Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, and most interesting technology, startup, and markets news. Today was a fun day in that we didn’t start off with just bad news — what a change!

• Stocks are up around the world, and cryptos have rallied in the last week. The positive price movement in crypto-land, however, doesn’t appear to be lighting a fire underneath the NFT market, for example.
• Robots! Yes, our robotics-themed event — Free! And online! — is this week, which means that I have robots on the brain. That made the Syrius round all the more interesting. It appears that ecommerce will remain a key driver of robotic innovation for some time to come.
• Podcast deals are still happening, kinda. Acast is buying Podchaser, which may or may not mean a lot to you. What does matter in this deal is that Spotify wasn’t involved. That’s a change!
• Quick Hits: India may ban crypto, at least if its leading bankers get there way, Missfresh’s implosion got a small lifeline, and Modsy is no more — and the way that it is going out leaves quite a lot to be desired.

A major shift in the U.S. app economy has just taken place. In the second quarter of this year, U.S. consumer spending in non-game mobile apps surpassed spending in mobile games for the first time in May 2022 and the trend continued in June. This drove the total revenue generated by non-game apps higher for the quarter, reaching about $3.4 billion on the U.S. App Store, compared with $3.3 billion spent on mobile games.

After the shift in May, 50.3% of the spending was coming from non-game apps by June 2022, according to new findings in a report from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower. By comparison, games had accounted for more than two-thirds of total spending on the U.S. App Store just five years ago.

The trend was limited to the U.S. App Store and was not seen on Google Play, however. In Q2, games accounted for $2.3 billion in consumer spending on Google Play in the U.S., while non-game apps accounted for about $1 billion.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

This shift in the U.S. app market is the most significant finding in the new report and demonstrates how successfully Apple has managed to create a subscription economy that allows a broader range of apps to generate sizable revenues.

The new data also supports this, as it shows it’s not only the biggest players that are benefiting from subscription revenue growth. In Q2 2022, 400 apps generated more than $1 million in consumer spending on the U.S. App Store, which is eight times the total from the same quarter in 2016. In addition, 61 U.S. App Store non-game apps generated at least $10 million in U.S. consumer spending in Q2 2022 — that’s more than the number of non-game apps that had generated $1 million+ in revenue in Q2 2016.

A handful of non-game apps also topped $50 million in U.S. consumer spending in the quarter, including YouTube, HBO Max, TikTok, Tinder, Disney+, Hulu and Bumble.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Subscriptions are the major revenue growth driver here, as non-game apps grew at nearly twice the rate  — at a 40% compound annual growth rate — since June 2014 compared with less than 20% for games, the report found.

The trend is a significant reversal of what mobile app spending looked like just a few years ago.

In 2019 and early 2020, for instance, mobile game spending growth was consistently higher than non-game spending. Game spending then surged again at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. But by late 2020, non-game growth had caught up and the gap widened in 2021.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

While non-games are enjoying their new dominance, it’s not all great news for the app economy in this most recent quarter. The report also found that U.S. app spending overall declined for the first time in Q2, following the wind-down from the spike generated by the pandemic.

At the start of the pandemic (around April 2020), year-over-year growth in consumer spending had jumped from around 20-30% in 2019 to 35-55% over the next 12 months. But in May 2022, U.S spending declined for the first time as consumers began to shift their dollars back to other non-mobile activities like restaurant dining and travel.

Despite this decline from the pandemic highs, consumer spending in Q2 2022 was still up 71% over Q2 2019.

In other key findings from the quarter, summer travel drove travel apps to record high downloads in the U.S. and U.K., and airline app downloads in these markets were up 30%+ compared with Q2 2019, before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the top five ticketing apps saw 10 million downloads, up 70%+ from Q2 2019 as consumers returned to concerts, sports games, and other events.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Worldwide app downloads slowed also slowed in the quarter, as installs totaled 35 billion in Q2, down 2.5% year-over-year. App Store downloads fell 1.3% to 7.8 billion and Google Play installs dropped 3% to 27.2 billion.

The most downloaded non-game app worldwide was TikTok, which has held the top position 8 times out of the past 10 quarters. It was followed by Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Snapchat. TikTok (including Douyin in China on iOS) had 187 million downloads in the quarter.

The top mobile game globally was Subway Surfers, with over 80 million downloads — its highest total since 2014, and following the game’s maker Sybo acquisition by gaming giant Miniclip in June 2022. The number two title was Garena Free Fire with 70 million installs for the third quarter in a row.

TikTok announced today a new initiative designed to help small businesses better market themselves on its app — and eventually become TikTok advertisers. The company is introducing a free program called “Follow Me,” which will offer guides to using TikTok’s range of business and creative tools, advertising and promotional features, as well as coaching from other small business owners.

The program’s launch comes at a challenging time for the social video app, as it’s again under increased scrutiny in the U.S. for its China ties after a BuzzFeed News report revealed its parent company ByteDance employees had access to U.S. user data. As a result, Senate Intelligence Committee members have asked the FTC to investigate whether TikTok may have misled lawmakers about this matter. It’s also now facing a regulatory investigation into its privacy policy changes in the E.U. related to issues surrounding user consent for personalized advertising.

However, today’s launch of the Follow Me program signals TikTok’s ambitions to become the next big social ads giant for a younger generation that has abandoned Meta’s Facebook, forcing Meta to try to turn its photo-and-video sharing app Instagram into a TikTok clone.

As consumers’ interests shift, a multi-billion dollar advertising market could be up for grabs — and TikTok aims to court those advertisers looking to diversify their social ad spend beyond Meta, Snap, and Twitter.

Today, Meta generates the vast majority of its advertising revenue — which totaled $115 billion in 2021 — from small business advertisers. TikTok ad revenue, while still only a sliver of that, is quickly growing. The video app’s ad revenue is expected to triple in 2022, to reach $11.6 billion, beating both Snap and Twitter combined, according to estimates from Insider Intelligence. By 2024, it may reach $23.58 billion, the firm suggests. But if TikTok ever expects to reach Meta’s scale, it will need to convince smaller businesses to market themselves through TikTok videos.

There is, of course, a learning curve involved with that — which is where the Follow Me program comes in.

Through the series, TikTok is offering businesses an introduction to its various tools that would help it to achieve its goals of getting small businesses onto TikTok. The program includes different roadmaps SMBs can follow based on their goals and invites them to a six-week email series that walks the through running their first TikTok campaign and integrating their brand’s story into videos, TikTok says. The program will also teach them how to set up their Business accounts, how to access TikTok’s Creative Center for content inspiration, and how to use other tools like TikTok’s Ads Manager and Promotion features. The latter are ultimately TikTok’s end goal as they provide the revenue stream that sustains its business.

The company has also recruited successful SMB owners to serve as “Small Business Ambassadors,” who will provide coaching and tips on how to reach TikTok’s community to drive results. Among these are Cassie Sorensen, the owner and founder of a small tassel-making company Tassel Amor, and Jacob Zander, owner and founder of an online retailer called Feel Your Soul.

The program kicks off today and is free of charge to interested SMBs.

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

The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. App Annie says global spending across iOS and Google Play is up to $135 billion in 2021, and that figure will likely be higher when its annual report, including third-party app stores in China, is released next year. Consumers also downloaded 10 billion more apps this year than in 2020, reaching nearly 140 billion in new installs, it found.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that was up 27% year-over-year.

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

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

Top Stories

Elon says he’s killing the Twitter deal

The bird app buyout could be off, if Elon Musk has his way.

On Friday, Musk’s legal team informed Twitter the Tesla and SpaceX exec would be terminating the merger agreement because, as their letter alleges, Twitter made false and misleading claims about the health of its business. This, of course, refers to the drama Musk had been stirring up over the percentage of bots on the service, which Twitter says is estimated to be less than 5%. Upon Musk’s earlier pressing for more information on this figure, Twitter provided Musk’s team with API access to make their own determinations. The letter, however, states that this API access was capped and limited, preventing the team from being able to accurately analyze Twitter’s data with regard to bots. (Which makes Musk’s claims that the bot count is higher than Twitter said it was a bit hard to prove!) Musk’s lawyers also allege Twitter included known fake and bot accounts in its mDAUs and didn’t have a standard process for calculating its mDAUs or the percentage of bots. Even if the arguments were valid — and that’s not able to be determined at this time — they don’t allow Musk to simply walk away.

Musk has already legally agreed to this deal, which means the battle will now move to court where Twitter says it plans to enforce the agreement at the price and terms agreed upon. And even if both parties agree to terminate, Musk will have to pay out a billion dollars as a termination fee.

