European Union lawmakers have today presented a Chips Act: Their plan, trailed last fall, to bolster regional sovereignty in semiconductor production and supply chain resilience through a package of targeted support for chip production inside the bloc, including in areas like R&D and via funding for startups and scale-ups working on cutting edge tech in the sector.

The proposal also includes a loosening of strict EU state aid rules that will allow Member States to provide financial support to novel “first of a kind” chip fabs.

The overarching goal for the regulation is to ensure continued access for the EU to the high tech chips now needed to power all sorts of machines and devices.

“Chips are at the centre of the global technological race. They are, of course, also the bedrock of our modern economies,” said EU president, Ursula von der Leyen, in a statement on the proposal which links the slow pace of the EU’s post-pandemic economic recovery to the global shortage of chips, itself triggered by rising demand outstripping supply.

The Commission wants to more than double the bloc’s share of global chip production to 20% by 2030 — up from the 9% currently.

It said it hopes the Chips Act will lay the foundations for a thriving semiconductor sector — “from research to production” — while recognizing that Europe can’t go it alone, so the regulation will also work to foster greater resilience in access to global supply chains by strengthening partnerships with other chip producing regions, such as the US and Japan. Hence von der Leyen’s talk of “balanced interdependencies” (albeit state aid for local chip production may risk some trade tensions).

In terms of financing, the EU is already mobilizing more than €43BN in public and private funding to support broader policy goals (around digitalization, the green transition and European R&D) but the Commission said €11BN in EU public funds will be “directly provided” for semiconductor capacity support — under a “Chips for Europe Initiative” in the Act — which it said would be used to finance “technology leadership in research, design and manufacturing capacities up to 2030”.

There will also be funding specifically ringfenced for startup innovation around semiconductors — in the form of a dedicated “Chips Fund” to help European startups access finance to fund R&D and attract investors.

A dedicated semiconductor equity investment facility (under InvestEU program) will also support scale-ups and SMEs with market expansion, per the Commission.

It said expects Chips Act “support equity” for startups and scale-ups in the sector to reach €2BN.

A planned framework to ensure security of semiconductor supply in Europe by attracting investments and enhanced production capacities will also seek to drive innovation and investment in areas such as advanced nodes and energy efficient chips —  areas where the Commission may also hope to encourage startup innovation.

Other measures in the Chips Act proposal include a co-ordination mechanism between the Commission and Member States for monitoring the supply of semiconductors, estimating demand and anticipating the shortages. And the EU’s executive is encouraging Member States to make an immediate start on co-ordination efforts, rather than waiting for the Act to be passed.

There is no timeframe being provided publicly for when the regulation might be adopted as yet, given the European Parliament and the Council, the EU’s co-legislators, will need to weigh in and agree on the detail before it can be adopted as pan-EU law.

Commenting in a statement, Margrethe Vestager, the Commission EVP who heads up the digital strategy, said: “Chips are necessary for the green and digital transition — and for the competitiveness of European industry. We should not rely on one country or one company to ensure safety of supply. We must do more together — in research, innovation, design, production facilities — to ensure that Europe will be stronger as a key actor in the global value chain. It will also benefit our international partners. We will work with them to avoid future supply issues.”

In another supporting statement, Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, added: “Our objectives are high: Doubling our global market share by 2030 to 20%, and producing the most sophisticated and energy-efficient semiconductors in Europe. With the EU Chips Act we will strengthen our research excellence and help it move from lab to fab — from the laboratory to manufacturing.

“We are mobilising considerable public funding which is already attracting substantial private investment. And we are putting everything in place to secure the entire supply chain and avoid future shocks to our economy like we are seeing with the current supply shortage in chips. By investing in lead markets of the future and rebalancing global supply chains, we will allow European industry to remain competitive, generate quality jobs, and cater for growing global demand.”

More details on the EU proposal — including which types of chip fabs are intended to qualify for state aid rules breaks — can be found in this Commission Q&A.

With startups getting into nuclear technology, it’s no surprise to see more fund-raising happening. Now, Kyoto Fusioneering, a fusion energy startup based out of Japan but increasingly expanding abroad, has raised 1.33 billion yen (US$ 11.7 million) in its latest round of funding. The company has now raised 1.67 billion yen (US$ 14.7 million) to date.

In 2020 the U.K. government-backed STEP, a prototype reactor, aiming to have it operating by 2040, and Kyoto Fusioneering has been awarded several contracts to support its development. This is going to be key to KF’s future.

The series B funding round was supported by existing investors, Coral Capital Co. Also participating was Daiwa Corporate Investment, DBJ Capital, JAFCO Group, JGC MIRAI Innovation Fund and JIC Venture Growth Investments.

KF has also secured an 800 million yen ($7 million) debt financing from Bank of Kyoto, Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Japan Finance Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and MUFG Bank.

The funds will be used to accelerate its research and expand the business, developing its plant engineering technologies for plasma heating (gyrotrons) and heat extraction (blankets). These technologies are needed in the development of fusion reactor projects.

At the moment a group of nations are supporting the international ITER project (the European Union, Japan, the United States, Russia, Korea, India, the UK, and China), a technology test reactor which will be first operated later this decade.
O
thers, such as the U.S. and China, are pursuing their own domestic programs. The Japanese government also has a number of initiative sin the fusion space.

James Riney, Founding Partner & CEO of Coral Capital, said: “Climate change is an existential threat to humanity, and a fusion energy future, if achieved, could be the silver bullet that literally saves the world.. While many startups talk about how they want to change the world, this company is actually doing it.”

Nuclear fusion promises a lot but to date has not delivered a great deal, but if someone gets it right, it has the potential to solve much of world’s energy and environmental problems, given it would mean a virtual unlimited fuel resource, and clean energy with no carbon emissions.

Last year product analytics and digital adoption platform Pendo  pulled in $110 million investment from private equity firm Thoma Bravo, and that was not long after a $150 million tranche of funding. So the company — which allows companies like Okta, Salesforce, and Zendesk to onboard new customers or get employees to adopt new software as well as revealing analytics on that uptake — has been in a position to scale up its marketing for a while.

