An app developer’s lawsuit over App Store rejections, scams and fraud has ended in a settlement agreement after court filings show a request to dismiss the suit earlier this summer. The plaintiff, app developer and former Pinterest engineer Kosta Eleftheriou, made a name for himself in recent months calling out some of the most egregious App Store scams. This later culminated in a lawsuit of his own against Apple, filed in California’s Superior Court in Santa Clara County in March 2021, where he alleged his own app had been unfairly rejected from the App Store and then later targeted by scammers, leading to lost revenues.

The case had been a high-profile example of developer discontent with Apple’s App Store business. Many developers have become dissatisfied not only with the requirement to pay Apple commissions on their own sales — something Epic Games is suing over currently — but also the how the App Store model itself incentivizes scammers to rip off and profit from legitimate developers’ work. But few take these matters court, as Eleftheriou had done.

His complaint alleged that not only had Apple rejected his FlickType Apple Watch keyboard app from the App Store, it then approved competitor keyboard apps and others that used an integrated version of FlickType keyboard to publish to the App Store. This seemingly contradicted Apple’s claim that the FlickType keyboard offered a “poor user experience,” given that Apple’s own app review team was greenlighting the same technology, when integrated into other apps like Nano for Reddit, Chirp for Twitter, WatchChat for WhatsApp, and Lens for Instagram.

In addition, when the keyboard app was allowed to re-enter the App Store, its early success made it a target for App Store scammers who launched less usable competitors boosted by fake ratings and reviews.

As a result, FlickType’s own revenue dropped from $130,000 in its first month to just $20,000 as consumers went for the “better-rated” alternatives, the developer said.

Following the filing of the case last year, the two parties participated in court calls with a judge, the court docket shows, including as recently as this spring. A request for dismissal of the lawsuit was subsequently filed on July 21, 2022, after Apple and Kpaw (Eleftheriou’s business) came to an agreement.

Eleftheriou was unable to comment on the terms of the settlement. Apple was not immediately able to comment on the dismissal either.

However, it’s hard to imagine the developer would have agreed to dismiss the case if terms were not at least somewhat agreeable, given his ongoing criticism of Apple’s App Store business and the hardships developers face.

Last year, for example, Eleftheriou served as the source for news stories about App Store scams like a crypto wallet app that scammed a user out of his life savings (~$600,000); a kids game that contained a hidden online casino; and a VPN app that scammed its users out of $5 million per year, among others. His findings were also brought up in a line of questioning during a Senate antitrust hearing in April 2021, when Apple Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer as to why Apple was not able to locate these sorts of scams itself, given they were “trivially easy to identify,” citing Eleftheriou’s work.

More recently, the FTC highlighted fake App Store reviews as a part of a larger action against rental platform Roomster, in its lawsuit filed this week — an indication that if Apple wouldn’t take action, it would.

Though App Store reviews continue to be an issue, Apple has made some concessions related to developers’ needs in the time since Eleftheriou’s lawsuit was filed.

Last fall, Apple brought back the “Report a Problem” button on the App Store, which invites the public to help it fight apps committing fraud. It also updated its App Store Guidelines in June of last year to crack down on fraud and scams by promising to remove scammers from the Apple Developer Program.

But more work still needs to be done, as app developers are still too often left with no recourse but to post to Twitter or reach out to the media to have their complaints heard when a scammer is impacting their business and revenues. That was recently the case with Authenticator app developer Kevin Archer, who detailed in a Twitter thread how he continues to face subscription scammers on the App Store who copied his legitimate app, then beg for reviews during onboarding and push a subscription on consumers upon first launch.

While settling smaller lawsuits like Eleftheriou’s may be routine for a company of Apple’s size, the attention they receive — not only amongst developers but also in the broader community of Apple consumers — is not something Apple likely wants to manage at present. The company particularly wants to avoid negative public perceptions of its business at a time when the U.S. Justice Department is in the early stages of filing an antitrust lawsuit targeting Apple.

As for Eleftheriou, he hasn’t given up on app development, despite all these issues.

The developer says he’s now working on a project related to an iPhone keyboard, but doesn’t have further details to share at this time. Notably, his amended complaint referenced difficulties with building keyboard apps as Apple never made available a developer API to request “Full Access” directly from the keyboard. He also argued that Apple constrains third-party keyboards in areas like available memory, the ability to gather data to make better predictions, the ability to be used in password fields, and restrictions over showing visual elements above the keyboards, the complaint stated.

Eleftheriou couldn’t say yet what, if anything, has since changed on this front and that his new app may be able to address.

He’s still on the lookout for scams, too. Using a software tool he built to identify App Store subscription scams and fraud, Eleftheriou realizes there’s still much more work that needs to be done.

“Just the other day, I re-ran my scam-finding tool and was able to find several new scam apps within five minutes, and this clearly affects users and developers alike,” he noted.

Pakistani fintech PostEx has acquired logistics service provider Call Courier, creating what it describes as the largest e-commerce service provider in the country. PostEx will now serve 1.3 million users with over 8,000 merchants across 500 cities in Pakistan, and is on track to having a loan book of more than $12 million.

The acquisition means that Call Courier will become a wholly-owned subsidiary under the group name. PostEx provides services like upfront payments in a country where more than 90% of e-commerce payments are still completed in cash, and revenue-based financing for e-commerce sellers and SMEs.

PostEx co-founder and CEO Omer Khan told TechCrunch that according to the World Bank, about 100 million adults in Pakistan don’t have a bank account. As a result, businesses have limited access to working capital and lack adequate cash flow. On the other hand, consumers are wary of digital transactions, and even many who have bank accounts still prefer to pay cash on delivery for items ordered online.

But cash on delivery is problematic for e-commerce businesses because they have a higher rejection rate at the door. Furthermore, funds from cash on delivery purchases often take up to two to three weeks to be deposited into a business’ banking account, compared to a few days for digital payments.

As a result, PostEx’s founding team decided there was potential to build a reliable logistics service provider, plus upfront cash. Upfront payments mean that online vendors no longer have to wait through long payment cycles, and have better cash flow.

“We’re out there making it simpler for businesses to reach out to more customers, take care of their delivery needs and provide them with upfront liquidity,” said Khan. “This is essential for smaller businesses that need every penny to sustain themselves.”

In terms of competition, Khan says PostEx’s novelty factor is its hybrid of fintech and logistics. It has raised $8.6 million to date, and its backers include Zayn Capital, Global Founder Capital, MSA Capital, RTP, FJ Labs and Shorooq.

In a statement, Senator Afnan Ullah Khan, a member of the Prime Minister’s IT Task Force Committee said, “This acquisition shows the importance of close collaboration between fintech and logistics highlighting the importance of access to capital. This acquisition makes PostEx the largest e-commerce service provider in the market, showing the potential of startups for challenging incumbents. It’s refreshing to see new solutions to old problems.”

The U.S. Department of Justice is in the early stages of drafting an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, according to sources cited by Politico in a report released just ahead of the weekend. While the new report suggested a potential suit could arrive by the end of the year, it also stressed that a final decision about if or when to sue Apple had not yet been made.

A 2019 deal between U.S. regulators had allowed the Justice Department to take on the investigations of Apple and Google, while the Federal Trade Commission was to take the reins of other Big Tech investigations, like Amazon and Facebook. In Apple’s case, the DoJ has been examining whether or not Apple abused its market power to dominate smaller tech companies, including both hardware and software makers.

Apple’s tight control of its App Store has angered developers who want to be able to market their apps directly to consumers and take their own payments without having to pay commissions to Apple. This is also the subject of Fortnite developer Epic Games’ lawsuit against the tech giant, now under appeal.

The DoJ’s investigation into Apple’s business has been taking place for some time. The Reuters news agency in February 2020 noted that the Department of Justice had begun reaching out to app developers as part of its examination of Apple’s business practices. Those initial discussions had included the makers of parental control apps that were pulled from the App Store for non-compliance with Apple’s rules. One developer had said their app was pulled for six months, causing it to lose half its business, for example.

Separately, Apple has been accused by AirTag rival Tile (now owned by Life360) as engaging in unfair competition. When Apple’s AirTag launched it did so with direct access to the iPhone’s ultra-wideband technology for precision finding capabilities and deep integration into Apple’s own “Find My” app. Tile had argued that it shouldn’t have to give up its direct relationship with its customers through its own app in order compete with Apple’s hardware by becoming just another “Find My” partner. In addition, Tile had said that Apple’s decision to enter this market would allow it to easily dominate because of its first-party advantage and ecosystem power.

Politico said that DoJ lawyers in San Francisco are leading the Apple investigation and have been reaching out to companies that partner with Tile. Those meetings indicated the lawyers were looking to frame a case that was about not just the App Store, but Apple’s mobile OS more broadly, the report noted.

The investigation comes at a time when Apple is also under increased scrutiny for the way it reports revenues from its Services business, which includes advertising, cloud services, the App Store, subscription services like Apple TV+ and Apple Music, AppleCare, and more.

Analysts are pushing Apple to be more transparent about this “$70 billion black box” consisting of multiple businesses, Bloomberg recently reported in an op-ed. In particular, it’s difficult to get a sense of how much money Apple is making from any one business in that division — like the App Store, whose revenues Apple stopped breaking out separately after 2014. Now, as more countries push Apple to open up the App Store to support alternative payments — as the Netherlands and South Korea have done in limited ways — it’s difficult to tell what impact those changes are having on the App Store, the Services’ sector’s largest business by revenues. This makes it difficult for investors to make decisions about Apple’s stock.

While the timing of a DoJ lawsuit against Apple is still unknown, Politico’s report suggested the Justice Department could be awaiting the judge’s decision in the Apple-Epic Games trial before moving forward.

Benchling’s unicorn status didn’t come overnight. Some ten years after its founding, the company is worth more than $6 billion, and the founder sees the company going public in the future. The company’s future looks like its past: talking to customers and building for power users. To that end, Benchling announced today that it recently surpassed 1,000 customers and increased its subscription revenue 90% year-over-year. It has new executive leadership, too, including the appointment of Atlassian-veteran Stephen Deasy as the company’s first Chief Technology Officer.

Benchling’s CEO and co-founder, Sajith Wickramasekara, recently spoke at a TechCrunch Live event along with one of its early investors, Miles Grimshaw, general partner at Benchmark. Together, the two explained Benchling’s early strategy that tapped a small entry market, which eventually led to widespread adoption.

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As Wickramasekara explained, early funding was hard to secure. It was 2012, and Benchling sat alone between SaaS companies and biotech. “Every software investor thought what we were doing was small and unimportant,” Wickramasekara said, adding later, “and then we went to science investors, and every science investor understood the challenges of R&D, but they didn’t understand software; they invested in drugs.”

Benchmark’s Miles Grimshaw was introduced to Benchling’s co-founders through a mutual friend and was impressed. “When I met Sajith and Ashu Singhal, they were two co-founders who knew bench science and had worked in those labs doing research. But they were also amazing engineers who could build great products and distill them into an easy user experience.”

“That’s just a really hard and rare combination,” Grimshaw said about Benchling’s co-founders.

Grimshaw noted that the current market for Benchling’s product was relatively small at the time. However, he saw the industry as developing, and instead of looking at the current addressable market, he worked with the co-founders to identify the potential market size.

“I think the question is less, ‘how big is the market today,’ but rather, what could the market become and what’s the rate of growth of that market,” Grimshaw said. “A small market growing quickly is powerful for a new company to gain outside market share.”

Grimshaw points to Amazon and Shopify as prime examples of this strategy. The idea is to identify the market’s growth rate, and capture part of the incremental evolution each year. Amazon started when e-commerce was nascent but managed to capture larger shares as the market grew. Shopify did the same, Grimshaw said, by targeting the small businesses entering the growing SMB e-commerce market.

Wickramasekara explained Benchling’s early traction came from giving away the software to academics.

“[Academics] is where we knew there were end users who could take advantage of the software and a lot of people thought we were crazy for doing that, you know, giving away the software for free to academics who have no money,” Wickramasekara said. “There isn’t a freemium funnel where they’re going to start converting and paying money for the software all of a sudden.”

Academics was and still is a substantial customer base for Benchling. Wickramasekara points to Grimshaw for encouraging this strategy. The company stayed in this market and didn’t focus on generating revenue for several years.

Grimshaw called this plan a slower ramp but created a more robust foundation by creating a moat around early adoption that money cannot attack. Since these users were using free software, it’s harder for a competitor to steal the user base. The thought was the user base trained in Benchling would eventually convert into commercial, professional users.

It was a long journey, Wickramasekara said. After iterating with academics for several years, the strategy paid off, and some research scientists ended up spinning out new companies or joining existing ones. They brought Benchling along with them.

“It was because of their love for the product as an end user that gave us the shot on the goal,” Wickramasekara said. “We learned the kind of problems those businesses were facing, which led to the platform’s expansion. And from there, we began to see commercial success.”

Benchling was focused on constantly talking to its end users from the start. Even though those early users conducted different research, the underlying technology was similar.

“The first users of the products were folks we knew from MIT” Wickramasekara said. “We were also out in the Bay Area at the time. So in those early days, we would drive to Cal or Stanford, go from lab to lab, and get introductions from people we knew. We would sit down with scientists and understand why they were or were not using the products.”

This is a practice that Benchling continues today.

Grimshaw adds that once a company moves beyond early adopters, it’s important to continue talking to customers. Still, it must be the right customer — most often, it’s the vanguard of the market. The goal must be building a moat around the users leading the market to secure their feedback in the case an incremental competitor arises and tries to steal them away.

“[This moat] ensures you have the best feedback source on lock, and you must keep building and staying aggressive,” Grimshaw concluded. “It’s a very powerful foundation. Sajith did it very well and continues with a lot of elbow grease.”

PayPal is expanding further into the charitable donations business with this morning’s launch of support for Grant Payments, the company has announced. The new product has been created in partnership with National Philanthropic Trust (NPT) and Vanguard Charitable and allows Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) sponsors, community foundations and other grantmakers to move their donations electronically through PayPal’s platform.

In addition to moving money quickly, the system includes an online Grant Payments dashboard available to grantmakers and charities alike where they can view all the grant details, including the donor information, which can be exported to help simplify record keeping. The dashboard also includes other details, like the grant letter and terms and conditions, allowing the organization to decide to either accept or decline the grant. If accepted, the funds are made available in a day’s time. If declined, the organization can specify a reason and return the funds.

Image Credits: PayPal

PayPal notes that the participating U.S. charities are vetted before being onboarded to this system.

The company points to the sizable market in charitable giving as a reason for entering this space with a new product.

Citing data from National Philanthropic Trust, grants from Donor-Advised Funds hit historic levels during the pandemic in 2020, with grants from DAFs then totaling $34.67 billion, up 27% from the year prior. This was the highest increase in a decade, PayPal says in its announcement. In addition, Vanguard Charitable sent out $1.78 billion and NPT sent out $6.4 billion in grants to charities in 2021. Nearly all these payments were made via check, however.

Sending a check means relying on the Postal Service, and requires resources, time and expenses in order to manage the mailbox, retrieve the checks and make the bank deposits. This can slow down the actual work that needs to be done. PayPal believes its system, which will work much as its standard electronic payments do today, will allow charitable organizations to better focus on the tasks at hand instead of managing donations. Of course, PayPal itself also benefits by increasing the flow of money through its payments network, where it can be subject to various transaction fees.

“We are thrilled to partner with PayPal and NPT to bring modern and effective granting solutions to our donors and non-profit partners alike,” said Rebecca Moffett, president of Vanguard Charitable, in a statement. “Charities today need sustainable donor support more than ever. By streamlining the granting process, donors can make an even greater – and faster – impact on meaningful cause areas. We look forward to continuing to bring innovative solutions to the granting space, ensuring that we’re always working to increase philanthropy and maximize its impact over time.”

Eileen Heisman, CEO of National Philanthropic Trust, said Grant Payments would “simplify and accelerate how grantmakers can get funds to non-profits for mission-critical programs,” in a further statement. “The partnership with PayPal and Vanguard Charitable on this sector-wide solution could be a game-changer for other funders as well and has been enormously gratifying,” Heisman added.

This is not PayPal’s first foray into charitable giving, of course. The company has offered tools to enable charitable transactions for years. Back in 2016, for instance, PayPal added a new button inside its mobile app to connect users to its thousands of PayPal Giving Fund certified charities, which previously were only available online. It later experimented with money pools, and in late 2020 launched a GoFundMe competitor with its crowdsourced fundraising platform, the Generosity Network. Outside of charities, PayPal also offers its own grants to small businesses through Venmo.

National Philanthropic Trust will start to roll out Grant Payments later this month, while Vanguard Charitable will begin to offer the solution in 2023.

Walmart’s last-mile delivery service business, Walmart GoLocal, has topped 1 million deliveries in its first year, the retailer today revealed. The company offered a brief update on the state of its newer delivery business during its Q2 earnings call on Tuesday, where it noted that GoLocal had been growing its support of local merchants’ delivery operations and was also now on track to reach 5,000 pickup locations by the end of the year.

Announced in August 2021, GoLocal is Walmart’s attempt to leverage its own delivery platform to service the needs of other merchants, both large and small. Merchants can use the service for a variety of deliveries, including scheduled and unscheduled deliveries, and even same-day. The service itself is powered by those Walmart had developed for its own delivery needs, including its in-house Express Delivery service, which promises delivery in two hours or less. GoLocal deliveries, however, aren’t handled by Walmart’s own staff, but rather gig workers sourced through Walmart’s Spark Driver program — the same program that supports Walmart’s same-day delivery operations.

Over time, the retail giant aims to grow GoLocal into a larger business as more merchants shift to e-commerce. It’s also one of multiple initiatives underway designed to help Walmart generate additional revenue by meeting the needs of other retailers. Last year, for instance, Walmart announced it would sell its own e-commerce technologies to other retailers.

“We continue to sign up larger-scale customers, and we’re making strides on the bigger unlock, which are small and medium-sized businesses,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon told investors, speaking about GoLocal’s growth. “Our technology and expertise will help so many of these businesses grow while contributing to our operating margins over time,” he said.

Little more was shared about the operation, like its contributions to Walmart’s bottom line, for example. But the exec did say the service was receiving “strong” client satisfaction scores and was continuing to sign up larger-scale businesses.

“We’re making strides on the bigger unlock, which are small and medium-sized businesses,” McMillon added. “Our technology and expertise will help so many of these businesses grow while contributing to our operating margins over time.”

The update follows recent news that Walmart entered into a deal with EV startup Canoo to buy 4,500 all-electric delivery vehicles to help it deliver online orders initially in the Dallas-Fort Worth area as well as help serve the retailer’s GoLocal delivery service business, it said at the time. In addition to helping Walmart achieve its own business goals, the deal also helped the retailer from a competitive standpoint as it could stop Canoo from selling its electric vans to Walmart rival Amazon. 

Walmart beat analysts’ expectations in its fiscal second quarter, driving shares up by over 5%. Driven by demand for groceries and other daily essentials as well as higher prices due to inflation and support from higher-income shoppers, Walmart pulled in $152.86 billion in revenue versus the $150.81 billion Wall Street had forecast.

Earnings per share were $1.77 versus $1.62 expected. Net income also grew to $5.15 billion, up from $4.28 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Walmart is partnering with Paramount Global to offer its streaming service, Paramount+, to members of Walmart’s own free shipping program and Amazon Prime rival, Walmart+. The deal was first confirmed by The Wall Street Journal on Monday afternoon, following recent news of the retailer’s discussions with major media companies about such an arrangement.

Walmart has now officially announced the news of its agreement but did not say when access to the steaming service would roll out to Walmart+ members.

However, the retailer said the deal will see Walmart+ members gaining access to Paramount+ Essential Plan subscription — an added $59 value — while its own membership pricing would stay the same.

Introduced in September 2020, the $98 per year Walmart+ subscription includes a variety of benefits, including free same-day delivery, fuel discounts, free shipping from Walmart.com, in-home delivery, contact-free checkout with scan & go and early access to deals. Walmart also has a partnership with Spotify to offer members six months of Spotify Premium for free.

In addition to the annual fee, consumers can opt to pay for Walmart+ at a rate of $12.95 per month for the same perks.

Last week, The New York Times reported Walmart had been in discussions with several major media companies about a possible bundle deal with Walmart+. According to The NYT, Walmart had spoken to Paramount, Disney and Comcast about bundling its shipping membership program with either Paramount+, Disney+/ESPN+/Hulu or Peacock, respectively.

The new partnership with Paramount not only provides Walmart with a more competitive offering to rival Amazon Prime — which includes the streaming service Prime Video — it could also help boost lagging Walmart+ subscriptions.

An August 2022 report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) found that Walmart+ membership subscriptions had plateaued and were now on a slight decline on a quarter-over-quarter basis. It said that as of this July, 11 million customers in the U.S. were Walmart+ members, the same as in the April 2022 quarter and up from 9 million customers in the July 2021 quarter. But the report indicated the membership program had yet to grow in 2022.

“For the last three quarters, membership has remained constant at 11 to 11.5 million customers,” noted CIRP co-founder Josh Lowitz. Before this, he added, “Walmart+ membership had increased steadily since Walmart introduced the program in September 2020, with COVID-19 pandemic shoppers signing up.”

Walmart has not officially disclosed how many of its customers are now Walmart+ subscribers. CIRP, however, estimated that Walmart+ penetration was at 25% for the July 22 quarter, meaning 25% of Walmart.com customers reported being a Walmart+ member. This was up from 17% of Walmart.com customers in the July 2021 quarter, the analysts said. (The firm’s forecasts are based on surveys, in this case some 500 U.S. consumers who made purchases during the May-June 2022 period.)

A different study by Morgan Stanley, referenced by the Journal, estimated Walmart+ had grown to around 16 million members.

For Paramount+, an agreement to distribute through Walmart+ would provide its own competitive advantage amid an increasingly crowded streaming landscape where it has to go head-to-head with top services like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+ and Peacock. Earlier this month, Paramount said the Paramount+ service had grown to 43 million subscribers and had a longer-term goal of reaching 100 million subscribers by 2024.

The service streams a number of popular shows, including original programs like “1883” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” the preschool franchise “PAW Patrol,” movies like “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” live sports and more.

Walmart was not able to immediately comment on The WSJ’s reporting but we understand it to be accurate. We’ll update when we have more.

Update 8/15/22, 4:18 PM ET: Walmart has officially confirmed the news.

“We know Walmart+ is providing members real value in their every day — from grocery shopping to filling up their tank and more,” said Chris Cracchiolo, senior vice president and general manager of Walmart+, in a statement. “With the addition of Paramount+, we are demonstrating our unique ability to help members save even more and live better by delivering entertainment for less, too. Eighty-five percent of U.S. households use streaming services and Paramount+ has the premium content and broad appeal that our members are looking for — like Walmart, they have something for everyone. We’re excited about the launch and what comes next for Walmart+,” he said.

This is not the first time Walmart has entered into the streaming market. The company acquired the on-demand video service Vudu in 2010 but sold it to Comcast’s Fandango in 2020. It also invested in interactive video company Eko and partnered with Roku in June to bring shoppable ads to the streaming media platform.

TechCrunch is bringing our flagship event, Disrupt, back to the real world this year, which means we’re hard at work on our big October 18-20 shindig. Founders, investors, tech denizens, crypto fans, and the like: We’re making something incredible just for you.

And no portion of the event has me more excited than what we have in store for you on the TechCrunch+ stage, one of the two main stages that will be going all day, every day at Disrupt. After months of honing topics and ideas, researching panelists to invite, and wrangling more schedules than you want to know about, we are now locked in for Disrupt 2022. We’re so proud of what we have prepared for you.

Pro tip: Save $1,100 when you buy your pass before September 16. Tickets start at just $99 to come to the show.

Whether you are just starting out with an idea, in the midst of early-stage growth, or looking to keep your late-stage startup ahead of the curve in a busy market, we have the information you need. Sessions include well-known startup founders, investors, and executives to help elucidate not only today’s best practices for tech entrepreneurs — a very different set of advice that we heard during the bull market that came to a close in late 2021 — but also the latest and greatest from the world of company-building itself. So, yes, we do have a session that will include the word “DAO” for all the founders out there building on the blockchain.

The full agenda follows. I can’t wait to see you there!

Tuesday, October 18

Live on Stage: TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction

Join us for a live podcast recording of Chain Reaction as we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama, and trends, breaking it down block-by-block for the crypto-curious.

How To Build Your Early VC Network: Turning Social Capital Into Financial Capital

with Nik Milanovic (This Week in Fintech), Josh Ogundu (Campfire) and Gefen Skolnick (Couplet Coffee)

If you haven’t heard of Nik, Josh or Gefen, where have you been? They are founders that are not only building very interesting companies but have taken a forward approach toward making noise on social media. We want to dive into how being a public person can help founders build a future public company. This should be a panel that will be not only informative but also lots of fun.

How To Secure Those Hard-To-Find Hires

with Chris Herd (Firstbase) and Emil Yeargin (Gusto)

Hiring is not easy even in the best of times. With a tight tech talent market and an increasingly remote-friendly — and therefore globally competitive — corporate landscape, founders have never had more places to hire from and more competitors to measure up against. So we’re going to have Chris Herd from Firstbase, who is an advocate for remote work, and Emil Yeargin, VP of Talent at Gusto, which is not only hiring itself but also helps other companies manage their staff. We’ll go deep on hiring today with a special focus on hard-to-fill roles.

Winning The War On Ransomware

with Brett Callow (Emsisoft) and Katie Moussouris (Luta Security)

Ransomware attacks are escalating at an alarming rate. We’ll hear from experts about what winning the war on ransomware looks like and how startups can play their part.

How To Raise First Dollars When Investors Are More Cautious, The Founder Perspective

with Amanda DoAmaral (Fiveable), Sara Du (Alloy Automation) and Arman Hezarkhani (Parthean)

While it’s always good to hear from venture capitalists when it comes to dollars and cents, how founders are navigating the capital market is just as important. So we’re gathering Amanda DoAmaral of Fiveable, Sara Du of Alloy Automation and Arman Hezarkhani of Parthean to talk us through what worked for them and how their perspective has been updated in light of the changing economy.

Founder Fireside: Faire and Forerunner Ventures

with Kirsten Green (Forerunner Ventures) and Jeff Kolovson (Faire)

The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it a boom in e-commerce and folks working on making their homes more comfortable. This shift impacted more than just consumers, however. Faire, a marketplace that connects SMBs to wholesalers, had to navigate a market replete with evolving demand and supply chain issues. Now, with the COVID period behind us (at least from a business perspective), TechCrunch will sit down with Faire co-founder and COO Jeff Kolovson and backer Kirsten Green, a founder and partner at Forerunner Ventures, to talk through the company, its market, and where it’s heading next.

What Does Product-Market Fit Mean When Hype Tanks?

with Pali Bhat (Reddit), Avlok Kohli (AngelList), and Annie Pearl (Calendly)

Reddit Chief Product Officer Pali Bhat, AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli and Calendly Chief Product Officer Annie Pearl are coming to Disrupt to help founders hone their definitions of product-market fit. The concept, often shortened to PMF, is tricky as it’s not easily defined for all startups at once. But one thing that happens when market sentiment takes a dive is that definitions tighten. So how should founders measure PMF in a more difficult market, from both a fundraising and customer perspective? We’ll find out.

Wednesday, October 19

Live on Stage: TechCrunch’s Found

Join us for a live podcast recording of Found, a show about founders and company-building featuring people doing the work. We’ll interview an early-stage startup founder about how they took the plunge to begin with, and how they navigate everything from building product road maps to raising funding from some of the world’s top investors – and to how they manage failure, too

Building Companies with Longer Time Horizons

with Gene Berdichevsky (Sila), Erin Price-Wright (Index Ventures), and Katie Rae (The Engine)

Not every startup can generate revenue from day one. From hardware to hard science, some startups take more time to build income streams. How can founders get around revenue concerns in a more conservative funding market? And how do investors weigh risk when it comes to bets that may take longer to pull off? For growing startup categories like robotics and climate, these are not idle questions. We’re bringing Sila’s Gene Berdichevsky, Index Ventures’ Erin Price-Wright and The Engine’s Katie Rae together to share the real nuts and bolts of early fundraising in 2022. 

How To Measure TAM Without Bullshitting Yourself

with Kara Nortman (Upfront Ventures), Aydin Senkut (Felicis), and Deena Shakir (Lux Capital)

A common refrain from venture capitalists last year was that software valuations weren’t too high, as the TAM, or total addressable market, for tech companies was simply larger than folks had originally thought. Sure, but some of those startups are now stuck comparing high burn rates with future TAM. So how should founders and their backers really think about TAM to avoid bullshitting themselves or their colleagues? Upfront Ventures’ Kara Nortman, Felicis’ Aydin Senkut and Lux Capital’s Deena Shakir will tell us.

How To Raise In 2022 If You Are Not Located In A Major Hub

with Mike Asem (M25), Rich Wong (Accel) and Elizabeth Yin (Hustle Fund)

Sure, you no longer have to be located in Silicon Valley — let alone California — to build a startup or raise money. But there are still areas where there are more venture capitalists per square mile and areas where there are fewer. To get to grips on raising outside of traditional startup hubs, we’re bringing together VCs who either live and invest in — or simply invest in — more up-and-coming geographies. Mike Asem of M25, Rich Wong of Accel, and Hustle Fund’s Elizabeth Yin are joining us for this particular chat. It’s going to rock.

How To Compete Without Losing Your Mind Or Runway When Cash Is Expensive

with Ruth Foxe Blader (Anthemis), Eric Glyman (Ramp), and Thejo Kote (Airbase)

We love a competitive startup category here at TechCrunch. Watching startups go head to head is fascinating and illuminating. But for startups in hot sectors with big markets, competing can be very expensive. So how should startups that have incumbents to take on, other startups to best, or both, approach the balance between growth and spend this year? We’re gathering Anthemis Partner Ruth Foxe Blader, Ramp co-founder and CEO Eric Glyman, and Airbase founder and CEO Thejo Kote to help guide more early-stage founders.

How To Raise First Dollars In A More Difficult Market, The Venture Perspective

with Annie Case (Kleiner Perkins), Jomayra Herrera (Reach Capital), and Sheel Mohnot (Better Tomorrow Ventures)

It is clear by now that the venture market has changed this year. That means that founders looking to raise first capital for their startup can’t follow last year’s playbook and expect results. So what do founders need to know, and how can they best snag investor attention in a market where the rules are changing? We’re bringing together Annie Case of Kleiner Perkins, Reach Capital’s Jomayra Herrera and Sheel Mohnot of Better Tomorrow Ventures to share the real nuts and bolts of early fundraising in 2022.

Founder Fireside with Brex and Y Combinator

with Henrique Dubrugras (Brex) and Anu Hariharan (Y Combinator)

Brex rolled into the corporate card market with a bang, blanketing San Francisco in advertising and leveraging small-city network effects to get founders to sign up other founders. But since its launch, the corporate card space has evolved into the incredibly competitive corporate spend market. How is Brex working to stay ahead of its rivals? We’ll chat with co-founder and CEO Henrique Dubugras and one of his backers, Y Combinator’s Anu Hariharan, to learn more.

Thursday, October 20

Live on Stage: TechCrunch’s Equity

Join us for a live recording of Equity, the podcast about the business of startups. We’ll unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines, and wade through the hype to keep you up to date on the world of business, tech and VC.

Founder Fireside: Clubhouse

with Paul Davison (Clubhouse)

Few startups had as much hype – and early consumer buy-in – as Clubhouse. Since its mega-hit introduction, however, it has seen its service copied by a host of competitors while working to expand and fine-tune its model. TechCrunch will sit down with Clubhouse co-founder and CEO Paul Davison to talk about the company’s past, present, and future.

Negotiating Your First Term Sheet

with Mandela SH Dixon (All Raise), Kevin Liu (Techstars) and James Norman (Black Operator Ventures)

It’s always a good time to sit down and chat about the mechanics of term sheets and the give and take between investors and founders. It’s an especially good time now as the balance of power between founders and investors has shifted from a period in which founders never had great ability to demand friendly terms to an era in which it feels like investors have more power than in recent history. So we’ll get the latest from All Raise CEO Mandela SH Dixon, Techstars Head of Portfolio Capital & Investments Kevin Liu and Black Operator Ventures General Partner James Norman on term sheets, negotiations and terms to help founders navigate the current climate.

How To Manage Staff In A Remote, Asynchronous Reality

with Mathilde Collin (Front), Deidre Paknad (WorkBoard), and Adriana Roche (Mural)

Companies big and small are figuring out how they are going to distribute and manage their workforces in 2022. After a few years when even the most traditional company was forced to go remote, startups are now having to choose between remote setups, hybrid teams or a return to the office. But no matter what they choose, all companies are going to have more remote staff than ever before. To help founders understand how to manage those staffers, Front’s Mathilde Collin, Mural’s Adriana Roche and WorkBoard’s Deidre Paknad are joining us to talk about what works.

Founder Fireside: Metafy and Seven Seven Six 

with Josh Fabian (Metafy) and Katelin Holloway (Seven Seven Six)

Metafy is bringing video game coaching to the masses, and it’s not only for gamers who may want to go pro. As digital gaming has become one of the most important international pastimes, consumers are more willing than perhaps ever to spend on their hobby. TechCrunch will sit down with Metafy founder and CEO Josh Fabian and his venture capital backer, Katelin Holloway of Seven Seven Six, to dig more deeply into the company, its market, and how it is working to grow even faster.

Structure, Regulation, and Markets: The Road Ahead for Crypto Startups

with Brett Harrison (FTX), Mary-Catherine Lader (Uniswap Labs), Cuy Sheffield (Visa)

From DAOs and altcoins to L2-chains, NFTs, tokens, and figuring out just what the heck a security is, the crypto market is under the spotlight — and under scrutiny. TechCrunch will sit down with FTX’s Brett Harrison, Uniswap Labs’ Mary-Catherine Lader and Visa’s Cuy Sheffield to get a better handle on how they are navigating constant evolution, the new opportunities that the blockchain economy has on offer, and where they see the future taking their market.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 takes place in San Francisco on October 18–20 with an online day on October 21. Grab this good thing while you still can. Buy your pass by 11:59 p.m. PDT on September 16 and you can save up to $1,100.

In case you missed it, robots took over TechCrunch on Thursday, July 21. On that day, we played host to the robotic industry’s leading startups, researchers, and academics at TC Sessions: Robotics. The event was a blockbuster success, and we hope you enjoyed the show. All the features, panels, interviews and podcasts are embedded below.

TechCrunch Editor Brian Heater organized and hosted the event. Subscribe to his robotics newsletter, Actuator. It’s like a robotics conference in your inbox every week.

US Labor Secretary Marty Walsh on automation and unionization

U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh was a slam dunk for the event. In addition to having a background as a union organizer, he’s a Boston native, who served as the city’s mayor for six years before being tapped by Joe Biden for a cabinet position in March 2021.

Walsh’s take on automation is pragmatic, noting, “I’ve been in politics for 25 years, and for 25 years, we’ve been talking about automation replacing people.”

He adds, “We were forward-looking in the city of Boston. Innovation does bring different kinds of jobs. How do we make sure people are skilled and trained up to actually be able to access those jobs. If you don’t do that, then obviously it’s going to have an impact on people.”

This gets to an important and nuanced point in the automation conversation. While there’s consensus among many that — in the long run — technology will continue to create more and better jobs, what happens to blue-collar workers in the short term? How can we support and, perhaps, train them to be better prepared for the future? And who, ultimately, does that responsibility fall on?

READ MORE HERE.

Robotics scene continues to be bullish, but layoffs are looming

This startup season is filled with goals of profitability, promises of higher margins and whispers about pivoting toward sustainability. So when it comes to robotics, a capital-intensive sector that has a longer sales time horizon and loads of infrastructure hurdles, tensions feel inevitable.

Or at least, you’d think. Crunchbase data shows that, despite a creaky market, venture funding for robotics startups remains strong. It’s a dissonance worth exploring, so that’s exactly what we did at TC Sessions: Robotics 2022 with investors Kelly Chen, partner at DCVC, Bruce Leak, founder of Playground Global and Helen H. Liang, founder of FoundersX Ventures. The trio of investors spoke about how the ambitious sector is surpassing some of the downturn’s harshest symptoms.

The answer includes a shift in investment strategy and Amazon.

READ MORE HERE.

Are universities doing enough to foster robotics startups?

A few years ago, I got in the habit of asking researchers the titular question: Are universities doing enough to foster robotics startups? To a one, the answer was invariably, “no.” It was a massive blindspot for some of the world’s leading research institutes, both in commercializing their own work and giving their best and brightest a clearer path into the world of early-stage startups.

The disconnect is, perhaps, understandable. Academic researchers should, ultimately, be focused on the greater good of advancing science and technology. But the fact of the matter is that in our society, commercializing this work can often be the fastest way to move it from the laboratory to the real world.

READ MORE HERE.

Agility’s next Digit robot will have a face and hands

Digit, the bipedal robot developed by Agility Robotics, will continue to evolve and improve, including the addition of a head and some digits of its very own, according to co-founders Damion Shelton and Jonathan Hurst.

Just don’t expect Digit to talk or have digits that look like human hands.

Digit, which was introduced in 2019, initially seemed destined for a life in last-mile delivery. Recently, the startup that spun out of Oregon State University has shifted its focus to logistics. The aim: to turn Digit into a platform for general purpose work such as unpacking trucks and moving boxes around warehouses.

“Our whole vision with what Digit is, is as a platform that allows you to turn physical work into a software application,” said Shelton, during an interview and demo of Digit on Thursday at TC Sessions: Robotics.

READ MORE HERE.

The Amazon effect is fueling a wave of robotics investments, acquisitions and maybe an IPO

Amazon’s drive to get as many products to customers as quickly as possible combined with a decade of technological breakthroughs, a labor shortage and skyrocketing e-commerce growth have aligned to create ideal conditions for warehouse robotics startups.

This fruitful convergence has led to acquisitions, large funding rounds and at least one robotics IPO next year. And growth appears to be limitless, according to TC Sessions: Robotics panelists Locus Robotics CEO Rick Faulk, Berkshire Grey SVP Jessica Moran and Melonee Wise, who founded Fetch and is now VP of robotics automation at Zebra Technologies.

“Amazon really started rocking the boat, right?” said Moran during the panel on warehouse robotics. “The Amazon effect of get as many SKUs as possible to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, really put everybody in a position — even pre-COVID to say — ‘Hey, I gotta figure out how to automate how to do things faster.’”

READ MORE HERE.

Amazon defined warehouse robotics — so, what’s next?

It took exactly two minutes for today’s TC Sessions: Robotics fulfillment panel to make its first Amazon mention. The retail giant looms over the category like no other. It played a foundational role with the 2012 acquisition of Kiva Systems that birthed Amazon Robotics, and remains the 800-pound gorilla looming in the background of any conversation about warehouse automation.

For the past decade, the company has demonstrated an impressive dominance. It’s helped the company set a once-impossible standard of next-day — and even same-day — delivery for many orders. Retailers large and small have sought ways to remain competitive, fostering the growth of an entire industry of warehouse robotics firms like Locus, Fetch and Berkshire Gray.

READ MORE HERE.

UC Berkeley shows off accelerated learning that puts robots on their feet in minutes

Robots relying on AI to learn a new task generally require a laborious and repetitious training process. University of California, Berkeley researchers are attempting to simplify and shorten that with an innovative learning technique that has the robot filling in the gaps rather than starting from scratch.

The team shared several lines of work with TechCrunch to show at TC Sessions: Robotics today and in the video below you can hear about them — first from UC Berkeley researcher Stephen James.

READ MORE HERE.

Dean Kamen on the power of celebrating your own obsoletion

More than 40 years and 1,000 or so patents after selling his first company, AutoSyringe, to healthcare giant Baxter, Dean Kamen still gets a charge describing breakthrough innovation. It’s been five years since his organ fabricating project ARMI (Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute) divided critics.

The project made more waves early last month, at the CNN-hosted conference Life Itself. Kamen paints the picture appearing on a panel at TC Sessions: Robotics today.

READ MORE HERE.

Robotics and AI are going from cage to stage

A lot of promising companies come out of work by researchers at universities, or even grad students who have struck on some new innovation. But the transition from tech-focused research group to product-focused startup isn’t easy to make; fortunately three experts in the matter joined us at TC Sessions: Robotics to discuss a few ways to get through it successfully.

Milo Werner is a new general partner at MIT’s The Engine, an accelerator and fund focused on “tough tech.” Joyce Sidopoulos is a co-founder of MassRobotics, a community and advocacy group for the sector’s startup ecosystem. And Pieter Abbeel is a professor at UC Berkeley and the co-founder of Covariant, which is designing a new generation of warehouse robots (he also just won the ACM Prize — belated congratulations, Pieter).

READ MORE HERE.

Harmonizing human-robot interactions for a ‘new and weird’ world of work

Robots have always found it a challenge to work with people and vice versa. Two people on the cutting edge of improving that relationship joined us for TC Sessions: Robotics to talk about the present and future of human-robot interaction: Veo Robotics co-founder Clara Vu and Robust.ai founder Rod Brooks (formerly of iRobot and Rethink Robotics).

Part of the HRI challenge is that although we already have robotic systems that are highly capable, the worlds they operate in are still very narrowly defined. Clara said that as we move from “automation to autonomy” (a phrase she stressed she didn’t invent) we’re adding both capabilities and new levels of complexity.

READ MORE HERE.

The TechCrunch Live Podcast: Building Roboticists with Ayanna Howard and Ayah Bdeir

There’s never been a more exciting time to work in robotics. The pandemic changed the face of the industry from research to real world. Today we’ll be joined by two experts who will also serve as judges for the pitch-off at our upcoming robotics event. Ayanna Howard is the Dean of The Ohio State University College of Engineering. She’s worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and founded the Georgia Tech spinoff, Zyrobotics. Ayah Bdeir is the founder of STEM education kit LittleBits and is a Venture Partner at early stage investment firm, E14 Fund.

The TechCrunch Live Podcast: iRobot CEO talks, what else, robots

Colin Angle is the CEO and a co-founder of iRobots, and ahead of TechCrunch’s robotics event, he joined TechCrunch editor Brian Heater on a special Twitter Spaces. The conversation is great, and over the hour-long talk, tells a lot of never-before-heard stories of the early days of iRobot.

Complicated supply chains mean that consumers in Tier 1 and Tier 2 Indonesian cities often end up paying more for goods than their peers in large cities, like Jakarta. KitaBeli is on a mission to change that, with its own distribution network and a direct-to-consumer social commerce app. Today the startup announced that it has raised $20 million in fresh funding led by Glade Brook Capital Partners, along with participation from returning investors AC Ventures and GoVentures, and new backer InnoVen Capital.

TechCrunch covered KitaBeli’s last raise, a $10 million Series A, in March 2021.

The funding will be used to expand into more small cities in Indonesia, and add new product categories like beauty, personal care and mother and baby products.

The startup says it has grown more than 10x in six months and claims to be the largest direct-to-consumer social commerce platform in Indonesia. It now has more than 400 employees.

KitaBeli says Indonesia’s Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities make up a $100 billion market, with 200 million consumers that contribute more than 50% of Indonesia’s gross domestic product. But they face more challenges ordering online compared to their peers in Tier 1 cities like Jakarta. For example, long delivery times, higher prices because of complicated supply chains and trust issues because customers don’t know who is selling a product.

To address these, KitaBeli has opened a warehouse in every city it operates in, enabling same-day and next-day deliveries. It procures products directly from brands and principals, resulting in savings that can then be passed on to their customers. Finally, it addresses the trust issue through the social commerce model, in which users gather people from their social networks for group buys.

Co-founder and CEO Prateek Chaturvedi tells TechCrunch that when he moved from India (where his previous startup GetFocus was acquired by Mokapos), he was struck by the differences and similarities between the Indian and Indonesian e-commerce markets. For example, e-commerce in Tier 2 cities was underdeveloped compared to Tier 1 cities.

“On digging deeper, we found that users in these smaller towns are buying online for the first time, and they face trust issues with these faceless services and need help and guidance on using the app,” he said. As a result, KitaBeli experimented with social features in its app, like having agents, called Mitras, in each neighborhood, referrals and group buying.


Fast-moving consumer goods were picked as KitaBeli’s first category because they are frequently purchased. “Since we are direct to consumers, we want users to build a habit of buying with us,” Chaturvedi said.

To buy on KitaBeli, users open the app, place an order, then receive incentives for sharing these purchases with their friends. KitaBeli’s shoppers use it to purchase staples like rice, oil, sugar, milk and personal care items. Chaturvedi said each user generally spends $5 to $10 in every order, and each group usually consists of 5 to 25 people.

KitaBeli is able to scale up its distribution network by opening small warehouses in each city instead of having large distribution centers. “Since we focus primarily on FMCG, we are able to churn our inventory very fast,” said Chaturvedi. “Our system works to minimize the days of inventory for each item. By reducing the amount of stock in the warehouse, we able to reduce the space required as well, which reduces the cost.”

More antitrust scrutiny for Amazon in Europe: The UK’s antitrust watchdog has opened an investigation into Amazon’s marketplace on the same day Germany’s regulator has confirmed it can apply special abuse controls to the ecommerce giant.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the probe will consider — firstly — whether Amazon has a dominant position in the market and, if so, whether it is abusing that position and distorting competition by giving an unfair advantage to its own retail business or sellers that use its services, compared to other third-party sellers on the Amazon UK Marketplace.

The move follows similar (ongoing since 2018) scrutiny of the ecommece giant by the European Union — which the UK officially ceased being a member of at the start of last year. Hence the CMA stepping in with its own investigation now the country has left the bloc, as it is no longer bound to avoid duplicating Commission-led probes.

The UK regulator said the investigation will focus on three main areas — namely:

• How Amazon collects and uses third-party seller data — including whether this gives it an unfair advantage in relation to business decisions made by its retail arm
• How Amazon sets criteria for allocation of suppliers to be the preferred/first choice in the ‘Buy Box’ — aka a prominent feature displayed on product pages which provides customers with one-click options to ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Add to Basket’ in relation to items from a specific seller
• How Amazon sets the eligibility criteria for selling under the Prime label loyalty program which offers members certain benefits, such as free and fast delivery

Commenting on the action in a statement, Sarah Cardell, a general counsel — and currently interim CEO — at the CMA, said:

“Millions of people across the UK rely on Amazon’s services for fast delivery of all types of products at the click of a button. This is an important area so it’s right that we carefully investigate whether Amazon is using third-party data to give an unfair boost to its own retail business and whether it favours sellers who use its logistics and delivery services – both of which could weaken competition.

“Thousands of UK businesses use Amazon to sell their products and it is important they are able to operate in a competitive market. Any loss of competition is a loss to consumers and could lead to them paying more for products, being offered lower quality items or having less choice.

“A formal investigation will allow us to consider this matter properly.”

Amazon was contacted for comment on the UK probe.

Today it also emerged that the EU investigation could be on the cusp of being resolved, per a report in the FT — which suggests Amazon will offer to share more data with rivals and give buyers a wider choice of products in order to settle the EU’s action.

Earlier this month, Reuters also reported that Amazon was offering to share data and boost the visibility of rivals’ products in a bid to avoid an EU antitrust fine.

Although there’s been no official word from the Commission on a resolution, as yet.

Any deal offered by Amazon to EU regulators may not affect the UK probe, however, since the country is now outside the EU’s competition regime.

The CMA’s press release also makes a point of noting that the Commission probe into “similar concerns” does not cover “ongoing issues affecting the UK now that it has left the European Union”. Although it goes on to add that it will “seek to liaise” with EU counterparts as its own investigation progresses.

Amazon has faced other antitrust action in the region — previously agreeing to make tweaks to the terms it offers sellers following an intervention by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO).

Since last year the FCO has also been assessing whether Amazon meets the threshold for special abuse controls, following an update to domestic competition law that’s intended to target digital giants’ market power. And in a further development today, the FCO has confirmed that Amazon does meet the threshold for the ex ante powers to apply, concluding the tech giant is dominant in regards to its marketplace services for third party sellers.

In a statement, Andreas Mundt, FCO president, said the determination means it will be able to “intervene and prohibit potential anticompetitive practices of Amazon more effectively” — and engage in “parallel traditional oversight over abuse of dominance”.

This means Amazon will be facing more and faster antitrust interventions in the German market — which is ahead of the regional curve on updating digital competition rules.

Existing FCO proceedings against the ecommerce giant include a probe looking at the extent to which it is influencing the pricing of sellers on Amazon Marketplace by means of price control mechanisms and algorithms; and a second examining agreements between Amazon and brand manufacturers to check whether exclusions placed on third-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace constitute a violation of competition rules.

Germany remains an EU member but the FCO’s Amazon investigations are a little different vs the EU’s merchant seller data probe.

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.