The real reason Musk is trying to terminate is not likely “bots.” It’s because he knows he overpaid. What looked like a decent deal earlier (@ $54.20 per share) quickly became an overpriced deal in a macroeconomic environment that’s led to tech stocks tanking. Since announcing the deal, Twitter’s stock hadn’t again hit the negotiated price, and in fact, was recently down as much as 28% below Musk’s offer price. By forcing the deal to go to the courts, Musk could be hoping for a shot at negotiating a better price. But that’s far from being a certain outcome.

Google blocked KakaoTalk for not following its rules

Image Credits: Jon Russell (opens in a new window) / Flickr (opens in a new window)

Google this week demonstrated it plans to enforce its new Play Store terms over in-app purchases, even if the developer is a $1.5 billion tech giant and leading app in its region. The Korean company behind the KakaoTalk mobile messenger popular in South Korea was prevented from issuing updates to its app over its failure to comply with Google Play’s terms, according to local media reports. This would be the first time Google has enforced its new Play Store rules over how apps can point users to their own websites for alternative methods of payments.

South Korea’s in-app payment law, better known as the “anti-Google law,” permits Android app developers to add third-party payment options in their app, but only if they offer them alongside Google’s own billing system. It doesn’t permit developers to add links to their app that allow users to bypass Google’s billing system entirely, however. That’s what KakaoTalk is continuing to do.

According to Google’s rules, failure to comply with its rules could see apps removed from the Play Store altogether. Google hasn’t gone that far just yet — instead, it’s only blocked the company from issuing updates. But this is still a serious punitive action and one designed to prompt the app to take action.

Companies aren’t happy with how Google complied with the country’s new law, as Google is only offering a discount on commissions paid for those using third-party payments, instead of allowing them to avoid commissions as they had hoped. On April 1, Google said all apps must either use Google’s own payments system and pay the usual 15-30% in commissions, or the apps could offer a third-party system for a discount of 4% on those fees.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) met with Google and Kakao on Thursday about the matter. Afterward, Kakao relented and chose to remove the web link to the third-party payments system as required by Google’s rules to come into compliance. Analysts speculated Kakao’s earlier refusal to remove the link was to simply bring the issue to regulators’ attention — that is, it aimed to demonstrate how Google had complied with the letter of the law, but not with the spirit. The KCC had been investigating how the law was being implemented but since most apps were already in compliance, Google hadn’t yet taken any punitive actions.

The Kakao Talk messaging app today is used by some 53 milllion+ people monthly, making it one of the biggest social apps in the country.

FTC asked to investigate TikTok

Image Credits: TikTok

Senate Intelligence Committee members have asked the FTC to investigate whether TikTok misled lawmakers about ByteDance employees’ ability to access U.S. users’ data. Democrat Senator Mark Warner and Republican Marco Rubio, the chair and ranking member of the committee, respectively, wrote a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan requesting a further investigation into whether TikTok may have lied in its testimonies to Congress over how it handles user data.

This demand follows a BuzzFeed News report that revealed that ByteDance employees in China were regularly accessing U.S. data into early 2022, despite TikTok’s prior assurances to the contrary. Last weekend, timed alongside the BuzzFeed scoop, TikTok wrote to Republican Senators to assure them it’s working on a program called “Project Texas” aimed at improving data security for U.S.-based users.

“In light of this new report,” the letter stated, “we ask that your agency immediately initiate a Section 5 investigation on the basis of apparent deception by TikTok, and coordinate this work with any national security or counter-intelligence investigation that may be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Pressure on TikTok has been increasing as of late. Six senators sent a letter to the Treasury Department on June 24, asking for details about the negotiation between TikTok and CFIUS, which would have prompted Trump’s EO to ban the TikTok app in the U.S. An FCC Commissioner, Brendan Carr, also wrote to Apple and Google on June 28, requesting the companies remove TikTok from their app stores for “its pattern of surreptitious data practices.”

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

Image Credits: Apple

• Apple introduced an iPhone Lockdown Mode in iOS 16. The new OS, as well as updates for iPad and Mac, will include a feature that lets users who are most at risk from attacks take more extreme measures to lock down their devices and reduce attack surfaces. In Lockdown Mode, most message attachments are blocked and previews are disabled; some web technologies are disabled; FaceTime calls from people you haven’t connected with before are blocked; Shared Albums are removed from the Photos app; configuration profiles can’t be installed; wired connections to other devices or accessories are blocked; and more. Apple said it will add more protections to this mode over time.
• Apple rolled out the third developer betas for iOS 16, iPadOS 16, tvOS 16, watchOS 9 and macOS 13 Ventura. The news suggests the iOS 16 public beta is just around the corner, given it usually arrives alongside the third developer betas. The third beta also includes support for iCloud‌ Shared Photo Library, which lets families combine their photos and videos in one place.
• Apple also released iOS 15.6 and iPadOS 15.6 beta 5 to developers, alongside other platforms.

Platforms: Google

• The Google Play Store appears to be getting an updated logo with rounded corners on the triangle and colors that are more aligned with Google’s four colors (blue, green, yellow and red), instead of lighter variations.

E-commerce & Food Delivery

• Code spotted in the iOS 16 beta 3 suggests Apple is working on a new system to integrate virtual cards with Safari, reports 9to5Mac. The feature would allow users to pay with virtual card numbers when online shopping in mobile Safari.
• Amazon partnered with Grubhub and took a stake in its owner, Just East Takeaway. The deal will see Amazon offering free membership to Grubhub+ for one year to Prime members in the U.S. The retailer had previously offered a similar deal to Amazon Prime Student members and had a partnership with Deliveroo in the U.K. that offered a free year of Deliveroo+ to Prime members.
• Walmart folded its InHome grocery delivery service into its subscription plan, Walmart+. The service lets users monitor in-home grocery deliveries via an app where they can livestream the delivery as it’s in progress, watching as Walmart staff places their items inside their fridge and freezer.
• Pinterest introduced an API for Shopping and Product Tagging for Pins, among other merchant-focused updates. The API offers access to new catalog management and product metadata features, while Product Tagging allows merchants to make their “lifestyle” Pins shoppable, similar to shoppable photos on Instagram. In addition, video assets can now be used in product catalogs, and a new Shop Tab on business profiles lets merchants easily display their shoppable products.

Image Credits: Pinterest

• Pinterest also launched its ads business in Argentina, Colombia and Chile, joining other expansions to Brazil and Mexico last year, and Japan’s launch earlier this year. The ads allow retailers to connect with users searching for items that match those in their own catalogs, even if the searchers haven’t settled on a particular brand.
• Ex-employees at shopping app Wish detailed to The NYT about the app’s low product standards, unreliable shipping, counterfeiting, inappropriate ads and deceptive experiments which drove users away. The app saw MAUs drop from 101 million in Q1 2021 to 27 million in Q1 2022.
• Amazon readies itself for Prime Day with help from online influencers. The company is livestreaming creators who are promoting Prime Day deals via its Amazon Live platform. The streams are available on Amazon’s website and in its mobile app.
• Instacart rolled out a new rewards program for shoppers which offers priority access to batches for those with higher ratings. Other perks include discounted childcare, cash back on gas and car maintenance discounts. The company recently introduced other shopper features to protect their tips and remove ratings from customers who always dole out less than five stars.
• TikTok dropped its plans to expand livestream shopping in the U.S. and elsewhere after the feature failed to gain traction outside of the U.K., FT said.

Augmented Reality

Image Credits: The Met/8th Wall

• The Met launched a new AR experience that allows visitors or anyone to view the Sphinx in augmented reality. The Sphinx appears in your own space atop a grave stele and is annotated with interesting facts users can tap on to learn more. There’s also a selfie feature that lets users try on the Sphinx’s colors. The AR features are powered by 8th Wall and work in the Safari web browser app, instead of requiring a dedicated mobile app.

Crypto

Image Credits: Reddit

• Reddit launched a new NFT-based avatar marketplace that allows users to purchase blockchain-based profile pictures at a fixed rate. Users don’t need to have a crypto wallet to make the purchases, only a credit or debit card. The purchases are then held in Reddit’s own wallet called Vault, inside its existing mobile app. Vault is also used to earn blockchain-based community points and spend them on special features like badges and animated emoji. There are 90 NFT designs available at launch, and a total of “tens of thousands” of NFTs will be available during early access at prices ranging from $9.99-$99.99. The company partnered with Polygon, an Ethereum-compatible blockchain, to mint the avatars on-chain.

• Crypto exchange Binance.US hired a former Acorns and PayPal exec Jasmine Lee as its CFO, replacing interim CFO Eric Segal. The company offers one of the top crypto apps in the U.S. and operates as a separate entity from the global Binance exchange.
• The Chinese photo-editing app Meitu reported a $45.6 million crypto impairment in H1 2022. The company’s stock dropped more than 10% after it projected crypto impairments tripling from 2021 levels.

Adtech

• Glace, owned by adtech firm InMobi Group, will partner with U.S. carriers to launch a media service for Android lock screens. Glance serves media, news and casual entertainment to lock screens and already has a presence on around 400 million devices in Asian markets.

