Daily Crunch: LinkedIn is getting a new CEO
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1. Jeff Weiner will step down as CEO of LinkedIn June 1, product head Ryan Roslansky steps up
The changes are LinkedIn’s first big executive shakeup since the company was acquired by Microsoft in 2016. It’s notable that both of the new appointments (Roslansky and new product head Tomer Cohen) involve long-time LinkedIn executives — they’re not looking to rock the boat too much.
Weiner, meanwhile, says that LinkedIn was his “dream job” and that he’s moving on to the next “dream job” as executive chairman. But we expect to start seeing his name floated for other CEO roles very shortly.
2. Ancestry lays off 6% of staff as consumer genetic testing market continues to decline
The move from Ancestry follows job cuts at 23andMe in late January, which saw 100 staffers lose their jobs (or roughly 14% of its workforce). The genetic testing company Illumina has been warning of softness in the direct-to-consumer genetic testing market as well.
3. Twitter reports $1.01B in Q4 revenues with 152M monetizable daily active users
Twitter posted $1.01 billion in sales — the first time its revenues have broken past the billion-dollar mark — due to a strong quarter in advertising sales. However, net income and earnings per share both saw significant drops from the same period a year ago.
4. Google Maps adds more crowdsourced transit data and gets a new navigation bar
Google is updating Google Maps on Android and iOS with a revamped tab bar at the bottom, a new icon and a couple of new features. In particular, the company is putting more emphasis on user-generated content and recommendations.
5. Where top VCs are investing in open source and dev tools (Part 1 of 2)
We asked 18 of the top open-source-focused VCs to share what’s exciting them most and where they see opportunities. For purposes of length and clarity, responses have been edited and split (in no particular order) into part one and part two of this survey. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
6. Reddit partners with Tagboard to bring its content to TV broadcasts
Through this partnership, broadcast networks will be able to easily display Reddit’s content on TV. That includes Reddit’s unique content like AMA (Ask Me Anything) recaps and Photoshop battles, as well as popular posts and comments.
7. NASA astronaut Christina Koch returns to Earth after record-setting stay in space
Koch spent 328 consecutive days at the International Space Station. She’s second only to Scott Kelley, who spent 340 days in space, and she’s officially the woman with the longest stay in space worldwide, passing fellow U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson’s record of 289 days.
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Nuro’s new delivery R2 bot gets the first driverless vehicle exemption from feds
Nuro, the autonomous delivery startup that raised $940 million in financing from SoftBank Vision Fund last year, is the first company to receive a driverless exemption from the federal government.
The exemption granted by the the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is for Nuro’s newest — and until Thursday, unseen — low-speed electric vehicle called the R2 that will be used for local delivery service for restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses. It’s a milestone for Nuro, as well as the autonomous vehicle industry, and signals how the federal government might regulate this technology.
The R2 will soon join Nuro’s fleet of self-driving Prius vehicles in Houston, making deliveries to consumers on public roads, the company said. This deployment follows Nuro’s partnership in 2018 with Kroger to pilot a delivery service in Arizona. The pilot, which initially used Toyota Prius vehicles, transitioned to the R1 delivery bot.
Nuro’s second-generation low-speed delivery vehicle was designed to be unmanned and operates exclusively using an automated driving system. Without a human driver, the vehicle doesn’t need some of the traditional and federally required features found in passenger cars, such as side-view mirrors or a transparent windshield.
“Since this is a low-speed self-driving delivery vehicle, certain features that the Department traditionally required — such as mirrors and windshield for vehicles carrying drivers — no longer make sense,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao said in a statement.
The federal exemption allows the vehicle to operate without three features: side-view mirrors, windshield and a rear-view camera that shuts off when driving forward. This exemption is different from the one that GM is currently pursuing for its self-driving unit Cruise. That vehicle, which is not considered a low-speed vehicle, has a much longer list of exemptions.
The process was lengthy, even for those three exemptions. Nuro has been working with NHTSA for three years and submitted its application for an exemption in October 2018.
