfront cost that comes with it.

Where to buy: Vitruvian’s website

Vitruvian’s Trainer+ is an all-in-one home gym that actually lives up to its promises by Darrell Etherington originally published on TechCrunch

Occasionally, in my role as a consultant, I am approached by companies that have a plan in place for their fundraising that doesn’t involve the CEO or a member of the founding team running point on the fundraising process. From one perspective, I can understand that: VC fundraising does, from the outside, look a lot like sales, and if you have a good salesperson, why not let them do what they do best?

The issue is that while salespeople are great at sales, the VC fundraising process is very different than landing a customer. You’re trying to find an alignment between the company and a long-term partner who will have a significant amount of input into the future of your startup. And if there are discrepancies between the sales process and the deeper due diligence into the company (and there will be, because the sales team has a different long-term perspective on what success looks like), that can make the whole deal fall apart.

There are several really good reasons why, at the earliest stages of fundraising, the founding team should be running the fundraising process. In this article, I break it down and explain why it’s an awful idea to let anyone but the CEO do the fundraising.

If your CEO isn’t pitching to VCs, you’ll never raise money by Haje Jan Kamps originally published on TechCrunch

An increasing number of organizations are adopting microservices, the loosely-coupled, independently-deployable services that together make up an app. According to a 2020 O’Reilly survey, 77% of organizations had adopted microservices as of then, with 29% reporting that they were migrating or implementing a majority of their systems using microservices.

The widespread microservices adoption has spawned new problems in app development, however. According to the same O’Reilly survey, company culture and integrating with holdover systems have become major challenges in the microservices arena.

Startups have rushed in to fill the void of solutions. There’s Helios, a microservices management platform that helps developers understand how their code interacts with the rest of their apps. Vendors like OpsLevel and Temporal compete with Helios for business, offering platforms that organize microservices in a centralized portal. A newer entrant in the space is Nucleus, which aims to let devs spin up microservices architectures using a range of infrastructure, security and observability tools. Backed by Y Combinator, Nucleus has raised $2.1 million in VC money to date.

Nucleus was co-founded by Evis Drenova and Nick Zelei in 2021, after the two spent roughly seven years building infrastructure platforms both at large enterprise companies (e.g. IBM, Garmin) and startups (Skyflow, Newfront). The inspiration for Nucleus came after Drenova and Zelei realized they often had to rebuild the same platform to help developers create, test and deploy their microservices.

“We noticed that more companies were trying to move to [microservices] and break apart their monoliths but really struggled to do this well,” Drenova said via email. “Some companies that have tried to move to microservices have gotten their fingers burned because they didn’t have the right tooling, and, more importantly, the right people … We want to make it easy and reliable for companies to move to not just microservices but service-oriented architectures without having to be security, infrastructure and observability experts.”

With Nucleus, developers define microservices and deploy them on the Nucleus platform, which automatically configures aspects of their security, observability and more. Nucleus is delivered through a command-line interface designed to fit into existing developer workflows and comes with prebuilt integrations, including tools such as Hashicorp, Cloudflare and Okta.

“Nucleus is an infrastructure platform that allows you complete freedom over your code,” Drenova said. “As a developer, you can write your code in any language that you want and we support it out of the box. We don’t interfere with your business logic — one way to think about it is that we’ve built a cage you can put your code into and that cage is integrated with your infrastructure and your third-party tools and is extremely secure.”

Those are lofty promises. But to Drenova’s credit, Nucleus — whose platform is still in beta — already has “a few” early customers and eight design partners. Investors, too, were won over, with backers including Soma Capital, Y Combinator, LombardStreet Ventures and “dozens” of angels throwing capital in Nucleus’ direction.

“Nucleus is a critical piece of software. We run and manage all of your services,” Drenova added. “It’s bigger than any one developer, meaning that chief technology officers are always our buyers … Our target market is companies with 20-plus developers who are moving to a service-oriented architecture. But any company that uses services can use us.”

Nucleus is focused on organic growth at the moment, sticking with a small team of four employees including the co-founders. Drenova is considering hiring 1-2 engineers next year, but he’s leaning conservative, waiting for stronger signs of product-market fit.

“In a downturn, the playing field is more level towards early-stage companies, and while larger competitors are focused on reducing cash burn and staying alive, we’re putting the pedal to the metal and going after the opportunity,” Drenova said. “We have plenty of cash in the bank and have runway for the next few years.”

Nucleus aims to simplify the process of managing microservices by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

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Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B.

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Top of mind for me this week is Tesla. I know, weird.

But really, it seems that pressure is coming from all sides these days. The company’s decision to slash prices has angered recent buyers (one only need to turn to Twitter to view the ire), shareholders are becoming more vocal about the lagging stock price (it fell more than 64% in the past year) and its facing mounting regulatory pressure over Autopilot and its so-called FSD software beta product that promises full self-driving. To be clear, Tesla vehicles are not self driving. The system is an advanced driver assistance product.

At any rate, these problems keep piling up. How much can the company take?

In the past, Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have managed to wriggle free of criticism or concerns it was stagnating, often by showcasing a potential future product or hitting ambitious production and delivery goals.