It’s now taking that to the next level with the acquisition of Mind the Product – a platform that many outside observers would call the key community of product managers – which dovetails nicely with Pendo’s mission. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Starting in 2010 from London as a global meetup-style community with ProductTank (launched, typically, in a pub), Mind the Product has morphed into a community that provides content, training, and conferences that claims to touch more than 300,000 product managers, designers and developers via seminars, newsletters, a Slack community and ProductTank meetups in more than 200 global cities.

James Mayes, CEO, and co-founder of Mind the Product, said: “This is a tremendous day for our community of product managers around the world. By joining Pendo, we can execute on today’s mission and think even bigger about how we will support, educate and train product teams in the future.”

The full-time team of nearly 20 people will now join Pendo but retain its branding to manage its conferences, content, events, and meetups, and to continue its vendor-neutral workshops and training.

Todd Olson, CEO, and co-founder of Pendo said: “Pendo has always made it part of our mission to elevate the craft of product management and to help product managers be better at what they do. We’re really excited to join forces with some of our earliest influencers, and offer substantially more education and resources to the global product management community for years to come.” 

Mind the Product is Pendo’s third international acquisition in five years, as it previously acquired Insert, a mobile app engagement solution based in Israel, and, in 2019, Receptive Software, a UK-based product demand intelligence platform.

In a phone call interview with TechCrunch, Olson said: “We’ve been around since 2013. We have always focused on building product and supporting the product management community. So that’s part of what led us to this arrangement – but we’ve been selling the product and working with product managers since our inception. I was a head of product at SAAS company as well. So I am personally been very passionate about the product community in my professional career.”

“Since the very beginning of Pendo, in order for us to really achieve our mission, we needed to help elevate the craft of product management. The more there are great product managers the more that will ultimately benefit Pendo – maybe not immediately, but certainly in the arc of our company. That’s why Mind The Product fits so well with us,” he said.

Mayes added: “We’ve known Pendo pretty much since inception, as one of the sponsors that we have worked with over that time. One of the things that was really exciting about this deal was that Pendo was insistent that they wanted one Mind The Product, as a conference, to remain open to other vendors. So Pendo will continue to run the “Pandemonium” event, which is essentially a user conference, whereas the Mind The Product will always welcome vendors of all stripes who have an interest in the product craft.”

Pendo now has over 160 people across the UK, Israel, Japan and Australia.

Founded back in 2012, the LoopMe adtech/martech startup focused on brand-based mobile advertising, using AI to deliver measurable outcomes for its users. At its height it had raised $32.2M in venture backing, but there’s a reason for using the past tense. For Mayfair Equity Partners a tech and consumer growth investor, has now acquired a majority stake in LoopMe for $120 million, that will now value the company at close to $200 million.

Mayfair’s investment will be used to accelerate growth in core markets such as the United States while expanding into new geographies, including Japan. LoopMe’s founders, Stephen Upstone and Marco van de Bergh are staying on. Stephen remains CEO and Marco van de Bergh remains CTO.

LoopMe says it has estimated gross revenues of nearly $100 million for full-year 2021, having achieved revenue growth of c.50% p.a. over the past three years, with the majority of revenues now coming from the US.

The platform optimizes media campaign delivery and is available across mobile, connected TV (CTV), digital audio, digital out-of-home and other emerging digital advertising channels. The Company’s clients include brands, major holding companies and publishers such as dentsu, Publicis, WPP, Omnicom, Pepsi, Microsoft, Sony Pictures, Hyundai/Kia and WarnerMedia.
 
Mayfair has already invested in other digital media properties, including Talon Outdoor (Out-of-Home specialist media agency) and SuperAwesome (a leading kids’ digital media platform). It’s also a shareholder in Epic Games (the developer of Fortnite and the Unreal Engine), OVO Group (a tech-enabled energy solutions provider) and Graphcore (a pioneering developer of AI accelerators).

Stephen Upstone, CEO and founder of LoopMe said: “LoopMe has experienced phenomenal growth over the past ten years, particularly in the US, within the mobile video app ecosystem and now in CTV. As a leading data and privacy-compliant software platform delivering exceptional performance without the need for personal identifying data, LoopMe is poised for continued success given ongoing market developments with regards to data regulation and usage.”

Daniel Sasaki, Managing Partner at Mayfair Equity Partners said: “Over the last decade the mobile brand-based advertising market has undergone a period of rapid growth, expanding to over $8 billion[1] in size. This is a very dynamic part of the AdTech ecosystem, which is supported by increasing handset penetration and the desire for personalized digital content.”

Consumer spending on mobile apps reached $170 billion in 2021, according to App Annie’s newly released “State of Mobile 2022″ report, out today, which offers a comprehensive look at the app economy across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China. That figure is up 19% year-over-year, which is down just one percentage point from the growth rate the firm reported in its prior annual report. Growth in app downloads, however, dipped a bit more. Though today’s consumers are installing more apps than ever — 230 billion were downloaded in 2021, setting another record — the growth rate itself is slowing.

In January 2021, App Annie reported year-over-year download growth of 7% during 2021, which has now dropped to just 5% in 2021.

Download growth today is being driven largely by emerging markets like India, as well as Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Egypt.

Image Credits: App Annie

What’s also clear is that consumers are spending more time in apps — even topping the time they spend watching TV in some cases.

The report noted the average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but over the course of the past year, 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 5 hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.

Across the top 10 markets analyzed in the study, the average time spent in apps topped 4 hours, 48 minutes in 2021 — up 30% from 2019. This included the averages from Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, India, Japan, Turkey, Singapore, Canada, the U.S., Russia, the U.K., Australia, Argentina, France, Germany and China combined.

Much of this time was spent in social, photo and video apps, which accounted for 7 out of every 10 minutes spent on mobile in the past year. These categories, plus entertainment apps, also appeal to Gen Z users, particularly in the U.S.

Here in the U.S., Gen Z’s most-used apps included Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Netflix. Millennials meanwhile preferred Facebook, Messenger, Amazon and WhatsApp. Gen X, which has now been lumped into the Baby Boomer demographic (ack!), used The Weather Channel, Amazon Alexa, NewsBreak and Ring.