“What you have to prove is that even if the exemption is granted the vehicle will be at least as safe as other vehicles that are fully compliant,” Nuro’s chief policy and legal officer David Estrada said.
The new R2 delivery bot has a more narrow vehicle profile and rounded contours where the side mirrors would otherwise be placed. This design feature will create additional room for bicyclists and other “vulnerable road users,” Nuro said.
The R2 is equipped with lidar, radar and cameras to give the “driver” a 360-degree view of its surroundings. However, that required another exemption, Estrada explained. NHTSA’s exemption also allows the R2 to operate its rear-view cameras even as it moves forward. New passenger vehicles must have a backup camera that switches off once the human driver begins moving forward (to avoid distraction). Without a human on-board, those concerns are moot, Nuro argued.
There are conditions to this exemption. Nuro has the exemption for two years on a conditional basis and is required to submit reports on the AV driving system and provide proper notice to communities where the R2 will be deployed. The exemption allows Nuro to produce and deploy no more than 5,000 R2 vehicles during the two-year exemption period.
The R2, which was designed and assembled in the U.S. in partnership with Michigan-based Roush Enterprises, has a more durable custom vehicle body than its predecessor and a pedestrian-protecting front end that absorbs energy and can collapse inward to better protect those outside of the vehicle, according to the company.
The vehicle also has redesigned doors and a larger exterior screen for customers to interact with the vehicle and unlock the storage compartments. It also has 65% more capacity than the R1 and its compartments have temperature control to keep perishable goods fresh, including groceries or meals.
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Forescout to be acquired by a pair of private equity firms for $1.9B
Forescout, the network security company that has been publicly traded since 2017, announced today it was going private again. Private equity firms Advent International and Crosspoint Capital are acquiring the company in an all-cash purchase of $1.9 billion.
The two private equity firms will pay $33 per share, which represented a premium of 30% over the company’s closing price of $25.45 on October 19, 2019. The stock hit $39.87 on October 4th before starting a precipitous drop later that month, dropping to $24.57 on October 10th.
Not coincidentally, that was the day the company reported its earnings and had a bad revenue miss. Projections had revenue in the $98.8 million – $101.8 million range. Actual reported revenue was far less, at $91.6 million, according to data from the company.
In the earnings call that followed on November 7th, Forescout president and CEO Michael DeCesare tried to blame the bad results on extended sales, but it didn’t really help, as private equity firms swooped in to make the deal. “We experienced extended sales cycles across several of our customers that pushed out deals and which did not become apparent until we entered the final days of the quarter. We do not believe that any of these deals have been lost to competitors,” he told analysts.
In a statement today, DeCesare tried to put a positive spin on the acquisition. “This transaction represents an exciting new phase in the evolution of Forescout. We are excited to be partnering with Advent International and Crosspoint Capital, premier firms with security DNA and track records of success in strengthening companies and supporting them through transitionary times.”
Forescout is not a young company, having launched way back in 2000. It raised almost $290 million, according to PitchBook data. It went public on October 26, 2017.
The deal is not finalized as of yet. The company has a go-shop provision in place until March 8th in which it can try to find a better deal, but that seems unlikely. Should they fail to find a better suitor, the deal is expected to close in the second quarter, at which point the company will cease to be publicly traded.
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Snafu Records is a music label using algorithms to find its next big artist
Snafu Records is bringing a new approach to finding musical talent — founder and CEO Ankit Desai described the Los Angeles-headquartered startup as “the first full-service, AI-enabled record label.”
It’s a world that Desai knows well, having spent the past five years working on digital and streaming strategy at Capitol Records and Universal Music Group. He argued that there’s still a vast pool of musical talent that the record labels are ill-equipped to tap into.
“If there’s some girl in Indonesia whose music the world is dying to hear, they’re never going to get the chance,” he said. “The bridge to connect her to the world doesn’t exist today. The music business is entrenched in a very old way of working, finding artists through word-of-mouth.”
There are other companies like Chartmetric creating software to help the labels scout artists, but Desai said, “I used to be the one buying the service. What always ended up happening was that we were trying to put 21st century technology into a 20th century machine.”