Social

• Snap’s unexpected new hire comes from the Secret Service. According to The Washington Post, Secret Service Director James Murray is retiring from his post and joining Snap as its chief security officer at the end of the month, where he’ll directly report to CEO Evan Spiegel.
• TikTok is facing multiple lawsuits from parents who allege their children died attempting the “blackout challenge” they saw on the app. The challenge encouraged users to strangulate themselves until passing out. TikTok claims users learned about the challenge on other platforms and says it was never a TikTok trend.
• TikTok is testing a new ability that would allow livestreamers to restrict their stream to viewers who are 18+. The company said it’s testing this feature with select users by offering an option to toggle a “mature themes” button that would restrict their TikTok LIVE’s to adults only.
• Meta is moving forward with its digital collectibles plan that will allow creators to generate revenue from NFTs, despite the crypto crash, reports FT.
• Twitter begins testing “CoTweets,” a feature that allows two users to co-author tweets — a feature that makes it possible for influencers and brands to post tweets together for brand partnership deals, among other use cases.
• Elon Musk may be still trying to get out of the Twitter deal, The Washington Post claims (see above). The Telsa and SpaceX exec is reportedly concerned about the number of bots on the service, but he’s likely more worried now about how much he’s overpaid for the social media company. Nevertheless, the ink is dry on the deal and will cost Musk $1 billion if he backs out. Twitter, meanwhile, told reporters it removes 1 million+ spam accounts per day and those accounts are well less than 5% of total users. It also confirmed layoffs of 30% of its talent acquisition team.
• An Israel-based startup called Notch is offering creators “Instagram account insurance,” which will pay out a stipend if their accounts get hacked causing them to lose access. The startup will also help them regain control of their page, it says.

Dating

• Tinder rolled out several in-app initiatives in the U.S. that allow users to take a stand against the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Users can now include “Pro-Choice” as an interest on their profiles, and the app features an in-app promotion that supports the abortion rights campaign from Bansoff.org. The company is also donating in-app promotional space to Kansas Constitutional Freedom (KCF), a bipartisan coalition of reproductive rights advocates and allied organizations dedicated to protecting access to safe and legal abortions. The court’s decision could have an impact on the use of dating apps for casual dating in the U.S., which could impact Tinder’s business.

Messaging

• Messaging app Signal introduced a new thread view on Android, which allows users to see replies to messages bundled in a single place, similar to Slack.

Streaming & Entertainment

• Netflix rolled out support for spatial audio to all devices and subscribers to offer theater-like sound for its movies and shows. The support is currently available on original titles like the fourth season of “Stranger Things,” “The Adam Project,” “Red Notice,” “The Witcher,” “Locke & Key” and others. Users can find supported titles by typing in “Spatial Audio” in the search bar.

Gaming

• Code found in Meta’s iPhone app for VR headsets suggests the company’s “Project Cambria” VR headset is going to be called the Meta Quest Pro, which will cost over $1,000, per Bloomberg. Mark Zuckerberg had previously teased the high-end headset in a demo video.
• In an update to The Oregon Trail game on Apple Arcade, creator Gameloft added a new “Walk the Trail” feature that connects the game with Apple Health. As users walk throughout the day, their steps are counted in a virtual Oregon trail inside the app that crosses 64 locations like Fort Kearney, Fort Laramie, Fort Hall and others. A stats screen highlights the steps, locations visited and more and a trivia screen offers details about the milestones you pay.

Utilities

• Apple is rolling out its improved Maps to France, Monaco and New Zealand, following tests. The regions will gain updated, more detailed maps, better navigation and other features.

Government & Policy

• Twitter sued the Indian government to challenge some of its takedown orders. The government has asked Twitter to remove hundreds of accounts and tweets that had denounced government policies and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Twitter had only partially complied with the requests and is instead fighting back against many of the challenges.
• In the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. House Oversight Committee issued letters on Friday to data brokers SafeGraph, Babel Street, Digital Envoy, Placer.ai and Gravy Analytics, as well as period tracking app makers Flo Health, Glow, GP International, Clue developer BioWink and Digitalchemy Ventures. The committee is asking the companies about their data collection and retention practices, noting that the collection of sensitive data could “pose serious threats to those seeking reproductive care as well as to providers of such care, not only by facilitating intrusive government surveillance, but also by putting people at risk of harassment, intimidation, and even violence.”

Security & Privacy

• Related to its introduction of Lockdown Mode in iOS 16, Apple also established a new category within the Apple Security Bounty program to reward researchers who find Lockdown Mode bypasses and help improve its protections. Bounties are doubled for qualifying findings in Lockdown Mode, up to a maximum of $2,000,000 — the highest maximum bounty payout in the industry. The company said it’s also making a $10 million grant, in addition to any damages awarded from its lawsuit filed against NSO Group, to support organizations that “investigate, expose, and prevent highly targeted cyberattacks, including those created by private companies developing state-sponsored mercenary spyware.”

Funding and M&A

Mobile marketing firm Moburst acquired digital studio Layer, which offers web, mobile and app development services. Layer, launched in 2015, has worked with clients like Nissan, Renault and others. Deal terms weren’t disclosed. The two companies had previously worked together on multiple projects and will now allow Moburst to expand its services and offer a full-stack solution.

Digital banking app YAP, based in the United Arab Emirates, raised $41 million as part of a Series A round expected to close at year-end. The company aims to expand its services into Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Ghana.

Tweets

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. We are back on Tuesday, as the United States was off yesterday. So a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short, here’s what we got into today:

• Stocks are mixed around the world, and set to fall in the United States at the open. At the same time, the crypto market has been somewhat relaxed in the last day.
• Sequoia Capital China is raising $9 billion, a huge amount of money at a time in which we have seen venture capital activity in China slow.
• Speaking of slowing venture capital, Indian activity is falling. That deceleration comes as the country’s crypto market is under pressure.
• At the same time, Twitter is pushing back against the Indian government bullying, which is good. But maybe less good for Elon Musk, who is buying the social network, and wants to sell imported cars in the country.
• Closing out, we touched on a potential database breach in China, struggles at Vauld, a new climatetech fund, and news from the quantum front.

All that and we had a good time! We are back tomorrow morning, and Friday morning!

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

The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year over year to reach $295 billion.

Today’s consumers now spend more time in apps than ever before — even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours, either. They can grow to become huge businesses. In 2021, 233 apps and games generated over $100 million in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. This was up 20% from 2020, when 193 apps and games topped $100 million in annual consumer spend, and just eight apps topped $1 billion.

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

• Do you want This Week in Apps in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here: techcrunch.com/newsletters.
• TechCrunch+ is also having a sale that will allow subscribers to save 50% on an annual subscription here. More information here.

Top Stories

Consumers react to Roe v Wade by deleting period tracking apps

In the week after the controversial Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade, consumers began to lock down access to their non-protected health data in period tracking apps. There was enough app switching taking place to influence the App Store charts, in fact, as users moved both to and from leading app Flo, benefitting rivals like Clue and Eve, which saw installs increase by 2,200% and 83%, respectively.

There are differing opinions on how much concern there needs to be over this period tracking data. Some argue that period tracking app data would not be the primary evidence used if there were to be prosecutions over now criminalized abortions — an argument, however valid, essentially serves to chastise consumers for reacting in fear by switching to more private apps or deleting them altogether. The bigger picture here is that this data was never HIPPA protected in the first place. And if consumers are reacting with seemingly outsized concern, maybe it’s because the government’s ruling terrifies them about what the future for this country holds. Maybe it not so crazy to switch back to pen and paper at a time when a rogue court is throwing out half a century of established legal precedent in order to control bodies and invade citizens’ privacy.

In any event, many period tracking app providers have been making promises to secure data or introduce new anonymity features. But in an unfortunate twist, it was a newcomer to the market that became the No. 1 app after the ruling — largely based on promises of end-to-end encryption and not its existing protections. As it turned out, the app — Stardust, as it was known — was sharing users phone numbers with a third-party. And after it rolled out its expected encryption later in the week, Stardust was found to be sending the local encryption key back to its servers. In layman’s terms, that means whatever was encrypted could now be decrypted. Not a good look.

Now the House Democrats are considering legislation that could protect abortion rights and secure data in reproductive apps.

Snapchat thinks its users will pay for perks with Snapchat+

Image Credits: Snapchat

Like many tech companies, Snapchat has been struggling amid the tougher economic conditions and inflation. The company reported a challenging first quarter where it had additionally cited supply chain disruptions, the war in Ukraine, labor shortages and rising interest rates as contributing factors to its miss on both revenue and earnings in the quarter, and only a small uptick in daily active users. The company is also still dealing with the fallout from Apple’s 2021 privacy changes, or ATT (App Tracking Transparency), that impacted its advertising business and revenue.

In the midst of these macroeconomic factors, Snap is trying to navigate new regulations around minor safety, lock down its developer platform, roll out parental controls and remain competitive in a market where much of young people’s time spent in apps is now shifting to TikTok and other lightweight networking apps — or what TechCrunch recently dubbed “homescreen social” apps — like LiveIn, BeReal and others.

This has resulted in a search for alternative business models beyond advertising, it seems. This week, Snap introduced Snapchat+ — a $3.99/month subscription that provides access to premium features like being able to pin a friend as a “BFF,” see who rewatched a Story and the ability to change the app icon. The move, which was leaked in advance, follows the launches of similar subscription options aimed at power users, like Telegram Premium’s recent launch and Twitter Blue. It’s hard to say if these investments will pay off in the long run. For now, Twitter continues to make the majority of its revenue from ads and a small bit from data licensing. Telegram’s offering is too new to analyze at this time.

Snapchat+, meanwhile, is targeting an audience with perhaps even less to spend on subscription services. Will Snap’s high-schooler customers want to use their babysitting money, allowance or income from another minimum wage job or side hustle to gain a few extra features? Were these features actually in high demand, the way Twitter’s Edit button was? What’s the strategy for enhancing the offering over time? How will Snap evaluate which features to add — is it analyzing user data or behavior? Will it launch a feedback forum? Or will it just come up with ideas on its own? What percentage of revenue will Snapchat+ need to target to be considered a success? What are the ramifications to Snap if the product fails? Would Snap consider a bundle that combines hardware (like its new drone camera) and software?

For what it’s worth, Snap clearly didn’t want to invite much scrutiny of this major change to its business model. The company only offered one outlet, The Verge, an interview and said very little in it — beyond conveying to investors that this won’t be a “material new source of revenue.” Snap also tried to suggest to the outlet that it had been thinking about subscriptions for over five years, as if the new product was not reactive to the state of its business today.

Of course, tech companies weigh a variety of ideas all the time! But the timing of when they allocate real-world resources to build them is what actually matters. And Snap built a new way to make money at a time when the old way is suffering.

Oh, we’re thinking about banning TikTok again?

Image Credits: TechCrunch

The GOP wants to force you to use Reels. OK, that’s not quite the story — but that could be the result.

In actuality, Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, wrote to Apple and Google to insist they pull TikTok from their app stores, calling it “a sophisticated surveillance tool” that’s harvesting “extensive amounts of personal and private data.”

Carr’s letter was prompted by the new report from BuzzFeed News which found that ByteDance staff in China had access to U.S. users’ TikTok data as recently as January 2022. (Beijing-based ByteDance owns TikTok and its Chinese sister app, Douyin).

Carr demanded the companies respond by July 8 if they didn’t comply and why. Specifically, he asked the app stores to explain why they would not penalize an app engaged in “the surreptitious access of private and sensitive U.S. user data by persons located in Beijing” coupled with “TikTok’s pattern of misleading representations and conduct.”

TikTok has long insisted it stores U.S. users’ data in the U.S. itself, with backups in Singapore, and said the data was outside the jurisdiction of China’s national security law which requires companies to turn over data to the Communist party if requested. But if TikTok data was being accessed in China, these prior statements seem to be misleading, at best.

The Trump administration had previously tried to ban TikTok by way of an executive order, but was held up in the courts. The Biden administration didn’t pursue the matter. But this latest incident now has the GOP interested in a ban once again. Fourteen GOP senators have also issued letters calling for answers from the video app, arguing it’s a national security threat.

Of course, it’s not that easy to ban TikTok. Last time around, TikTok creators successfully sued to stop the ban, which they said would prevent them from being able to earn a living. Another judge had also blocked Trump’s ban, saying the former president had overstepped his authority.

TikTok, meanwhile, has responded to BuzzFeed’s reporting by announcing it’s moving all U.S. user data to Oracle servers in the U.S., after which it will then delete U.S. users’ data from its own data centers, it says. Sure, Jan.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• Apple announced on Thursday developers in South Korea can now use third-party payments in their apps published to the South Korea App Store but will still pay a 26% commission. Plus, just as it tried before with Dutch dating apps, which had also won the right to use third-party payments, Apple said developers will need to submit their revised apps in a separate binary. Dutch regulators had pushed back against that provision, calling it an undue burden on developers, and Apple eventually dropped the requirement to come into compliance. It’s unclear how the Korea Communication Commission (KCC) will choose to respond, however.
• Apple CarPlay in iOS 16 will support a new feature that allows drivers to pay for gas through a screen in their car using the fuel company’s app, instead of having to pay at the pump itself. BP, Shell and Chevron have expressed interest.
• Apple clarified the iPad home hub support in iOS 16, after testers noted the iPad could no longer serve as a home hub — while Apple TV and HomePod devices could. The company explained that the Home app will introduce a new architecture in iPadOS 16 and iPad won’t be supported as a home hub with that upgrade. Impacted users can opt to not update their Home app to continue to use their iPad as a home hub.
• Apple released the fourth public beta of iOS 15.6 and iPadOS 15.6.

Platforms: Google

• Google’s Switch to Android app for iOS users is now compatible with all Android 12 phones, instead of just Pixel phones as before. The feature allows users to more easily make the move from iOS to Android by copying over contacts, calendars, photos and videos, and instructing on how to deregister iMessage.
• Google settled a lawsuit with Android app developers over fees. The company settled a lawsuit with U.S. app developers who made less than $2 million in Play Store revenue from 2016-2021 by setting aside $90 million in a fund to pay back money to developers. The suit had argued Google gained a monopoly in the Android app distribution space through anti-competitive practices. The law firm said 48,000 U.S. developers are eligible to receive payments from Google.

E-commerce & Food Delivery

• Food delivery biz Deliveroo will expand advertising on its app in July, including by adding ads to its order-tracking page as it chases profitability.
• Fast food and membership club apps are seeing increased demand amid inflation, Apptopia reports.
• TikTok is testing a dedicated “Shop” feed in Indonesia that lets users browse and purchase products from different categories, such as clothing and electronics. Of note, the feed sits on the app’s main page alongside its For You and Following feeds, which would be a major change to the product. The TikTok Shop service itself is currently available in select markets, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and the U.K.

Augmented Reality

• Pokémon GO developer Niantic laid off 8% of its workforce, or around 85-90 people, amid the economic downturn. The company also canceled four upcoming projects, including Heavy Metal, a Transformers game that had already entered beta testing; Hamlet, a collaboration with the theater company behind “Sleep No More;” and two other projects known as Blue Sky and Snowball. Niantic has not been able to reproduce the success of its flagship game, having shut down a Harry Potter AR title and so far seen little adoption for its new AR game, Pikmin Bloom. The company is now working on a new AR game, NBA All-World.
• Niantic’s Lightship is also powering a new “Game of Thrones” app designed to promote HBO’s upcoming prequel series “House of the Dragon.” The AR app will allow users to hatch a personalized dragon egg and raise their dragon at home. The app, produced by The Mill, will arrive on July 20.
• Niantic launched Campfire, a new social app for its community that shows a map of your area with game experiences and activities from friends and other nearby players. The app helps users find local communities, add and manage friends, chat in one-on-one and group messages, join events and more.

Social

Image Credits: Facebook

• Facebook takes on Discord. The company this week rolled out new features for Facebook Groups including “Channels,” that allow users to connect with one another in smaller groups via chat or audio, similar to Discord, or in interest-based communities. The app will also test a new sidebar that will make it easier for users to find their groups more quickly, with the option to pin favorites to the top.
• Facebook also rolled out NFTs. U.S. NFT creators will now be able to display NFTs under a new tab on their profiles. Meta recently launched NFTs on Instagram in May 2022.
• Pinterest has a new CEO. The image pinboard and link-saving site’s co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann stepped down after a 12-year run, turning over the reins to Google commerce boss Bill Ready. Previously, Ready ran Google’s shopping and payments arm after joining Google from PayPal, which acquired its startup Braintree for $800 million in 2013. Last fall, PayPal had been reported to be considering a Pinterst acquisition.
• Instagram rolled out Reels APIs for developers. The new endpoints added to Instagram’s developer platform will allow developers to schedule Reels, publish to Instagram Business accounts, access social interaction metrics, reply to or delete comments, hide or unhide comments, disable or enable comments, find public Reels tagged with specific hashtags and identify Reels where an Instagram Business or Creator’s alias has been tagged or @mentioned.
• Instagram users can now delete their accounts from within the iOS app. The app has complied with Apple’s new policy that states any app offering account creation must also now offer deletion. Instagram, however, puts accounts on hold for a month instead of immediately deleting them. If you log back in at any time, the deletion process is canceled.
• Instagram is testing a change that turns all videos into Reels. The company said it’s trying to “simplify and improve” the video experience in the app. In reality, the move is yet another effort aimed at helping Instagram catch up with TikTok.
• Short-form video app Triller filed for an IPO. The company confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO after ending its $5 billion merger with video ad software provider SeaChange International on June 14.

Messaging

• WhatsApp is developing avatars. The Meta-owned company is working on an avatars feature similar to Apple’s Memoji or Snap’s Bitmoji, that could stand in for the user during video calls.

Streaming & Entertainment

• Spotify launched a new personalized playlist option called “Supergrouper” that lets you create your own supergroup consisting of up to five artists. After you create and name your group, Spotify will curate a playlist of songs from the artists you selected, which you can also share on social media.
• U.S. artists on Spotify can now use the app’s Marquee self-serve ad-buying option to promote releases across 14 markets via the Spotify for Artists dashboard. Marquee first launched in October 2019 but wasn’t able to target users outside the U.S. initially.
• Twitch added a new Guest Star feature that lets streaming hosts bring up to five guests into a stream and swap them in and out.

Gaming

• Meta VR developers call out the company for hypocrisy given its complaints over Apple’s App Store fees. The developers are frustrated with Meta’s 30% cut of their purchases and 15-30% cut of subscriptions, similar to Apple’s. They said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had called Apple’s fees “monopoly rents,” but his company is doing the same thing.
• The WSJ examined the growing complexity of hypercasual games which have begun adding leaderboards, multiplayer formats and in-app purchases to these previously simple games as they look to retain player retention amid market saturation. The games often also use rewarded ads or those that showcase someone playing poorly to encourage users’ sense of competition. Other ads will feature gameplay that doesn’t exist at all.

Travel & Transportation

• Car rental apps in the U.S. hit all-time highs for new installs and MAUs in May, Apptopia found, indicating pent-up travel demand and possibly a desire to avoid the chaotic airline issues. New installs are projected to increase 27% YoY in Q2 2022, and MAUs are expected to increase 19.4%. Enterprise (39.6%), Hertz (36.8%) and Turo (34.3%) are growing MAUs the fastest, the firm said.

Reading & News

• Storytelling community Wattpad launched a creator program that offers writers up to $25,000 in compensation. There’s also a new metric called “Engaged Readers” that helps track readers’ interest in stories and a creator portal where writers can get other tips about improving their content.
• Substack has begun to convert some writers’ text into audio automatically using text-to-speech technology. Readers using the Substack iOS app will have the ability to hear posts read aloud as a result.

Image Credits: Substack

Government & Policy

• Russia is issuing fines to companies that aren’t storing Russian citizens’ personal data in the country. Google, Twitch, Pinterest, Airbnb and UPS have already been fined, and the government has opened cases against LikeMe and Apple as well.

Security & Privacy

• Google notified Android users who were compromised by Hermit government-grade spyware which targeted victims in Kazakhstan and Italy. Google also examined the Hermit iOS app which is sideloaded onto devices and included six exploits, including two zero-days. Apple said it revoked all known accounts and certificates associated with the spyware campaign.
• T-Mobile launched a service called App Insights that allows marketers to target wireless customers based on the apps they have installed. Customer data is anonymized and pooled together with others with similar interests and behaviors. And users are opted in by default.
• Instagram is accused of continuing to allow a man accused of selling photos of children to pedophiles to maintain his account and share images for two months following his arrest, Forbes reports.
• Google updated its password manager for Chrome and Android, offering a way for users to manually enter new passwords across platforms, as well as a new unified user experience that automatically groups multiple passwords for the same sites or apps together, and a new shortcut on the Android home screen to get access to these passwords. The iOS Chrome app will also be able to generate strong passwords for you.

Funding and M&A

Data analysis startup Zing Data raised $2.4 million in seed funding led by Kindred Ventures for a mobile app that lets business users work with data wherever they are in an accessible way. The product can connect with a variety of popular data sources, including Snowflake, Trino, Google BigQuery and Google Sheets, as well as databases like Postgres and MySQL. Users then choose a dataset and some fields to display, then can manipulate the data to see different views and can share charts with others.

London-based Birdie, a provider of digital tools for in-home care, raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Sofina, which will be used to scale the business in Europe. The SaaS company works with 700 care businesses that deliver millions of visits per month to around 35,000 recipients and 8,000 family members. Its services are available through both an iOS and Android app.

London-based fintech Cleo, an AI-powered app for financial assistance, raised $80 million in Series C funding led by Sofina. The app targets the U.S. market’s Gen Z users with budgets and savings guidance and education.

New Delhi-based digital bank Progcap raised $40 million in a Series C extension, valuing the business at $600 million, up 3x since September 2021. Creation Investments and Tiger Global led the round. The app serves 700,000 small retailers across hundreds of Indian cities and towns.

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

The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. Global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5%, reaching 230 billion in 2021, and mobile ad spend grew 23% year over year to reach $295 billion.

Today’s consumers now spend more time in apps than ever before — even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours, either. They can grow to become huge businesses. In 2021, 233 apps and games generated over $100 million in consumer spend and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue. This was up 20% from 2020, when 193 apps and games topped $100 million in annual consumer spend and just eight apps topped $1 billion.

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

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

Top Stories

Instagram to verify users’ ages in new test

Image Credits: Instagram

Instagram announced this week it’s testing a new set of features for verifying users’ ages in the app, including things like video selfies, vouching from adult friends and providing an ID. The tests, which will begin in the U.S., will apply to users who try to change their age to 18 or over after being previously set to under 18. These users may be trying to correct an earlier mistake or they could be teens trying to circumvent the app’s newer age-appropriate restrictions.

If users are prompted to provide an ID card, like a passport or driver’s license, Meta will store it on its servers for 30 days before deletion. If users choose the social vouching option, they’ll need at least three other adult friends to vouch for their age — and Instagram will choose a list of six people randomly who meet the criteria. Those users can’t have a new account or be vouching for others at the same time.

The company also said it’s using AI that can estimate users’ ages in video selfies. The company is working with the London-based digital identify firm Yoti which will examine the file, make an estimate, then delete the file.

Age verification is an increasingly common feature in social apps used by younger users as a result of tighter regulations. Another company catering to Gen Z users, Yubo, recently rolled out its own age estimating tech as well.

Twitter goes long form

TechCrunch broke the news that Twitter was testing a long-form writing feature called Twitter Notes. The next day after our report went live, Twitter announced it officially.

The news is one of Twitter’s more significant changes since doubling the character count from 140 to 280 characters, as it will allow users to write on Twitter directly, as if it’s a blogging platform. With Twitter Notes, users are able to create articles using rich formatting and uploaded media, which can then be tweeted and shared with followers upon publishing. The company also said it would merge its newsletter service, Revue, into Twitter Notes.

Users with access can create Twitter Notes from the “Write” link in Twitter’s navigation. For the time being, Twitter is testing Notes with a small group of writers in the United States, Canada, Ghana and the United Kingdom. The Notes can be up to 2,500 words in length.

The feature could encourage users to rely on Twitter Thread (tweetstorms) less in order to share their longer thoughts, ideas or stories with their Twitter followers, Community or Circle. It could also put an end to using a screenshot from the Notes app to tweet something longer than 280 characters. Meanwhile, Twitter Notes can tap into the potential for viral distribution that comes with posting to the platform. Like tweets, the Notes would have their own link and could be tweeted, retweeted, sent in DMs, liked and bookmarked. They can also be reported and must comply with Twitter’s rules.

It’s worth noting (ha!) that Twitter Notes also gives the company a new business and potential revenue stream as it further develops the product. The feature may allow the social platform to compete with established services, like Medium for blogging, or Substack’s newsletters.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

• Apple released the second developer beta for iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, along with other betas for Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Among the changes is support for cellular iCloud backups over LTE; a new feature that shows a brand or company’s logo beside their email in the Mail app to cut down on phishing; tech that lets you skip CAPTCHAs; plus new SMS filters and the ability to tap to report a junk SMS sender in the U.S. But another thing to note if you’re testing iOS 16 — the current beta’s editable iMessage feature doesn’t work with older iPhones, meaning your edits are texted to the person after the original message.
• Apple also rolled out Xcode 14 beta 2 which now includes a Stage Manager simulator.
• The iPad will no longer work as a home hub in iOS 16 according to information discovered in the Home app.

E-commerce

Image Credits: Twitter/Shopify

• As part of its ongoing efforts to expand into e-commerce, Twitter announced a new partnership with Shopify. The deal will see Twitter launching a sales channel app that will be made available to all of Shopify’s U.S. merchants through its app store. The app allows merchants to onboard themselves to Twitter’s Shopping Manager, the dashboard offered by the social media company where sellers can access product catalog tools and enable other shopping features for their profiles. Merchants will be able to use the new sales channel app to connect their Twitter account to their Shopify admin then get set up with Twitter’s Shopping Manager and other free tools Twitter built for “Professionals.” This includes Twitter’s launch of a new feature called Location Spotlight, which allows local businesses in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia to display information like their street address, contact info and operating hours directly on their profile.

Augmented Reality

• Walmart gave its app an AR upgrade with the launch of View in Your Space, which allows customers to see home décor and furniture in their own homes. The feature will be rolled out to over 300 items on Walmart’s iOS app by early July.
• Tim Cook may have hinted at Apple’s AR headset plans when he told a Chinese state-run news outlet to “stay tuned” to see what Apple had in store next for AR in an interview. A later investor note by Ming-Chi Kuo also suggested the new hardware could arrive as soon as early 2023.
• IKEA launched a new in-app design experience, called IKEA Kreativ, that lets U.S. shoppers visualize furniture in their own spaces using AR and AI. The feature can also remove the existing furniture from your room so you can better imagine the changes.
• Snap shared some data about AR shopping trends, noting that there was a 32% increased use of shoppable AR during the pandemic and that 69% of consumers believed AR was a part of shopping’s future.

Fintech

• Coinbase is shutting down its standalone Pro service by year’s end and replacing it with Advanced Trade across its website and app. The latter offers comparable features to the Pro service, which had lowered fees to traders who interacted directly with the Coinbase Exchange order book.
• Facebook Pay formally rebranded to Meta Pay. The change had already been announced but is now rolling out in the U.S. before expanding globally.

Social

Image Credits: Twitter

• Snapchat announced its first accelerator program for emerging Black creators, which will see 25 selected participants receive $10,000 per month to launch their careers across a total $3 million investment.
• Instagram has been experimenting with a new feature that would allow users to leave notes for their friends at the top of the DM inbox. The feature could help users share urgent or more important messages that could be overlooked in Stories or in messages.
• Meta announced more ways for creators to make money on Facebook and Instagram and the expansion of other monetization tools to more creators. The company will keep paid online events, fan subscriptions, badges and its upcoming independent news products free for creators until 2024, instead of 2023, as it had said before. Meta is also testing a designated place on Instagram where creators can get discovered by brands for partnerships; will launch a way for users to subscribe to Facebook Groups even for those who have paid for access on another platform; and is expanding the Reels Play Bonus program to more creators and making Facebook Stars available to all.
• Twitter announced the return of its developer conference, Chirp. The event was first held in 2010 but was then canceled the next year. At the time, the event had been a reflection of Twitter’s attitude toward its developer community in general — disorganized and constantly in flux as the company’s business initiatives changed. Times have since changed and Twitter has been trying to woo back developers with its new API, even by promoting some apps on Twitter itself.

Messaging

• Telegram said it now has over 700 monthly active users and announced Telegram Premium, a subscription that gives users access to exclusive features like doubled limits, 4 GB file uploads, faster downloads, exclusive stickers and reactions, improved chat management and more.

Photos

• Camera+, an alternative to Apple’s built-in app, added a new “UltraRes upscaling” feature. With machine learning technology, the app can upscale images to up to four times what the native sensor can capture.

Dating

• Match-owned Hinge added a new feature that allows users to share their “Dating Intentions” — meaning whether they’re looking for long-term, short-term, open relationships and more. The update changes Hinge’s focus as the company has historically been the app designed to connect people looking for more serious relationships, while Match-owned Tinder was aimed at those seeking casual encounters.

Streaming & Entertainment

Image Credits: Spotify

• Spotify revamped its concert discovery feature with the launch of a new Live Events Feed. The personalized feature will allow users to find favorite artists’ events in your area and will now include artist imagery and more tour details. Local events will also be highlighted while streaming and soon, in other places in the Spotify app.
• Clubhouse is testing a new feature called Houses, per Bloomberg, which are private rooms aimed at encouraging social interactions where anyone can unmute themselves and speak.
• Reddit Talk, the company’s live audio Clubhouse-like feature, announced its Host program would launch on July 11th. The program will promote hosts’ audio across the site. Reddit Talk also gained new features like a soundboard and topic selector for discovery purposes.
• Apple Music raised the price of its student plan in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. In the United States and Canada, the price for the plan has increased from $4.99 to $5.99. In the United Kingdom, the price has increased from £4.99 to £5.99.

Gaming

• Epic Games has come up with a new system for game ratings. While these changes apply to its own online games store, it’s an example of why alternative app stores could be useful to provide competition with Apple’s own — they can be a ground to test out new ideas. In Epic’s case, random players who have played a game for over two hours will be asked to rate the game on a five-point scale. Over time, these will create the game’s Overall Rating. The system, which relies on random sampling, could cut down on review bombing and reviews left by those who aren’t actual players, the company notes.
• China’s regulation of the mobile gaming market may be leading to declining use of the App Store in the country, according to Morgan Stanley. The firm’s latest analysis estimated that the App Store only saw 1% growth in June so far, compared with 6% growth in May.

Health & Fitness

• Fitbit added a new premium feature, “Sleep Profile,” which will allow users to track their sleep patterns across 10 key metrics, including new data points like bedtime consistency, the time before sound sleep and disrupted sleep. The feature is rolling out to the Fitbit app’s Premium users and supports devices including Sense, Versa 3, Versa 2, Charge 5, Luxe or Inspire 2.

Travel & Transportation

• Apple is planning to expand its CarPlay experience to China, according to a job posting.
• Polestar has now added Apple CarPlay to its all-electric Polestar 2 sedan via an over-the-air software update, after previously only supporting Android Auto.
• Car rental apps saw their MAUs grow 19% year-over-year in the U.S. in May, reported Apptopia, despite rising gas prices.

Image Credits: Apptopia

Government & Policy

• TikTok offered a series of commitments in the EU to improve user reporting and disclosure requirements around ads/sponsored content as well as an agreement to boost transparency around its digital coins and virtual gifts. The agreement follows a series of complaints over child safety and consumer protection complaints filed back in February 2021.
• The U.S. Department of Justice today entered into an agreement with Meta to resolve a lawsuit that alleged Meta engaged in discriminatory advertising in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA). As a result, Meta has agreed to develop a new system for housing ads and will pay a roughly $115,000 penalty, the maximum under the FHA.

Reading & News

• India-based VerSe Innovation rolled out its news aggregator Dailyhunt in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, with over 5,000 content partners in the region.

Security & Privacy

• Google Chrome for iOS gained a number of new features in a recent update, including access to Enhanced Safe Browsing to protect users from dangerous websites and malware, as well as the ability to make Google Password Manager your Autofill provider. Other additions include Chrome Actions (typed commands in the URL bar) and access to Google’s Discover feed on the main page.
• Daycare apps including those from Brightwheel, HiMama and others were found to lack 2FA and other privacy protections, in an analysis.
• Google threat researchers detailed a commercial spyware system called Hermit, used in Kazakhstan and Italy, which targeted both Android and iOS. The iOS version had six exploits, including two zero-days. Targeted victims are tricked into installing a malicious app — which masquerades as a legitimate branded telco or messaging app — from outside the app store.

Funding and M&A

Courier raised $35 million in a Series B funding round led by GV. The company provides an API for sending notifications across multiple channels, including email, text, web and mobile.

Ghana-based fintech Fido raised $30 million in equity investment and some undisclosed debt funding in a Series A round led by Israel-based private equity fund Fortissimo Capital. The round brings the total equity investment raised to date to $38 million. The startup says it’s adding savings and payment products to its portfolio later this year and will enter Uganda.

Twitter asked its shareholders to approve the $44 billion Elon Musk acquisition. At the time of its SEC filing, Twitter’s share price was around $38.12 — lower than Musk’s offer price of $54.20 a share. The company’s market cap had also dropped below $30 billion, making a $44 billion deal look very good.

Downloads

WatchTube

Image Credits: WatchTube

Well, here’s something kind of crazy: 9to5Mac this week highlighted the new app WatchTube, which lets you watch YouTube videos directly on your Apple Watch. Yes, really!

The app is not the best experience for watching videos, as you may have guessed, but it is pretty wild that it actually works. The app by default shows you top trending videos, but you can customize this so the videos that appear are selected from a particular genre, like Music, News, Gaming, Movies and more. While it would be enough to just accomplish bringing YouTube to the Watch, the developer also added other features like the ability to search for videos, save videos to the app’s local Library and subscribe to Channels. When you get back to your other devices, you can also scan a QR code to share the video back to your iPhone or iPad.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Alex and Grace are back to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. This is our Monday show, coming to you this week on a Tuesday as, hey, yesterday was a holiday for many American workers, in honor of Juneteenth. So, we’re doing our weekly kickoff one day later than usual. Here’s what we got into:

• Stocks are higher globally, while the crypto market is somewhat quiet after a tumultuous few weeks.
• We’re coming up on the end of Q2 2022, which means that we’re at once heading into earnings season (woo!) and another venture capital data set to parse. Get excited.
• Musk has been busy around the world, helping keep Ukraine online, seeing his cars come under some censure in China, and still talking his way through buying twitter.
• In startup-land: LeadSquared raised a huge round, and is now a unicorn. Platform.sh raised a huge round, but we aren’t sure what it is worth. And Stashfin also put a huge amount of capital and debt onto its own books.
• The fintech VC market is still alive, despite warning bells from, well, everywhere. Magic Eden just raised for an NFT marketplace, we note. (Though prices are, yes, coming down.)

That’s our show! We’re back tomorrow and Friday!

Technology built with defense in mind is getting some significant and serious traction at the moment, spurred by world events, advances in technology, and a growing appetite from end users to invest in more innovative ways to protect themselves. In the latest development, Shield AI — which makes software and hardware for drones and other autonomous aircraft used by military and other government organizations — has raised $165 million in funding, $90 million in Series E equity and $75 million in debt.

The funding is coming in at a $2.3 billion valuation, Shield AI said. The company has been on a strong pace on that front: it follows on from a $210-$300 million Series D about ten months ago that valued the company at $1.25 billion. (It never confirmed the final amount, which was also a mix of equity and debt.)

Doug Philippone at Snowpoint Ventures led the round, with Riot Ventures, Disruptive (a returning backer; it led Shield AI’s Series D) and Homebrew (it led Shield AI’s seed round). The company’s other investors include Point72, Andreessen Horowitz, Breyer Capital, and SVB Capital.

Philippone is an interesting person to lead on this latest round: in addition to being an investor, he is also Palantir’s global defense lead, a job he’s been in for the last 14 years. This is important not least because Palantir arguably was one of the key companies to change the game for how startups, spurred by the tech boom out of Silicon Valley, both engaged and started to win defense contracts and raised huge sums from VCs to fuel that growth.

Another influential startup changing the conversation around funding defense tech is Anduril, which as we reported just the other week, is raising up to $1.2 billion (potentially more) at a $7 billion valuation. That round, we have heard, is basically now closed.

Shield AI is based out of San Diego, which you could say is a little like the Silicon Valley of the defense industry. It’s the home port of the U.S. Pacific fleet, and according to stats gathered by the city’s chamber of commerce, outside of Fairfax County, Virginia (where the Pentagon is based) greater San Diego gets more defense spending than any other place in the U.S. Shield is based there among a dozens of other major and smaller defense contractors.

And if you don’t follow the defense industry, but have at least seen or heard of Top Gun or its recently-released blockbuster sequel, you’ll know that it’s a major center specifically for aerospace development. Shield AI targets a very specific customer base that is focused around the U.S. military and its allies, but even so it speaks about what it does in terms that bring is purpose and function into context for more ordinary people.

“China’s military is Netflix; the U.S. military is Blockbuster. China is Amazon; the U.S. is Barnes & Noble. China is Tesla; the U.S. is General Motors,” writes Brandon Tseng, the president of the company who co-founded it with his brother Ryan (who is the CEO). Brandon is also a former Navy SEAL so he speaks with some authority in making these sorts of analogies.

And on the company’s home page, it describes Hivemind, its AI-based autonomous software platform, as what else? “A Top Gun for every aircraft.”

As with a lot of other companies (maybe every company) in autonomous transportation, be it in the air or on the ground, Shield AI has a mix of software and hardware that is already usable, and then products that are still in development. Some will be used in purely autonomous systems, and some in tandem with humans.

In the case of Shield AI, the company says that Hivemind and its Nova drone (or small-unmanned aircraft system, sUAS, in more formal terminology) have been in use since 2018. Ryan Tseng tells us that the specifics of exactly where and how are classified, as are most of the companies other activities, but they are part of the U.S. Department of Defense Program of Record.

It’s also working on a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft called V-BAT that will be soon equipped with Hivemind. The software is being integrated into other aircraft, too, such as the F-16 fighter jet pictured above, where it will act as a co-pilot alongside a human, with the aim for it to be used also across F-22s, F-18s, and other models. In the meantime, Tseng said in an interview that its V-BAT craft also have been operational since 2018 around the globe.

“The DoD and international militaries are acquiring V-BAT at a rapid rate so we’re ramping production as quickly as possible,” he said — one reason for this funding. V-BAT beat out 13 competitors to win a major Navy Program of Record, he added. Its selling point is its ability to withstand challenging conditions. “The unique design and controls allow it to take off & land in high winds, on crowded flight decks, aboard moving vessels with landing zones as small as 12’ x 12’.”

The bigger strategy is to build a “swarming” capability for its devices — essentially to use a number of them in concert as a way of evading jamming technologies from adversaries. This, Tseng said, is on track for coming to market by the end of 2023 (although since a lot of what they do is classified, they may not actually make anything public until it’s already being used).

Taking both Anduril’s recent landmark round and this latest round for Shield AI, we’re in a moment right now where VCs — working themselves in a challenging financial climate — have changed their tune when it comes to backing companies in the defense space, which includes not just companies like these building military technology, but also those working in cybersecurity and other kinds of technology that helps with resilience. This could include, interestingly, alternative energy tech and of course products that can be used by more than just governments but enterprises as well.

“The fundraising climate has never been more favorable for defense technology companies,” Tseng told TechCrunch. “Supporting defense was taboo in many circles. We were rejected by many early investors because defense was considered too controversial. Today, there is growing recognition that investment in defense contributes to security, stability, and peace, all of which are foundational to a flourishing society.”

As noted by others who are investing in this space right now, or building for it, there has indeed been a noticeable shift in how people view companies like Shield AI and what they are trying to develop. That is still a challenge, though, which might be one reason why a company like Shield goes through the work of putting out messaging to people who may never actually be customers to still take in what they are trying to do.

“Many people don’t realize the scope of conflict in the world – before Ukraine, 84 million people were displaced by violence and persecution, up from 39 million in 2011,” Tseng said. “There aren’t that many opportunities to contribute to technologies that meaningfully address humanity’s great challenges – or that create the general conditions for human achievement. When you work on AI pilots for defense – you are working on the most important and disruptive defense technology of the next thirty years – and are empowering our country and allies to advance security, stability, and peace.”

That is filliped also by the fact that adversaries are also hot on the heels building their own similar systems. China is aiming for military parity by 2027 in the Pacific, Tseng pointed out, meaning they aim to exceed the U.S. by 2028. And he added that there have been reports that it is already benchmarking their prototypes against Shield AI’s pilot.

Tseng also may be biased but has a very different idea of why autonomous matters more in this context. “Waymo engineers get to build minivans that plod through the suburbs at 25 mph, we get to work autonomous fighter jets that fly 1000+ mph, dodge missiles, and find threats,” he said.

All this is spelling not just an opportunity in the business sense, but a wider one, too, for those backing Shield AI.

“Investors are flocking to quality. This round is a reflection of Shield AI’s success in creating great products, building a business with strong fundamentals, and dominant technological leadership – with an AI pilot proven to be the world’s best in numerous military evaluations,” said Philippone in a statement. “We love that they are leveraging an AI and software backbone across a variety of aircraft to deliver truly game-changing value to our warfighters. The work they are doing today is just the tip of the iceberg.”

TechCrunch is more than just a site with words. We’re also building a growing stable of podcasts focused on the most critical topics relating to the startup and venture capital worlds. To help you find the right show for your interests, we’ve compiled our audio output from the week.

Embedded below is the latest from Chain Reaction, our new and stellar crypto-focused podcast hosted by Lucas and Anita. You will also find Found, a long-form bit of work that goes deep on the real saga of company formation, from Jordan and Darrell. There’s an audio-only version of TechCrunch Live hosted by Matt that features founders and investors discussing successful pitch decks. Finally, there’s Equity, TechCrunch’s long-running, Webby-award-winning podcast focused on venture capital and the latest startup news, hosted by Natasha, Mary Ann and Alex.

And if you are more into the written over the spoken word, well we have newsletters on the above topics as well.

TechCrunch Podcast

Episode 3: Why do people keep giving Adam Neumann money? And other TechCrunch news

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Podcast where you’ll hear everything you need to know about the week’s top stories in tech from the people who wrote them. This week our host, Managing Editor Darrell Etherington, talks with Natasha Mascarenhas about the ongoing tech layoffs, Anita Ramaswamy about WeWork founder Adam Neumann moving into the crypto space with backing from a16z, And Devin Caldewey about AI-generated images.  Plus a rundown of the week’s top news on TechCrunch.

Articles from the episode:

• A third straight week of tech layoffs in the books
• Latch, a proptech meets SaaS play, conducts two consecutive weeks of layoffs
• Adam Neumann’s blockchain-based redemption story now sponsored by a16z
• OpenAI: Look at our awesome image generator! Google: Hold my Shiba Inu

Other news from the week:

•   It’s official: Broadcom to acquire VMware in massive $61B deal
• Jack Dorsey steps down from Twitter’s board
• Twitter investors sue Elon Musk over acquisition shenanigans

Extras:

• Hana Mohan’s Twitter thread on the YC advice to founders
• Hana Mohan’s episode of Found
• Equity’s episode: We think founders need a quick Heart to Heart about the market

The TechCrunch Live Podcast

Episode 6: How Olive pivoted 27 times on its way to be worth $4 billion

Olive is a homegrown Columbus, Ohio unicorn; hear from the CEO and lead investor how the company was founded and grew into an industry leader.

Sean Lane co-founded Olive in 2012, and signed on Chris Olsen from Drive Capital as the company’s first investors. Now, nearly 10 years later, Olive has raised $856.3 million on its way to being a driving force in using artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry. But the company’s path to success wasn’t a straight line. As CEO Sean Lane explains on this special TechCrunch Live event, the company pivoted 27 times before finding its current product market fit.

Lane explains the strategy behind changing a company’s direction and the emotional toil it takes on everyone involved — from employees to executives to the investors.

Want to watch the panel: Here’s the YouTube video.

Chain Reaction

Episode 8: Outdoor Voices’ founder on scaling a new crypto startup in a downturn (with Ty Haney)

Welcome back, this week Lucas and Anita argue about Coinbase’s latest management strategies, whether Do Kwon being called the new Bernie Madoff is a fair comparison, and why the OnlyFans founder is the latest web2 entrepreneur pivoting to crypto.

In their interview this week, Anita and Lucas chat with Ty Haney. Haney is the founder of athleisure empire Outdoor Voices, though she’s recently departed the company to start a new effort around getting brands to embrace NFTs. We chatted with her about founding a crypto startup in a downturn, keeping her company well-capitalized and how she pivoted from yoga pants to non-fungible tokens.

Subscribe to the Chain Reaction newsletter to dive deeper: https://techcrunch.com/newsletters

Helpful links:

• https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/28/coinbase-real-time-feedback-dot-collector-ray-dalio/
• https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/26/onlyfans-founder-crypto-debut-influencer-trading-cards/
• https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/26/longtime-bitcoiner-dan-held-says-this-crypto-winter-wont-be-as-harsh-as-others/

Found

Episode 60: Claire Coder, Aunt Flow

Claire Coder, founder and CEO of Aunt Flow joined us on Found Live. Darrell, Jordan, and Claire got into how she landed on a B2B model for Aunt Flow and the importance of free, accessible period products– which is something she often has to educate prospective investors or customers on. Claire also opened up about how she has grown as a leader, learned to listen to feedback from her team, and improve the culture at Aunt Flow.  And don’t forget to hear from more founders from Columbus, Ohio tun into the TC City Spotlight on June 1 at 12pm PT/ 3pm ET. RSVP here.

Connect with us:

• On Twitter
• On Instagram
• Via email: found@techcrunch.com
• Call us and leave a voicemail at (510) 936-1618

Equity

Episode 524: Sheryl Sandberg, Substack and the art of still raising money for groceries

This was another live week from the Equity crew, meaning that the towering Mary Ann, the inimitable Natasha, and the somewhat fungible Alex were all chatting in real time, thanks to Grace and Julio having the script and tech in place to allow for it. And as we were live, we also wound up taking a little bit more time per story than usual, which was good fun.

What did we get into? A lot:

• The end of an era: Sandberg steps down from Meta COO role.
• Deals of the Week: Affirm ties up with Stripe, Felt raises $15 million for maps, and Astro proves that quick grocery delivery is still a thing.
• A new fund is coming from an alum of Precursor Ventures, a firm that we have covered extensively on the podcast.
• The latest from Substack, a startup that we nearly all use, but wonder about from a valuations perspective.
• And we wrapped with notes from our recent spotlight on Columbus, Ohio!

Equity is mostly off next week, meaning no Monday show, and some pre-taped stuff the rest of the week. We’re going to breathe, and come back recharged. Hugs, and chat soon!

Episode 523: How investors are playing offense right now (their words, our two cents)

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, we’re trying something new. Natasha spent a good chunk of last week at the All Raise VC summit, an annual off-the-record event that brings together some of the best and brightest in the investment community. After the summit, she sat down with Mandela SH Dixon — All Raise’s new CEO — to unpack what happened, and discuss how today’s changing venture capital market will impact diverse founders.

The first half of this episode is a conversation between Natasha and Mandela, and then we’ll bring on Alex and turn to some on-the-ground clips from the summit. Sound bytes from Freestyle’s Jenny Lefcourt, January Ventures’ Jennifer Neundorfer, Rethink Impact’s Heidi Patel and Union Square Ventures’ Rebecca Kaden will get the classic Equity treatment. Or, put differently, Alex and Natasha will react to top investors talking about their game plans for the next market cycle. It’s fun!

Episode 522: Faster ML models, crypto M&A, and what’s ahead for on-demand pricing

It’s Monday, which means that Alex and Grace were back as a team to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. We are once again back with your weekly kickoff! Here’s what we got into:

• More on the potential M&A boom this week, in light of this recent CNBC piece that got my mind turning. Sure, this is kinda like the CVC story we’ve been tracking but a bit more focused.
• China’s venture capital market is taking body-blows, albeit from recent highs. Still, it is more than easy to track the country’s regulatory crackdown to falling venture capital activity.
• Strong Compute raised money, highlighting the fact that early-stage companies can still raise, and that there could be huge unlocks coming in ML model training. Which would be good for all of us.
• And is on-demand pricing on the way out? Things aren’t looking good for the model that once challenged the incumbency of SaaS.

Woo! Equity is live this Thursday, so come hang with us on Twitter Spaces or Hopin, yeah? Chat then!

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

It’s Monday, which means that Alex and Grace were back as a team to cover the biggest, boldest and baddest technology news. We are once again back with your weekly kickoff! Here’s what we got into:

• More on the potential M&A boom this week, in light of this recent CNBC piece that got my mind turning. Sure, this is kinda like the CVC story we’ve been tracking but a bit more focused.
• China’s venture capital market is taking body-blows, albeit from recent highs. Still, it is more than easy to track the country’s regulatory crackdown to falling venture capital activity.
• Strong Compute raised money, highlighting the fact that early-stage companies can still raise, and that there could be huge unlocks coming in ML model training. Which would be good for all of us.
• And is on-demand pricing on the way out? Things aren’t looking good for the model that once challenged the incumbency of SaaS.

Woo! Equity is live this Thursday, so come hang with us on Twitter Spaces or Hopin, yeah? Chat then!

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi’s shareholders have voted to delist the company from the NYSE. The decision is a long-expected result of the company finding itself in hot water with the Chinese government after a rushed and later troubled public-market debut in the United States.

Didi went public in the middle of 2021 in an offering that came together quickly. After listing in June, by early July, TechCrunch was already flagging issues between the newly floated company and the Chinese government.

Putatively irked over data concerns, the Chinese Communist Party was executing a regulatory push at the time, making Didi’s foreign IPO all the less palatable. Quickly after the listing, Didi had to stop accepting new user registrations, among other regulatory penalties.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

The company’s subsequent suffering was absorbed by its new investors post-IPO. After listing at $14 per share and trading as high as $18.01, per Yahoo Finance data, Didi’s shares bottomed out recently at $1.37. Today, the company is worth $1.56 per share, up 4% on the news of its impending delisting.

Per filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (condensed):

[Didi] today announced that the following resolution, which had been submitted for shareholder approval, has been approved at the extraordinary general meeting of the Company’s shareholders held in Beijing today: as an ordinary resolution, to delist the Company’s American Depositary Shares from the New York Stock Exchange as soon as practicable, and that in order to better cooperate with the cybersecurity review and rectification measures, the Company’s shares will not be listed on any other stock exchange before the Delisting is completed.

The company is expected to list in Hong Kong after it delists from U.S. markets, though when that could occur is not clear.

What’s notable, or perhaps ironic, about the timing of the Didi delisting is that it seems to have caught the worst on both ends. Recall that the scuppered Ant IPO of late 2020 was the unofficial kickoff of a regulatory crackdown by the Chinese Communist Party on its domestic technology market. A wave of changes was announced, from video game restrictions to the abolishment of the for-profit edtech market, and more.

But after years of punishment, the Chinese tech market is shedding staff and value as its ruling government seeks to smooth the waters somewhat. More simply, Didi went public in the United States quickly after its government began clamping down on the company and its peers, and is now delisting just as the Chinese government is seeking to change its tune about its tech economy.

Vice-Premier Liu He made noise just last week about “signs of easing [China’s] crackdown on the technology sector which has wiped billions of dollars of value from its most prominent companies,” as CNBC put it. Those came too late for Didi. How will other companies fare?