Image Credits: App Annie

This increased time spent in apps has had a direct impact on consumer spending. In the U.S., the COVID-19 pandemic’s lingering effects have forced users to shop, work, learn, game and entertain themselves from home over the past year. This led to “phenomenal” growth in consumer spending, App Annie said, as the market added $43 billion in 2021, or $10.4 billion more than 2020, equating to 30% year-over-year growth — higher than the global average.

At the high end of consumer spending, there were 233 apps and games that pulled in more than $100 million in 2021, and 13 titles that generated over $1 billion. This is up 20% from 2020, when there were then 193 apps and games topping the $100 million mark, and only 8 titles making over $1 billion annually.

Image Credits: App Annie

Outside the consumer spending that included paid apps, subscriptions and in-app purchases, the broader mobile app market topped $295 billion in 2021, up 23% year-over-year, despite fears from marketers over Apple’s privacy changes and IDFA crackdown. In 2022, the market is expected to grow to $350 billion, aided by big events including the Beijing Olympics and the U.S. mid-terms.

Image Credits: App Annie

New mobile app releases also grew in 2021, as publishers launched 2 million new apps and games, bringing the total number of apps and games ever released across the App Store and Google Play to 21+ million. Of course, older apps and games have since been removed over the years either by the publishers themselves or the app stores during cleanups. Currently, there are 5.4 million “live” apps and games available on the app stores, 1.8 million of which are on iOS and 3.6 million on Google Play.

Google Play also accounted for 77% of all the new releases last year, while games made up 15% of all releases across both stores, the report noted.

Image Credits: App Annie

App Annie’s full report took a deep dive into individual app categories, as well, including gaming, finance, retail, video streaming, food & drink, health & fitness, social, travel, dating and more.

Among the highlights from its findings:

• Gaming: An additional $16 billion in gaming consumer spend was added in 2021, bringing the total spend to $116 billion.
• Finance: Finance app downloads in India topped 1 billion in 2021, driving the category’s 28% year-over-year increase in downloads to 5.9 billion worldwide.
• Shopping: Time in shopping apps reached over 100 billion hours spent globally in 2021, up 18% year-over-year. Countries with the fastest growth include Indonesia, Singapore and Brazil (52%, 46% and 45%, respectively).
• Video Streaming: Total hours spent watching video streaming apps grew 16% worldwide since pre-pandemic levels. But China saw declines as users shifted to short-form apps TikTok and Kwai. Netflix is on track to top 1 million downloads in more than 60 countries in 2022.
• Food & Drink: Sessions in food & drink apps reached 62 billion in 2021. Several regions drove growth in Q4, including the U.S. (42% year-over-year), Russia (154% YoY), Turkey (75% YoY) and Indonesia (over 9x growth).
• Health & Fitness: Worldwide downloads of health & fitness apps surpassed pre-COVID levels in 2021, despite a slight softening from a pandemic-induced high in 2020 in most countries. The top five meditation apps worldwide saw 27% year-over-year growth in consumer spending.
• Social: Time spent in the top 25 livestreaming apps outpaced the social market year-over-year by a factor of 9 — year-over-year growth of 40% compared to all social apps at 5%. Global spend in the top 25 livestreaming apps in 2021 grew 6.5x from 2018 and 55% year-over-year. TikTok saw year-over-year growth rates as high as 75%.
• Travel: Downloads of travel apps rebounded by 20% in H2 driven by sharp increases from July-December 2021. H2 downloads hit 1.95 billion globally, nearing pre-pandemic levels of 2.08 billion H2 2019.
• Dating: Worldwide consumer spending on dating apps topped $4 billion in 2021, a 95% increase since 2018. Growth was primarily driven by the U.S., Japan, China and the U.K. Tinder led the market with $1.35 billion in worldwide consumer spending in 2021.

The report also listed the top apps and games worldwide and by individual countries by both downloads and consumer spending. Globally, the top five most downloaded apps in 2021 were Google Meet, Instagram, TikTok, Microsoft Teams and InShot. By consumer spend, the list was YouTube, Tinder, Tencent Video, Disney+ and TikTok.

Image Credits: App Annie

Top games by download included Project Makeover, acquapark.io, WormsZone.io, DOP 2: Delete One Part and Bridge Race. By spending, the list was led by Honour of Kings, Fantasy Westward Journey, Candy Crush Saga, Homescapes and Empires & Puzzles.

Image Credits: App Annie

The full report is here.

German on-demand delivery giant Delivery Hero is pulling its food delivery service out of Germany again.

At the same time it has announced it will exit the Japanese market, by divesting Foodpanda Japan, starting in Q1 next year.

In a statement accompanying the pre-Christmas exit news, the company’s CEO and co-founder, Niklas Östberg, said: “Scaling down our operations in Germany and planning to divest our Japanese business have not been easy decisions. Facing a very different reality now than we did entering these markets, it is with a heavy heart that we need to pursue other growth opportunities with larger potential.

“Despite having built up two fantastic foodpanda teams showing great progress, it has become increasingly difficult to create true value for our ecosystem in these countries. I have nothing but gratitude and admiration for the accomplishments both teams have achieved in the last months. Seeing the amazing service they built from scratch makes me genuinely proud, and we will do everything we can to support our fellow Heroes on their journey ahead.”

The European on-demand delivery giant only fully returned to its home market — under its Foodpanda brand — in August, following a few weeks of testing.

Back in May, when it trailed the Germany relaunch in an interview with the Financial Times, Ostberg had talked in terms of being in it for a decade long-haul, telling the newspaper: “We don’t see necessarily that we are going to go in and win the market in the next year or so. This is a 10-year game.”

And only last month Delivery Hero was still expanding Foodpanda’s footprint in Germany — announcing the service would be launching into another six cities, as the division’s CEO, Artur Schreiber, trumpeted “great” demand and an expansion he said would create “a thousand” jobs.

Although that announcement also hinted that it might be having trouble getting customers to stick around — with Delivery Hero saying it would also be refreshing Foodpanda’s branding, launching a new app with a better user experience and expanding a loyalty program.