The machine, in other words, is the record label itself. So he decided to create a label of his own — Snafu Records, which is officially launching today.
The startup is also announcing that it has raised $2.9 million in seed funding led by TrueSight Ventures, with participation from Day One Ventures, ABBA’s Agnetha Fältskog, Spotify’s John Bonten, William Morris’ Samanta Hegedus Stewart, Soundboks founder Jesper Theil Thomsen, Headstart.io founder Nicholas Shekerdemian and others.
The Snafu approach, Desai said, uses technology “to essentially turn everyone listening to music into a talent scout on our behalf.”
The company’s algorithms are supposedly looking at around 150,000 tracks from unsigned artists each week on services like YouTube, Instagram and SoundCloud, and evaluating them based on listener engagement, listener sentiment and the music itself — Desai said the sweet spot is to be 70 or 75% similar to the songs on Spotify’s top 200 list, so that the music sounds like what’s already popular, while also doing just enough to “break the mold.”
This analysis is then translated into a score, which Snafu uses to go “from this firehose of music, distill it down to 15 or 20 per week, and then the human [team] gets involved.”
The goal is to sign musicians as Snafu artists, who then get access the company’s industry expertise (including advice from the label’s head of creative Carl Falk, who’s written songs for Madonna, One Direction and Nicki Minaj) and marketing support in exchange for a share of streaming revenue. Desai added that Snafu will share more of the revenue with artists and lock them in for shorter periods of time than a standard record contract.
Asked whether streaming (as opposed to touring or merchandising) will provide enough money for Snafu to build a big business, Desai said, “Economics-wise, streaming sometimes does get a bad rap sometimes. It’s a bit misunderstood — there’s still just as many artists making really, really good numbers through streaming, it’s just a different kind of artist.”
And while Snafu is only officially launching today, it has already signed 16 artists, including the Little Rock-based duo Joan and the jazz musician Mishcatt, whose song “Fade Away” has been streamed 5 million times in the five weeks since it was released.
“There’s a major opportunity for Ankit and the Snafu team to build a new innovative and enduring music label at the intersection of technology and deep industry expertise,” said Hampus Monthan Nordenskjöld, founding partner at TrueSight Ventures, in a statement. “The music industry is going through a tectonic shift and we’re extremely excited to work with Snafu as they redefine what it means to be a music label in the 21st century.”
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What to expect from Samsung’s S20 event
Next Tuesday, Samsung kicks off smartphone season with its Unpacked event in San Francisco. One of two tentpole events for the company, the big show brings with it the latest edition of the company’s primary flagship line, the Galaxy S.
Samsung played a fun little trick, holding the event on February 11th at 11AM PT, all while skipping the Galaxy S11 entirely. Granted, this is still firmly in the realm of rumors here, but evidence is mounting that the company is actually skipping nine full model numbers and going straight to the Galaxy S20.
Why? Well, reasons. It’s 2020, for one. Also, Apple skipped the iPhone 9 a while back, so Samsung can now do it nine better — and perhaps adopt a numbering system more akin to Huawei’s 10-at-a-time updates. Honestly, though, the most likely answer is the simplest: Smartphone sales have slowed for many manufacturers and this is a sneaky way to generate a little interest.
But what’s in a name, really? One thing that’s certainly in line with previous Galaxy releases is the veritable deluge of leaks leaving little to the imagination in the lead-up to the event. We’ve been seeing fairly consistent renders for weeks and months, and earlier this week, what appears to be marketing images have surfaced.
Along with the S20 name, the shots showcase a design scheme featuring a hole punch camera up front (the “Infinity O”) and a long, prominent camera array on the rear. The also-rumored Galaxy S20 Ultra appears to add an even more intense camera array to the mix, including a “Space Zoom 100x,” which would bring a pretty crazy level of zooming capabilities to the smart phone — through, one assumes, a hybrid of digital and optical.