But Tesla narrowly missed its own production and delivery guidance for the year, and Wall Street’s Q4 expectations. And shareholders, consumers and regulators seem to be tiring of this cycle. To me, this is just another indication that Tesla is starting to be viewed (and treated) more as a legacy automaker and not a whiz-bang upstart that can do no wrong.

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Micromobbin’

Rebecca Bellan was out this past week, but I still wanted to share a couple of interesting micromobbin’ stories reported by yours truly and Romain Dillet, who hails from France.

First up is Romain’s article that takes a look at Paris and its looming scooter decision that could upend the micromobility industry there. I recommend you read the entire article. Here’s a small taste.

On March 23rd, the fate of the 15,000 colorful electric scooters that currently spill across the streets of Paris could drastically change as the French capital weighs up whether or not to renew licenses for the three scooter companies currently operating in the city.

Romain gets right to the implications, which stretch far beyond Paris.

And this isn’t just going to impact Dott, Tier and Uber-affiliated Lime — the three companies that haveheld those licenses since 2020. The decision will set a precedent for the many cities around the world that have also let scooters onto their streets. If things don’t go their way, a negative decision in Paris could have a chilling effect on micromobility startups globally.

Next up is a more luxurious, high-performance scooter story. I’m talking about Bugatti, yes Bugatti, and its new electric scooter.

Bugatti, through a partnership with tech accessory company Bytech, launched a $1,200 electric scooter in 2022. The two companies paired up again for a second-generation scooter that is beefier, equipped with new features and colors, and has larger “self-repairing” tires.

The 2023 scooter is 10% larger than its predecessor and is equipped with a 36-volt/15.6Ah battery and an electric motor with a maximum output of 1,000 watts, according to the companies.

That battery and motor combo allows the scooter to handle up to an 18-degree incline, max speed of 22 miles per hour and can cover 35 miles on a single charge, according to the company. (That’s up from the 22-mile range in the previous model.)

No word yet on the pricing for this bigger second-generation model. Perhaps this is one of those “if you have to ask” moments. ;D

See ya next week!

Deal of the week

We’ve seen lots of SPACs the past two years. but what about a double SPAC? Yes, it has happened.

I’m talking about Wejo, the British automotive data exchange platform that went public in November 2021 after merging with special purpose acquisition company via Virtuoso Acquisition Corp at an implied $800 million valuation.

But what’s this? The company announced January 10 it has now agreed to merge with a SPAC created by private equity firm TKB Capital, in a deal that could raise up $100 million. And that’s money Wejo needs.

It seems that this latest SPAC is the buoy Wejo is using to keep it afloat. It’s not just that Wejo’s share price fell below $1 a share; the company is also burning through cash.

Wejo warned in November it had a $15 million cash balance, which would sustain the company for a “very short period of time.”

Wejo is about two years away from generating life-sustaining-nope-we’re-not-going-to-file-for-bankruptcy revenue. To add a little extra financial drama to the scenario, Wejo also owes Palantir millions of dollars, per an op-ed piece by Chris Bryant in Bloomberg.

This double SPAC is an odd one. I have this nagging feeling that some other failing SPACs will try this same tactic.

Other deals that got my attention this week …

Apollo Future Mobility Group agreed to buy Chinese electric vehicle maker WM Motor Holdings for $2.02 billion. The acquisition must still meet regulatory approvals.

Hystar, a green hydrogen startup based in Norway, raised $26 million in a Series B round co-led AP Ventures and Mitsubishi Corp. Other investors included Nippon Steel Trading, Belgium-based investment company Finindus, Hillhouse Investment, Trustbridge Partners, SINTEF Ventures and Firda.

Ottopia, an Israeli teleoperations company focused on the agriculture, construction, last-mile delivery, logistics and mobility industries, raised $14.5 million in its Series A funding round that attracted public transport giant ComfortDelGro as an investor. Other participants included AI Alliance Fund, MizMaa Ventures, IN Venture and Next Gear Ventures. T

Oxbotica, a startup out of England that develops software to power autonomous vehicles, raised $140 million in a Series C round that included investment from Japan’s Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Co. and corporate VC ENEOS Innovation Partners. Existing investors BGF, safety equipment group Halma, hospitality and recreation investor Hostplus, Kiko Ventures, the online shopping company Ocado Group, Tencent, Venture Science and automotive component maker ZF also participated.

Tianqi Lithium Corp. agreed to buy Australian lithium explorer Essential Metals Ltd in a A$136 million ($94 million) deal that is estimated to provide enough supply for around 10 million electric vehicles.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Autonomous vehicles

Aurora gives a progress report to FreightWaves.

What next for Pittsburgh’s autonomous vehicle scene?

ADAS

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is apparently “working really fast” on the Tesla Autopilot investigation it opened in August 2021. Speaking of pressure on Tesla, there may be even more coming after The Intercept published videos and photos of an eight-car pile-up on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge caused by a Tesla Model S. The driver claimed “Full Self-Driving” was active at the time of the crash.