In the event it’s pulling the plug on a commercial delivery service in Germany — leaving only a Berlin-based R&D hub where it says it will test new services and features, so sounds like it will continue to run some (trial) deliveries in Central Berlin for employees working on developing new products.

It’s notable it’s not selling the Foodpanda Germany unit to a rival — as it did back in 2018 when it last pulled the plug on the market.

Delivery Hero either wants to retain the possibility of a rapid return in future; or — perhaps more likely — the local food delivery is so competitively tapped out there was little to be gained by selling the unit (unlike a few years ago when it was able to bag a meaty payout of ~$1.1BN when it sold its German ops to Dutch rival Takeaway.com).

How does Delivery Hero explain such a rapid rethink of its long-term strategy to win its home market?

“[S]ince launching the service, the landscape of the German market changed significantly. External factors, such as an increased number of players and a shortage of riders, provided a new reality towards the end of the year,” is the spin its PR puts on the reversal.

Its press release also seeks to strike an upbeat tone in a bid to reassure investors — saying it has identified “plenty of other growth opportunities… with a better expected return on investment, like other markets and new verticals, primarily in the area of quick commerce”.

Quick commerce typically refers to grocery-type deliveries via a new wave of on-demand platforms that offer consumers a selection of convenience products (bread, toothpaste, batteries etc) — often served out of micro fulfilment centers (aka dark stores) located in urban centers to ensure hyper speedy delivery times.

Europe has seen investor dollars pouring into the category since the pandemic struck, with a number of startups springing up across the region. And Östberg noted that it was seeing “a larger willingness” among its customers to have more than meals delivered when TechCrunch discussed the potential of grocery deliveries with the Delivery Hero CEO early on in the pandemic.

Germany, the EU’s biggest economy, has grabbed a major slice of this investor-heated q-commerce action — with homegrown startup Gorillas raising close to a billion dollars in Series C funding this October, for example; while Flink, another rapidly scaling rapid grocery delivery startup, nabbed $240M in the summer, a mere six months after launching.

Gorilla’s whopping Series C was — in fact — led by Delivery Hero so the writing was perhaps already on the wall for its local Foodpanda division at that point.

And in another Q-commerce related announcement earlier this month, Delivery Hero trumpeted an expansion of what it billed as a “logistics-a-service” play — suggesting it sees its future in serving delivery services to a growing sea of smaller (and more specialized) on-demand players.

“Partnering with e-commerce marketplaces and platforms, restaurants, as well as pharmaceutical and grocery companies, the company is changing the way that people buy and send goods,” was how it fleshed out the move, noting also that it has also recently opened its 1,000th “Dmart” (aka “small warehouses in strategic locations for delivery”).

Again, Germany is seeing on-demand action bubbling up on a variety of fronts — as homegrown startups seek to ride the q-commerce boom via a strategy of divide and conquer.

This means launching app-based delivery services that target (more) specific niches and segments — such as Yababa (multicultural groceries); Arive (high-end consumer goods); and Mayd (meds, but starting with non-prescription products sold in pharmacies) — to name three German startups which all raised recently.

The mood music suggests there are indeed opportunities for growth in quick commerce beyond the tricky business of biking hot meals to hungry bellies — and that the evolution of the on-demand delivery category is well underway.

This is about diversifying beyond takeaways and instant food gratification — to serving all sorts of convenience and specialist requirements and the platforms that will be needed to deliver that big picture vision of anything arriving quickly via app order.

In Europe there is also the issue of labor rights for gig platform workers to consider too, which looks set to further steer market developments — and could accelerate the reconfiguration of a business model that some accuse of being inherently exploitative.

Earlier this month EU lawmakers presented their legislative proposal on platform work which — if adopted — could see millions of gig workers reclassified as employees.

Östberg does not appear to be a fulsome fan of the proposal. Nor, indeed, of current German labor laws — which he has suggested make it difficult for platforms to hire riders.

In a series of tweets earlier this month, as the EU unveiled the draft legislation, the Delivery Hero CEO chipped in to offer the usual platform rebuttal — which seeks to frame the issue as a choice between employment or flexibility — making a call for “better terms for riders and more flexibility”.

However the academic research project, Fairwork, which tracks conditions for workers in the gig economy, argues it’s false framing to suggest it’s not possible for platforms to provide flexibility and fairness right now — although it has found only a minority do so currently.

Hence Fairwork accuses platforms of opting for “a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour standards” — instead of getting on and improving conditions for workers.

The EU’s reform proposal could help enforce fairer working conditions across the gig economy by removing the risk of reclassification for platforms that provide workers with more rights and protections — and by creating a level playing field of basic standards that all platforms in the region must abide by.

Although the reform still needs the backing of the European Parliament and Member States governments to be adopted as EU law. But that prospect may be concentrating gig platform CEOs’ minds — on how to evolve their models to account for fuller regional employment and higher costs.

Delivery Hero denied its exit from German has anything to do with the EU’s planned labor reform when TechCrunch asked — saying the decision purely relates to recent changes in the market, such as increased competition which it said has led to a knock-on shortage of riders, limiting its ability to scale.

“Despite having built up a fantastic foodpanda team showing great progress in all cities, it has become increasingly difficult to create true value for our ecosystem in Germany,” it added.

“When it comes to the EU proposal, Delivery Hero fully supports the European Commission’s aim to improve the labor conditions of platform workers,” a Delivery Hero spokeswoman also told us. “The Commission’s proposal includes positive and much-needed elements. Even though we believe that the suggested criteria to trigger the proposed rebuttable presumption of employment and reversed burden of proof are too broad and would not contribute to that goal, this has not influenced our decision to scale down our German business.”

Asked for more detail on where it intends to focus its efforts as it shutters service in its home market, the company offered little, saying only: “We will focus our efforts on a variety of attractive growth opportunities across the group and specifically invest into scaling new verticals, and more prominently quick commerce globally.”

It also declined to confirm whether or not it’s eyeing quick-commerce opportunities beyond food-related deliveries, saying only: “We are always looking for new opportunities to drive the industry forward and make a positive impact on the ecosystem we operate in. We cannot comment more precisely on this at this stage.”

Asked whether it will be offering any support to Foodpanda workers who did not have employment contracts and are — just a couple of days before Christmas — facing the prospect of no more work coming to them via its app, Delivery Hero’s spokeswoman said: “All affected employees, riders, pickers, customers, and partners have been informed about the upcoming change. The company will do its best to support them in their journey ahead. Around 70% of employees from foodpanda Germany, including riders and pickers, will be offered new opportunities. Delivery Hero confirms that its riders will keep being employed by Delivery Hero Germany Logistics GmbH (“pandalogistics”). As of December 23, 2021, the pandalogistics entity will deliver orders on behalf of other industry players in Germany as a transitory measure.”

(And it’s another interesting sign that Delivery Hero is — at least temporarily — going to be experimenting with fulfilling delivery orders for rivals still operating in Germany… )

Delivery Hero’s PR also commits to the company doing “its best to transition employees from foodpanda Germany to positions within the Delivery Hero Group, or with partners from the company’s industry network,” adding: “Employees who do not stay within the Delivery Hero Group will receive a severance package.”

What about Japan? Another market Delivery Hero only entered recently — also via its Foodpanda brand — but in that case it launched last year (September 2020).

The company blamed “a very similar situation” to the competitive challenges limiting its ability to grow in Germany for its decision to divest the unit early next year.

“In order to focus on other growth priorities within the group, Delivery Hero plans to divest its Japanese entity,” it said. “The divestiture process will be kicked off in Q1 2022. During this upcoming transition period, it is Delivery Hero’s utmost priority to support all Heroes and express gratitude for the dedication they have shown in the last 1.5 years.”

In Japan, Delivery Hero has faced some meaty competition — from the likes of South Korean ecommerce giant Coupang; the (recently) Softbank-backed local veteran Demae-Can; the US giant Uber Eats; and the now DoorDash-owned Wolt, to name a few.

In another recent move in Asia, Delivery Hero also completed the sale of its Korean business.

It’s not all scaling back for Delivery Hero, though. Also recently: It picked up a Danish food delivery biz called Hungry; expanded in Slovakia; and grabbed customers in Central American and the Caribbean via acquisition.

Last year it also splurged $272M to pick up Spanish rival Glovo’s LatAm business — so Delivery Hero’s consolidation vs growth story continues to be a market-reflective pick ‘n’ mix.

After years of ignoring consumer demand for in-app lyrics, particularly in the U.S., Spotify announced today it will make a new Lyrics feature available to all global users, both Free and Premium, across platforms. The feature is powered by lyrics provider Musixmatch, and expands on a prior deal Spotify had with the company to offer lyrics to users in India, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Last year, Spotify introduced real-time lyrics that sync to the music to users in 26 worldwide markets, after initially testing the feature in 2019. This was the first time 22 of the 26 markets had ever gained any form of lyrics support, the company said at the time. That deal later expanded to 28 markets. Spotify users in Japan have also had access to lyrics through a standalone deal with SyncPower.

But users in other markets have only had access to “Behind the Lyrics,” a feature launched in 2016 in partnership with Genius which offered lyrics interspersed with trivia about the song, its meaning, the artist and other commentary. Meanwhile, through Spotify’s community feedback forum, thousands of users over the years expressed to the company they would prefer a feature that provided real-time lyrics, instead of lyrics that are interrupted with facts and other background information.

Those users will now get their wish.

Spotify confirmed to TechCrunch it will be sunsetting “Behind the Lyrics” to make way for the new Lyrics feature.

Lyrics will be available across platforms from the “Now Playing” view or bar, depending on the platform.

On mobile, users can swipe up from the “Now Playing” screen to see the track’s lyrics scroll by in real time as the song is playing. On the desktop app, you can click the microphone icon from the “Now Playing” bar instead. And on the Spotify TV app, you’ll navigate to the top-right corner of the “Now Playing” view to enable Lyrics from the lyrics button.

The company says the feature will be available on the big screen via its app for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung, Roku, LG, Sky and Comcast.

The new feature also offers built-in sharing from an included button on the bottom of the screen on mobile, which allows users to select the lyrics they want to share and the destination.

There is no difference in the Lyrics experience for Free or Premium users, we’re told.

Real-time lyrics on music apps have had a complicated history. When lyrics aren’t provided by music publishers, companies turn to a third-party provider. But those providers don’t always play fair. Google, for example, was accused by Genius in 2019 for plagiarizing its lyrics collection, which Genius tracked by cleverly embedding secret codes into its lyrics to spell out “red-handed.” Those lyrics later appeared in Google.com search results. But Google said the blame was with its partner, LyricFind. It didn’t drop its partnership, as there are few alternatives for major lyrics deals — the companies tend to work with either Genius, LyricFind or Musixmatch (or a combination).

That’s why it made headlines when Apple in 2018 announced a partnership with Genius for lyrics across thousands of its top songs, and two years later became the exclusive web player for Genius. Among other services, Pandora says it works with LyricFind and Amazon works with both LyricFind and Musixmatch, its website states.

With this expansion, Lyrics will now be available in all markets where Spotify is offered, eliminating one of the big competitive advantages these rivals have over Spotify.

The company says Lyrics will begin rolling out globally starting today.

There’s nothing like an increasing level of regulations to create spaces for new startups to appear, especially in SaaS. Asset managers, banks, and other financial institutions need to calculate their financed CO2 emissions footprint in a manner that is auditable and compliant with both the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) methodologies. Thus, we’ve seen the rise of the likes of like Plan A, South Pole, and Watershed. And of course, Salesforce’s sustainability cloud is a huge player.

Persefoni, a Climate Management & Accounting Platform (CMAP) for enterprises and financial institutions, is the latest to benefit from this rising tide, with the news today that it has raised $101 million in its Series B financing round. Persefoni’s pitch is that it is an “ERP for Carbon Data” which replaces the traditional manual and consulting-based approach, and avoids proprietary approaches which could create problems when it comes to auditing.

Leading the round were Prelude Ventures and TPG Rise Climate. Also participating for the first time are Clearvision Ventures, Parkway Ventures, Bain & Co., EDF (Électricité de France), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), The Ferrante Group, Alumni Ventures Group, and New Valley Ventures. Existing investors including NGP Energy Technology Partners, Sallyport Investments, and strategic angels also returned to participate. Persefoni is claiming this to be the largest round for a SaaS ClimateTech company, although TechCrunch could not confirm that at publication. Certainly, it’s significant. The Series B investment brings Persefoni’s total capital raised to $114.2 million.
 
Persefoni helps asset managers, banks, and other financial institutions calculate their financed emissions footprint in the compliance methods mentioned above. It now claims to have four of the 10 largest global Private Equity firms and four of the world’s 20 largest banks using it, along with several global insurance companies and pensions/endowments. It also works with corporates across manufacturing, agriculture, energy, apparel, retail, software, and business services.
 
Kentaro Kawamori, CEO & Co-Founder of Persefoni said: “Carbon and climate disclosures will be the biggest compliance market since the advent of Sarbanes Oxley and GDPR, but with even greater complexity. The market is rife with data and software solutions that create new proprietary methodologies every day, and our customers are beyond tired of that approach. We work daily with the world’s pre-eminent industry standards setters and regulators to enable transparency and trust at the highest levels.”

Persefoni has recently struck strategic corporate partnerships with Bain & Co. , EDF (EURONEXT: EDF), and SMBC (TYO: 8316), expanded into the Japanese market and released a free tier of its base carbon accounting platform for SMBs. It also launched a Temperature Scoring Model to enable users to instantly create 1.5C or 2C implied temperature rise models for their organizations.

Speaking to me over a call Kawamori said: “We cracked the code on taking the best from the financial ledger technology, where the accounting process is completely automated, so we don’t do any services. We’ve got a pretty significant channel strategy mirroring very similar to what you might have seen from UiPath in the early days where the primary route to market was through, big four and significant consulting partners.”

He added that while Persefoni partners with the Patch offsetting platform, it doesn’t take a revenue stream from that, since to recommend offsetting platforms would be a conflict of interest.

He said: “We partnered with Patch and we’re doing that in a completely commission-free, pass-through way, because we actually think it’s a massive conflict to be doing both the accounting and selling people offsets for profit, which is what some of our competitors do. We think that’s terrible, doesn’t scale and doesn’t pass audit at scale.”

One of the big leaders in buying up and scaling third-party merchants selling on Amazon and other marketplace platforms is announcing a major round of funding today as it continues to expand its ambitions. Thrasio, the Boston-based startup, has closed an all-equity Series D of over $1 billion — a huge infusion in cash that it will be using to continue buying up more companies as well as to expand internationally. It said that it’s currently on a rate of buying 1.5 businesses per week and now has some 200 brands in its portfolio.

Silver Lake and Advent International led the round, with Advent remaining the company’s largest shareholder. Upper90, funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P., PEAK6 Investments and Corner Capital — all previous backers — were also in the round.

Thrasio has confirmed to me that the valuation is between $5 billion and $10 billion but declined to get more specific. As a marker of where it was prior to this round, in April of this year, when it raised $100 million, Thrasio was valued at $3.7 billion. Just on a straight added-capital basis that would put its valuation at close to $5 billion but the company also notes that it has been seeing accelerated growth — the number of brands under its wing has doubled since then to 200 — so very likely some ways higher than that. Current brands include Angry Orange pet deodorizers and stain removers, SafeRest mattress protectors and ThisWorx car cleaning and detailing products.

The company, founded in 2018, has now raised $3.4 billion, including a $650 million debt round earlier this year.

Thrasio is one of the pioneers of the modern “roll up” player, and its traction, along with the wider opportunity in the market, have spawned dozens of other startups around the world building businesses replicating its model that have collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars in equity and debt to build out their businesses. Other recent fundings in the space have included Heroes, which raised $200 million in August; Olsam ($165 million); Suma Brands ($150 million); Elevate Brands ($250 million); Perch ($775 million); factory14 ($200 million); as well as Heyday, The Razor Group, Branded, SellerX, Berlin Brands Group (X2), Benitago, Latin America’s Valoreo and Rainforest and Una Brands out of Asia.

One of the reasons it has raised so much in this round is to better target that global opportunity. Thrasio already has operations in the UK, Germany China and Japan and the plan is to expand that further, both as a means of finding more companies to gobble up, but also to expand its wider supply chain.

That wider opportunity, meanwhile, remains a large one despite how crowded the market is getting. By various estimates there are between 5 million and 10 million third-party merchants selling on Amazon alone, leveraging the e-commerce giant’s giant audience of shoppers and its Fulfillment by Amazon platform for delivery and other distribution logistics to cut down the operational costs and inefficiencies of building a direct-to-consumer business from the ground up. Thrasio’s co-CEO and co-founder Josh Silberstein told me earlier this year that Thrasio estimates that there are around 50,000 businesses out of those that make more than $1 million in revenues annually, so the tail of what is out there in terms of size is very long.

Thrasio is building out a bigger economy of scale play around that basic model, and in some cases replacing some of the Amazon components with scale of its own, which — the theory goes — only improves as it grows. That includes sourcing for products (as well as wider supply chain challenges), analytics both to source the more interesting companies to buy up as well as to market those products once under the Thrasio wing, even its own fulfillment technology. It is also increasingly also looking at opportunities to build sales and customer relationships outside of the Amazon ecosystem, using other marketplaces, other sales channels and in some cases direct-to-consumer plays.

(And that analytics engine for sourcing potential acquisitions is working hard: Thrasio says that it has “evaluated” some 6,000 businesses overall.)

“Our business is getting better as it gets bigger, and these investments will be invaluable as we continue on that path,” said Carlos Cashman, the other co-founder and CEO of Thrasio, in a statement. “Advent and Silver Lake both have phenomenal track records of building successful global businesses, and the additional funds from existing investors including Upper90 and PEAK6 are extremely rewarding votes of confidence in a crowded space.”

“Thrasio created the Amazon aggregator category, and their innovative approach and impressive growth have brought a lot of attention to this space,” said Greg Mondre, co-CEO, and Stephen Evans, managing director, of Silver Lake, in a joint statement. “We believe Carlos Cashman and his team are well positioned to accelerate their growth and build the preeminent next-generation, technology-driven consumer goods company. We’re excited to partner with Carlos, his team and the existing shareholders as the company enters the next phase of growth.”

“Thrasio has quickly established itself as the largest ecommerce aggregator globally, and we are thrilled to strengthen our partnership with Carlos and his team, in addition to welcoming Silver Lake as a new investor,” added David Mussafer, chairman and managing partner and Jeff Case, managing director, of Advent International. “Thrasio is well positioned for further success, and we look forward to working with the company as it continues to scale.”

Apple today introduced a new set of App Store Guidelines which include three key changes. One of the changes is the result of a previously announced settlement agreement with a class of U.S. app developers. It clarifies that developers are allowed to communicate with their customers about other payment methods available outside their app. Related to this, another new guideline explains that apps may request customer information like name and email, but the request must be optional for the user and shouldn’t prevent them from using the app.

The third guideline is unrelated to legal action, and simply details how developers can use a new App Store feature, called in-app events, which rolls out next week.

In August, Apple first announced it had reached a proposed settlement in a class-action lawsuit filed against it in 2019 by a group of U.S. app developers. The agreement included a few items, but the biggest was that developers would be able to share information with their users about how to pay for purchases outside their iOS app and the App Store. At the time, Apple said the changes would clarify that developers “can use communications, such as emails, to share information about payment methods outside of their iOS app.”

“As always, developers will not pay Apple a commission on any purchases taking place outside of their app or the App Stores,” Apple had also said.

Now those proposed changes are officially part of the App Store Guidelines.

Specifically, Apple deleted a clause from guideline 3.1.3 which had previously said developers were not permitted to use information obtained within their app to target individual users outside of the app to use purchasing methods other than Apple’s own in-app purchases. The old rule had also said this would include sending out emails to the address on file obtained when the customer signed up for the app.

With this clause gone, developers are no longer barred from those sorts of communications.

Apple also added a new section to guideline 5.1.1 (x) which explains further how developers may go about requesting user contact information. It says:

“Apps may request basic contact information (such as name and email address) so long as the request is optional for the user, features and services are not conditional on providing the information, and it complies with all other provisions of these guidelines, including limitations on collecting information from kids.”

The rules against contacting customers, or what is referred to as “anti-steering” guidelines, is an area that has become the subject of much regulatory scrutiny in recent months. Lawmakers around the world have been working to determine if Apple is acting as a monopolist by limiting how developers can run their own businesses in terms of customer outreach, marketing, and payment systems choice.

Already, Apple was being forced to adjust its App Store rules due to various settlements in specific markets.

South Korea, for instance, recently passed new legislation that bans Apple and Google from requiring that developers use their respective payment systems. In Japan, Apple last month reached a settlement with regulators over “reader” apps that now allows them to link to their own websites from within their apps.

In the U.S., meanwhile, Apple is engaged in a lawsuit with Fortnite maker Epic Games. Though the case is now under appeal, the judge’s original ruling would have required Apple to allow developers to point to their own websites within their apps, where customers could then pay directly for its services or subscriptions, bypassing Apple’s payment systems in the process.

Today’s changes don’t go so far as to allow alternative payment systems to be embedded directly in their apps, however.

The anti-steering updates are only one area where regulatory pressure has been playing a role in pushing the tech giants to adopt new policies.

Apple and Google have both also adjusted their commission structures to lower their cut of developers’ revenues in different ways, including for smaller businesses, apps that provide access to media, and apps run by news publishers. Google this week lowered its fees to 15% for subscription-based apps from day 1, instead of 30% during the first year which lowered to 15% in year two. It also lowered commissions to as much as 10% for specific media apps.

Image Credits: Apple

The other new rule arriving today is related to in-app events and simply guidance as to how the new feature can be used.

Announced at WWDC, in-app events give app makers a better way to showcase things taking place inside their apps, like game competitions, movie premieres, livestreamed experiences, and more. The events will begin to appear on the App Store starting on October 27 with the release of the iOS 15.1 update.

Apple advises developers to ensure the metadata is accurate and related to the event specifically when entered in App Store Connect and that the events must run on the dates selected, including across multiple storefronts. It also specifies the deeplink must launch the event directly when tapped, and notes events can be monetizable.

All three rule changes are live as of today.

Alongside today’s release of the new Pixel 6 smartphones, Google has again upgraded one of the device’s most basic — but often overlooked — functions: the ability to make phone calls. In previous years, Google Assistant learned to screen your calls and make your reservations by phone via a technology called Duplex. Last year, it learned how to wait on hold for you, too. Today, Google is expanding some of these existing features and adding new ones — including a tool that shows you the best time to call a business and a new Duplex-powered feature for navigating businesses’ phone trees.

With the Phone app on Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, a new feature called “Wait Times” will display the projected time it will take to get through to a person when dialing a toll-free number. You’ll be able to see this information before you place the call now only for the present time, but also for the rest of the week. This information may allow you to make a better decision about when to place the call.

Image Credits: Google

Of course, in order to show this information, Google is leveraging its ability to collect data from its users. Similar to how Google Maps will show you when a business is the most crowded using anonymized data from Maps users, “Wait Times” are inferred from call length data when calls are placed through its phone app. This data is not linked to individual users, Google says.

Another new addition is the “Direct My Call” feature, which will help you get through complicated phone trees when you dial a business. Instead of listening and trying to remember the many options presented (e.g. “Press 1 for hours and locations”), Google Assistant will translate the automated messages for you. This allows you to read back through the options to see which number you’ll want to tap to get the information you need — or to reach a live agent, as is often the case.

In the past, users frustrated with difficult customer service calls may have turned third-party apps and websites like GetHuman, to figure out how to reach a real person more quickly. But these websites aren’t always up-to-date. “Direct My Call” offers an alternative. You could multi-task or even set your phone down while the various options are read aloud — something that’s tedious to have to listen to in real-time. When you return to the phone, you’ll be able to read the options available and choose the one you need. (The feature could also help those who are hard-of-hearing, but who don’t yet require a TTY.)

Like the earlier reservation-setting feature, “Direct My Call” is also powered by Google Duplex technology.

Duplex is sometimes confused with the reservation scheduling feature itself, which was one of the first big use cases for the technology when it debuted. But Duplex itself doesn’t just enable natural-sounding conversations for making your appointments. It can be used for understanding, too. In the case of “Direct My Call,” for example, Duplex uses advanced speech recognition and language understanding models to help determine when the business wants you to do something — like press a number, say a word (like “representative”), or enter your account number, among other things.

In addition to “Direct My Call” and “Wait Times,” which are launching with the Pixel devices, for the time being, Google is also expanding access to “Hold for Me.”

Since launching last year in the U.S., the feature has saved users over 1.5 million minutes per month. In the coming months, it will begin to roll out to Pixel users in Australia, Canada, and Japan, as well, says Google.

Image Credits: Google

Meanwhile, Google’s existing call screening functions are also getting an upgrade.

Before, Google’s own caller ID coverage would help users to identify spam and other calls from unknown numbers. Now, it will allow users to contribute data about their incoming business calls, too. That means you’ll be able to share what type of business had called you (e.g. bill collectors, finance, utilities, etc.) so that others who receive the same call in the future will know what to expect. This data is shared without any personal identifiers, notes Google. The company believes this will help to double the number of businesses with caller ID information going forward.

In addition, call screening will expand to more markets. In the U.S., Canada, and Japan, it’s now screening 37 million calls per month. Starting today, it will roll out to Pixel users in the U.K., France, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Italy, and Spain, too.

Typically, Google releases new features to its latest Pixel phones first, before rolling them out over time to more Pixel devices or Android more broadly. That means “Wait Times” and “Direct My Call” will likely be exclusive to Pixel 6 phones for some time, initially.

A new forecast on the state of the app economy indicates the third quarter will see record-breaking revenues spent on apps and games. According to App Annie, consumers worldwide will spend $34 billion on apps and games in Q3, a 20% year-over-year increase on spending. The increase indicates that the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on consumer habits and behavior is having a lasting effect when it comes to how people are now using apps for entertainment, shopping, work, education, and more.

App Annie, we should note, made headlines last week for having massaged its data in earlier years using confidential sources, then misrepresented this to its trading firm clients as having been statistically modeled with internal controls to prevent such a thing from occurring. This resulted in a $10+ million securities fraud settlement with the SEC, as firms used the data to make investment decisions, as a result.

But App Annie data today still remains a fairly accurate representation of the mobile market, despite these manipulations, and for now is still one of many top companies that supply large app publishers, marketers, and investors with information related to the mobile ecosystem.

The firm said that the largest contributor to app revenue in Q3 continues to be in-game spending and mobile subscriptions — the latter, a focus of lawsuits and increased regulation as both Apple and Google fight to retain their right to a cut of the purchases flowing through their app store platforms. Gaming continues to account for the majority of consumer spend, though non-gaming spending has grown its share over the past few years, thanks to subscriptions.

Android also still continues to outpace iOS on downloads, but the reverse is true when it comes to consumer spending.

Image Credits: App Annie

Downloads in Q3 will have grown by 10% year-over-year to reach a record high of 36 billion, driven by Google Play and particularly downloads in emerging markets like India and Brazil. The strongest growth was also seen in Brazil, the Philippines, and Mexico, and the Latin American market has begun to catch the attention of global publishers now, as well, as one with growth potential.

Industries driving download growth include travel, education, and medical — all three of which have had pandemic impacts. Travel app downloads grew 35% quarter-over-quarter on Google Play and 15% on iOS as the summer travel season has picked up amidst widespread vaccine rollout. Medical and education apps, of course, have pandemic ties, as users turned to mobile technology to keep up with online learning and with doctors’ appointments, Covid testing, and vaccine appointments.

But iOS still reigns when it comes to revenue generated by mobile apps, accounting for 65% of app stores’ consumer spending globally, which is in line with the past four quarters.

Image Credits: App Annie

Consumer spending on iOS apps grew 15% year over year to $22 billion, and 15% year-over-year on Google Play to reach around $12 billion. Most of this revenue is generated by gaming apps, which account for 66% of the spend across both apps stores. In terms of non-gaming apps, iOS commands 76% of consumer spending. Much of the growth outside of gaming, across both platforms, comes from entertainment apps, photo and video apps, social media, and dating apps, the firm says.

The U.S. and China are the largest iOS markets for consumer spending, with Japan, the U.S., and Taiwan accounting for the strongest growth. On Google Play, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea were the largest markets by consumer spend, but Japan, Russia, and Australia drove the growth.

While examinations of revenue and downloads have historically helped to paint a broad picture of the state of the mobile economy, as markets mature there’s greater interest in user engagement with apps — like those consumers already have installed on their devices.

A report from an App Annie competitor Sensor Tower, also out today, dives into active users, sessions, and retention metrics for games and non-games alike. The firm found that the top 500 apps worldwide now average 91.7 million monthly active users and this number has grown by 8.4% year-over-year during the second quarter, up from 84.6 million in Q2 2020.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Business apps saw the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between Q1 2018 and Q2 2021, climbing nearly 42% over that time frame, Sensor Tower said. Meanwhile, consumers in Q2 2021 spent the most time in entertainment apps, with each of the top 100 seeing nearly 29 minutes of daily usage, on average.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Among games, shooter genre games — like PUBG Mobile and Garena Free Fire  — saw the most daily active users in Q2, as the top 50 games in this genre averaged 7.6 million daily active users. In terms of weekly actives, however, hypercasual games came out on top.

Sensor Tower also credits earlier increases in active users across apps to the Covid-19 pandemic as users who turned to mobile devices during lockdowns. But after a slight dip in Q3 2020, growth in active users has now returned to pre-pandemic levels, it said.