There’s already a lot of camera literature to crawl through here, including the patenting of the term “nonacell.” That, understandably sounds like nonasense, but appears to use pixel binning to create 12-megapixel images from the 108-megapixel sensor. That seems likely to be reserved for the Ultra — one of the versions of the handset, which include the S20 and S20+. All are believed to have a 5G option — logical, given that Samsung was among the first to bring the technology to market.
Even more clear renders of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, showing the Fingerprint sensor now. It will have special fibres inside the hinges to prevent dust from entering, the hinges would even have dual stops, at 90° and 180° enabling stuff like Hands Free (Duo) Video Calling. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Pk8XNPpXAo
— Ishan Agarwal (@ishanagarwal24) February 6, 2020
We have less information about the Galaxy Z Flip, but Samsung’s second foldable appears destined to get some stage time at the show. The device could well be far more accessible than the original Fold. First, there’s the clamshell design that has more in common with the new Motorola Razr than the original Fold. It’s also believed to be a little more rugged — owing to…issues with the original version of the Fold.
Pricewise, the Flip is expected to be, well, pricey — but considerably less so than the Fold. Rumored at around $1,500, it’s $500 less than Samsung’s original foldable.
New versions of Samsung’s quite good Galaxy Buds are expected, as well. The Galaxy Buds+ reportedly offer a large bump in battery, up to a total of 22 hours. Also expected is multi-device connectivity and a $20 price bump.
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OptimoRoute raises $6.5M Series A to help businesses better plan their routes
Route planning sounds like it’s a problem for big logistics companies like Amazon, FedEx and UPS, but in reality, it’s something every small business with more than a few mobile employees deals with. OptimoRoute, which today announced that it has raised a $6.5 million Series A round led by Prelude Ventures, is tackling exactly this problem. Built by a team of former Google and Yelp engineers, the service allows businesses to set their specific constraints and then automatically creates daily routes for their drivers, no matter whether they are doing deliveries or cleaning pools.
What makes OptimiRoute stand out from some of its competitors in this space isn’t just its often significantly lower prices but also that it offers drivers and customers a mobile experience that includes live tracking and ETAs and the ability to change routes in real time as necessary. With OptimoRoute, companies can plan for specific days of the week or up to five weeks in advance. The company is also currently testing a pickup and delivery system for both passengers and goods, as well as support for multi-day long-haul routes.
As the company’s co-founder and CEO Marin Šarić told me, route optimization is obviously a popular academic problem. “On the one side, you do have these academic problems that are very proof of concept and minimalistic,” he said. “And then, in the commercial space, you have software that is running — in our estimation — algorithms that have been well known in the previous century, literally, you know there’s even things from the 80s. […] We at OptimoRoute really worry about the real-world constraints of what it means to build an effective schedule.”
OptimoRoute takes into account a number of variables (how much material can fit into a van, hourly wages, skills needed to perform a certain repair, etc.) and lets companies choose different priorities for optimizing their routes.
“We’re really focused on trying to make this technology available for everyone and this is appreciated even by very senior experienced logistics managers because they can focus on problems they’re trying to solve as opposed to working around hiccups with the software,” explained Šarić.
Currently, OptimoRoute has about 800 customers that range from small businesses to large energy companies like Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline, which manages the routes of more than 300 maintenance technicians with the help of the service. By reducing the mileage employees have to drive, users not only see increased productivity from their employees but, as Šarić noted, also reduce their overall carbon footprint.
The team spent a lot of time on developing the basic algorithms that power the service. The team, though, expected that a lot of its users would be very sophisticated logistics managers, but it turned out that there was a lot of demand from small and medium businesses, too.
“Prelude is excited to help OptimoRoute expand its reach and further develop its offerings for a multitude of mobile workforces,” said Victoria Beasley, partner, Prelude Ventures . “We strongly believe that OptimoRoute is set to have a huge impact on the route optimization market, saving time, money and resources, while also reducing carbon footprint, for their many diverse clients.”
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Netskope hauls in another $340M investment on nearly $3B valuation
Netskope has always focused its particular flavor of security on the cloud, and as more workloads have moved there, it has certainly worked in its favor. Today the company announced a $340 million investment on a valuation of nearly $3 billion.
Sequoia Capital Global Equities led the round, but in a round this large, there were a bunch of other participating firms, including new investors Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and PSP Investments, along with existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Accel, Base Partners, ICONIQ Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Geodesic Capital and Social Capital. Today’s investment brings the total raised to more than $740 million, according to Crunchbase data.
As with so many large rounds recently, CEO Sanjay Beri said the company wasn’t necessarily looking for more capital, but when brand name investors came knocking, they decided to act. “We did not necessarily need this level of capital but having a large balance sheet and a legendary set of investors like Sequoia, Lightspeed and Accel putting all their chips behind Netskope for the long term to dominate the largest market in security is a very strong signal to the industry,” Beri said.
From the start, Netskope has taken aim at cloud and mobile security, eschewing the traditional perimeter security that was still popular when the company launched in 2012. “Legacy products based on traditional notions of perimeter security have gone obsolete and inhibit the needs of digital businesses. Today’s urgent requirement is security that is fast, delivered from the cloud, and provides real-time protection against network and data threats when cloud services, websites, and private apps are being accessed from anywhere, anytime, on any device,” he explained.
When Netskope announced its $168.7 million round at the end of 2018, the company had a valuation over $1 billion at that time. Today, it announced it has almost tripled that number, with a valuation close to $3 billion. That’s a big leap in just two years, but it reports 80% year-over-year growth, and claims to be “the fastest-growing company at scale in the fastest-growing areas of cybersecurity: secure access server edge (SASE) and cloud security,” according to Beri.
The next natural step for a company at this stage of maturity would be to look to become a public company, but Beri wasn’t ready to commit to that just yet. “An IPO is definitely a possible milestone in the journey, but it’s certainly not limited to that and we’re not in a rush and have no capital needs, so we’re not commenting on timing.”
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Datree announces $8M Series A as it joins Y Combinator
Datree, the early-stage startup building a DevOps policy engine on GitHub, announced an $8 million Series A today. It also announced it has joined the Y Combinator Winter 20 cohort.
Blumberg and TLV Partners led the round with participation from Y Combinator . The company has now raised $11 million with the $3 million seed round announced in 2018.
Since that seed round, company co-founder and CEO Shimon Tolts says that the company learned that while scanning code for issues was something DevOps teams found useful, they wanted help defining the rules. So Datree has created a series of rules packages you can run against the code to find any gaps or issues.
“We offer development best practices, coding standards and security and compliance policies. What happens today is that, as you connect to Datree, we connect to your source code and scan the entire code base, and we recommend development best practices based on your technology stack,” Tolts explained.
He says that they build these rules packages based on the company’s own expertise, as well as getting help from the community, and in some cases partnering with experts. For its Docker security package, it teamed up with Aqua Security.
The focus remains on applying these rules in GitHub where developers are working. Before committing the code, they can run the appropriate rules packages against it to ensure they are in compliance with best practices.
Datree rules packages. Screenshot: Datree
Tolts says they began looking at Y Combinator after the seed round because they wanted more guidance on building out the business. “We knew that Y Combinator could really help us because our product is relevant to 95 percent of all YC companies, and the program has helped us go and work on six figure deals with more mature YC companies,” he said.
Datree is working directly with Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel, and he says being part of the Winter 20 cohort has helped him refine his go-to-market motion. He admits he is not a typical YC company having been around since 2017 with an existing product and 12 employees, but he thinks it will help propel the company in the long run.
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Google Maps adds more crowdsourced transit data and gets a new navigation bar
Google is updating Google Maps on Android and iOS with a revamped tab bar at the bottom, a new icon and a couple of new features. In particular, the company is putting more emphasis on user-generated content and recommendations.
At the bottom of the app, you now get five icons — Explore, Commute, Saved, Contribute and Updates. You could already save places and add more information to a Google Maps listing, but those features are now more visible. They’re no longer hidden in a side menu.
The Saved tab lets you easily access your saved places, lists and maps. You can also access the creepy timeline of all your past activity from the same menu now — you can disable location history in your Google account settings.
With the Contribute tab, you can see all your past contributions (reviews, photos, etc.) but also add content directly from that menu. In addition to reviews and photos, you can now directly suggest an edit and add a place from that menu instead of searching for a place and then adding or editing a place.
Finally, the Updates tab combines two existing features in a single view — a feed of recommendation (“For You”) as well messages from businesses. Google added the ability to message businesses in November 2018, but the inbox was a bit buried.
As for crowdsourced transit data, Google is expanding transit data beyond crowdedness reports. Google Maps prompts users to give more information about your bus or train ride at the end of the trip.
Users will now get prompts about the temperature, accessibility features and the presence of security cameras or security guards. In some regions, you’ll be able to say if there’s a women’s section. In Japan, Google Maps will offer you to pick a route with more carriages. Those features will roll out in March.
The company is also announcing some improvements to Live View, the feature that lets you see your route using augmented reality. For instance, you’ll be able to see a pin with your destination so that you get a better sense of where you should be headed.
Finally, Google is updating the Google Maps logo. It’s a more minimalistic Google-colored pin.
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Qualcomm faces fresh competition scrutiny in Europe over RFFE chips for 5G
Qualcomm is facing fresh antitrust scrutiny from the European Commission, with the regulator raising questions about radio frequency front-end (RFFE) chips which can be used in 5G devices.
The chipmaker has been expanding into selling RFFE chips for 5G devices, per Reuters, It is encouraging buyers of its 5G modems to also buy its radio frequency front-end chips rather than buying from other vendors and integrating their hardware with its 5G modem chips.
A European Commission spokeswomen confirmed the action, telling us: “We can confirm that the Commission has sent out questionnaires, as part of a preliminary investigation into the market for radio frequency front end.”
We’ve reached out to Qualcomm for comment.
The chipmaker disclosed the activity in its 10Q investor filing. Qualcomm wrote that the regulator requested information in early December, “notifying us that it is investigating whether we engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) by leveraging our market position in 5G baseband processors in the RFFE space.”
Qualcomm says it’s in the process of responding to the request for information.
It’s not yet clear whether the investigation will move to a formal footing in future. “Our preliminary investigation is ongoing. We cannot comment on or predict its timing or outcome,” the EC spokeswoman told us.
“It is difficult to predict the outcome of this matter or what remedies, if any, may be imposed by the EC,” Qualcomm also wrote in the investor filing, adding: “We believe that our business practices do not violate the EU competition rules.”
If a violation is found it also warns investors that the EC has the power to impose a fine of up to 10 percent of its annual revenues, and it could also issue injunctive relief that prohibits or restricts certain business practices.
The preliminary probe of Qualcomm’s 5G modem business is by no means the first antitrust action the chip giant has faced in Europe.
Last summer, Europe’s competition commission fined Qualcomm close to $270M following a long-running antitrust investigation into whether it used predatory pricing when selling UMTS baseband chips, with the regulator concluding Qualcomm had used predatory pricing to force a competitor out of the market.
Two years ago the Commission also fined the chipmaker a full $1.23 billion in another antitrust case related to its dominance in LTE chipsets for smartphones, specifically related to its relationship with Apple and its iPhone.
In both cases Qualcomm is appealing the decisions.
It is also battling a major competition case on its home turf. In 2017, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed charges against Qualcomm, accusing it of using anticompetitive tactics in an attempt to maintain a monopoly in its chip business.
Last year, a U.S. court sided with the FTC, agreeing the chip giant had violated antitrust law and it warned that such behavior would likely continue given Qualcomm’s key role in making modems for next-gen 5G cellular tech. But, again, Qualcomm has appealed, with a decision on the appeal possible this year.
In August, the chipmaker won a partial stay against an earlier court decision that had required it to grant patent licenses to rivals and end its practice of requiring its chip customers sign a patent license before purchasing chips.
“We will continue to vigorously defend ourself in the foregoing matters. However, litigation and investigations are inherently uncertain, and we face difficulties in evaluating or estimating likely outcomes or ranges of possible loss in antitrust and trade regulation investigations in particular,” Qualcomm adds.
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