Electric vehicles, batteries and charging

Lucid Group produced 7,180 of its luxury Air sedans in 2022, exceeding its previously lowered guidance for the year. Lucid adjusted its guidance last fall, stating it would produce 6,000 to 7,000 vehicles in 2022.

Nikola is officially moving its battery manufacturing from Cypress, California to its Coolidge, Arizona manufacturing facility. The move is expected to be completed early in the third quarter. Manufacturing will continue in Cypress through the second quarter.

Proterra produced its first commercial EV battery at its new factory in Greer, South Carolina. The company is calling the factory “Powered 1,” and believes it will be the largest battery manufacturing facility in the United States dedicated to electric commercial vehicles.

Tesla plans to invest about $770 million into an expansion of its factory near Austin that includes a die shop, a facility for battery cell testing and another to manufacture cathode and drive units. Tesla indicated it wants to build the new facilities this year.

Zeekr, the premium brand under Geely Holding Co., started serial production of its second model, an electric van called Zeekr 009.

People

Carvana, the online used car dealer, continues to struggle and it’s cutting workers as sales slow and it attempts to manage its $7 billion debt load.

Cruise has Nilka Thomas as its new chief human resources officer. Thomas, who most recently served in a similar position at Lyft, succeeds Arden Hoffman at Cruise. Thomas also spent 13 years at Google leading efforts focused on recruitment, D&I, employee engagement, HR governance and employee relations.

Hyzon Motors, the heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicle supplier, appointed John Edgley as president of international operations.

Scale AI, the San Francisco–based company that uses software and people to label image, text, voice and video data for companies building machine learning algorithms, laid off 20% of its workforce. The company did not say how many people work at Scale AI. However, back in February 2022, the company told TechCrunch it employed about 450 people.

Tesla rolls into a pressure cooker, Paris mulls its scooter future, and the double SPAC arrives by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch

Last Friday, a ton of popular Twitter clients including Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and Echofon were down. Users couldn’t log into their accounts or look at their timelines. At first, it looked like a bug in Twitter API, but radio silence from Twitter and new details indicated that the company deliberately limited access to third-party apps.

The issue

On Friday, late evening PST time, many users noticed that they could not access their third-party Twitter clients. The app makers quickly acknowledged the issue and said that they had been trying to contact the company.

A Japan-based developer noted at the time that many smaller Twitter clients were working without any glitches. Many folks in the community speculated that it could be an issue with the API or that the company is limiting access to larger clients.

The radio silence

While developers and users expected Twitter to communicate with them in some ways, the company and its new owner Elon Musk maintained radio silence about the problem. However, the Tesla CEO tweeted everything ranging from the latest Falcon Heavy launch to building transparency on Twitter by publishing the platform’s tweet recommendation code.

Internal messages on Twitter indicated that shutting down certain third-party clients was a company decision rather than a bug, The Information reported over the weekend. The report said that one project manager told the product team that the company had “started to work on comms,” but didn’t provide any timeline for official and approved communication.

Developer frustration

Since the beginning of the saga, many developers have expressed their frustrations on Twitter and Mastodon. Twitterrific-maker Craig Hockenberry posted a blog post called “The Shit Show,” in which he said “Personally, I’m done. And with a vengeance.”

Fenix developer Matteo Villa said on Twitter that he is considering pulling the client from the App Store— which is working at the time of writing — because he fears that the client might stop working at a point.

Tweetbot co-creator Paul Haddad even tried to make the app work by loading in old API keys. That trick worked for a while and some folks were able to access their accounts. However, users started to hit an API limit and the client was later suspended again.

iOS developer Mysk said on their account that Tweetbot ran into the limit of 300 posts per 15 minutes — which was applicable for old v1.1 API — for all users.

Earlier, they had built a demo client to show that Twitter’s API was working and the suspension of third-party apps was not because of a bug.

A bunch of these developers were concerned about handling refunds for folks who have subscribed to the pro or premium versions of their apps if Twitter banned third-party clients. That would also mean that their annual income would go down and they would have to build new products while making no money.

The way forward

Some developers have already shown intent of concentrating on other projects. Haddad told TechCrunch over an email that Tweetbot is concentrating on launching its Mastodon client Ivory — which is currently in a closed beta — at an accelerated pace.

He said that currently the team is focused on making the onboarding experience better, then fixing the bugs and working towards an App Store release.

Villa also released a beta version of his Mastodon client Wolly on Apple’s test platform Testflight.

For some other developers, the situation is bleak. As iOS developer Adam Demasi noted that some indie developers whose primary product was a Twitter client might face a difficult time.

Since Musk took over Twitter last year, the company has shuttered several developer-related projects including Twitter Toolbox for app discovery. Some other programs in the defunct state even if the company has not announced official shutdowns. Developers have been cautious about their Twitter development plan given that the company hasn’t explicitly communicated its plans about platform support.

These kinds of moves have undone the social network’s work over the last few years to earn back developers’ trust. Last month, Twitter’s former head of developer platforms, Amir Shevat, wrote on TechCrunch that the new management broke the trust of developers. This dubious suspension of third-party Twitter clients without any communication will not instill any confidence in the community.

Twitter’s third-party client issue is seemingly a deliberate suspension by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch