Wednesday, April 14, 2021

TechCrunch

TechCrunch

Messaging app Wire raises $21 million

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 01:00 AM PDT

Wire, the end-to-end encrypted messaging app and service, has raised a $21 million Series B funding round led by UVC Partners. As the company said a couple of years ago, the company is focusing on the enterprise market more than ever.

While Wire started as a consumer app, it never managed to attract hundreds of millions of customers like other messaging apps. That doesn't mean that Wire is a bad product.

The app lets you securely talk with other people using text messages, photos, videos and voice messages. You can also start a video call and send files with other users. Wire supports both one-to-one conversations as well as rooms.

Everything is end-to-end encrypted by default, which means that the company can't decrypt your conversations, can't hand them over to a court or can't expose your conversations to a potential hacker. You can also view the source code on GitHub.

In 2019, the company told TechCrunch that it would open a holding company in the U.S. to raise some funding. The idea was to double down on enterprise customers to find a clear path toward profitability. And this focus hasn't changed since then.

"If I think back on the evolution of the business – three years ago we had zero revenue and zero customers – whereas today we're announcing a B round and we have clearly established a well-recognised enterprise brand amongst the likes of Gartner, which is one of the things I am extremely proud of," Wire's CEO Morten Brogger told me.

"I also think that with the focus on a revenue-generating, enterprise business, we avoid situations like WhatsApp, where the only model you can ultimately turn to is monetising data," he added.

And it seems to be working well when it comes to revenue growth. Right now, Wire has 1,800 customers. The number of customers has increased by almost 50% over the past year.

The company focuses on large customers, such as big corporations and government customers with a ton of potential users. Five G7 governments are currently using Wire. Overall, revenue has tripled in 2020.

In addition to working on Messaging Layer Security (MLS), Wire has been focused on improving conference calls and real-time interactions. The company believes messaging apps and real-time collaboration apps are slowly converging. And the startup wants to offer a service that works well across various scenarios.

You can also expect more end-to-end encrypted services in the collaboration space. Wire is still relatively small with 90 employees, which means it has room to grow and iterate.

Messaging app Wire confirms $8.2M raise, responds to privacy concerns after moving holding company to the US

Vanadium ion battery startup Standard Energy raises $8.9M Series C from SoftBank Ventures Asia

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 12:57 AM PDT

Standard Energy, a vanadium ion battery developer, announced today it has raised a $8.9 million Series C from SoftBank Ventures Asia. The South Korea-based company says its batteries' advantages over lithium ion include less risk of ignition and the ease of sourcing vanadium. The latter is an important selling point, as electric vehicle makers face a potential shortage of lithium ion batteries.

Instead of serving as a replacement for lithium ion batteries, however, Standard Energy chief executive officer Bu Gi Kim said they complement each other. Vanadium ion batteries have high energy, performance and safety, but they are not as compact as lithium ion batteries.

Lithium ion batteries will continue to be used in hardware that needs to be mobile, such as electric vehicles or consumer devices like smartphones, but vanadium ion batteries are suited to "stationary" customers, like wind and solar power plants or ultra-fast charging stations for electric vehicles (Kim said Standard Energy is scheduled to ship its batteries to an ultra-fast charging station in Seoul soon).

Giving EV batteries a second life for sustainability and profit

Founded in 2013 by researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Standard Energy expects one of its main customers to be the energy storage systems (ESS) sector, which the company says is expected to grow from $8 billion to $35 billion in the next five years.

"A large number of renewable energy projects have slowed or even stopped in many places due to the unstable battery performance of lithium ion. VIB cannot be as compact as lithium ion. However, ESS projects or solutions including renewable energy plants provide enough space for our products to be integrated into their systems," said Kim.

Standard Energy has already performed a total of over one million battery testing hours, including in a lab, at a certified battery performance test site and in actual operations. Kim said the company is confident its performance data will convince customers to adopt vanadium ion batteries.

In a press statement, SoftBank Ventures Asia senior partner Daniel Kang said, "The existing ESS market was in a state of imbalance due to the rapidly growing demand, and safety and efficiency issues of products. Standard Energy is expected to create new standards for the global ESS market through its innovative material and design technology with massive manufacturing capabilities."

Giving EV batteries a second life for sustainability and profit

South Africa’s Quro Medical comes out of stealth with $1.1M to expand its hospital-at-home service

Posted: 14 Apr 2021 12:55 AM PDT

For a continent with such stark inequality, Africa has seen limited innovation to increase access to healthcare and reduce healthcare delivery costs. Over the years, there has been continued investment in traditional care models despite the overwhelming evidence of inefficiency and escalating costs. The pandemic also laid these problems bare, exposing the vulnerabilities of the continent’s healthcare system.

Health tech startup Quro Medical is trying to scale alternative models for African healthcare starting from its home country, South Africa. The company, which provides services to manage ill patients in the comfort of their homes, is emerging from stealth to announce the close of its $1.1 million round. The round was led by Kenya-based Enza Capital and South African VC firm Mohau Equity Partners.

Quro Medical was founded by Dr Vuyane Mhlomi, Zikho Pali and Rob Cornish in 2018. CEO Mhlomi understood the pressing need for South African healthcare innovation from his own experience before and after he became a doctor. 

It is known that hospitals in Africa experience excessive demands, which places strain on bed capacity. At the same time, it hinders effective patient treatment and recovery. Raised in Cape Town by his parents, Mhlomi experienced this firsthand. His parents suffered from chronic health conditions and he had to spend hours in clinics and hospitals waiting to see doctors.

Later, an opportunity to study medicine took him to the University of Oxford. Upon completion, he returned to South Africa where he knew the problem he faced previously was one to solve, hence Quro Medical. 

“We were connected by our belief that the private healthcare sector can and should be doing more to shoulder the burden of healthcare provision in this country and on the continent generally,” Mhlomi told TechCrunch. “These escalating costs are the primary barrier to accessing healthcare in the private sector, leaving an overwhelming burden on our public health system.” 

The CEO argues that acute patient care at home leads to better clinical outcomes and improved patient experience. This is the principle on which Quro Medical is established. In the long run, it wants to build the largest virtual hospital ward in Africa, with superior clinical outcomes to conventional care at a lower cost.

Quro Medical

Unlike hospitals, getting healthcare at home can feel safer, which is an extra proposition for Quro Medical. According to COO Pali, apart from hospitals’ high costs, patients are also at risk of getting hospital-acquired infections and while it might appear that Quro Medical is offering the same old traditional home care with a mix of telemedicine service, that’s not precisely the case. Pali says the company incorporates clinical data and remote healthcare monitoring to provide real-time, data-driven clinical interventions.

Patients are admitted into the company’s care in lieu of a general ward hospital admission. Then Quro Medical makes revenue from filing a claim with medical aid and insurance companies paid via reimbursement. The healthtech startup also collects out-of-pocket payments from patients.

The pandemic reinforced the company’s importance in offering remote patient monitoring services, a significant aspect of its business that garnered a check from Enza Capital.

"As our collective healthcare systems struggle to care for patients beyond the walls of a hospital, which we've seen exacerbated with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote patient monitoring and healthcare delivery will undoubtedly form a core part of the lasting solution," said Mike Mompi, partner and CEO at the firm.

Nevertheless, this period has also seen health tech startups offering out-of-hospital services struggle to have their services reimbursed. So how has Quro fared? Pretty well, apparently. The company claims to successfully convert most of its major medical schemes (health insurance) in South Africa as clients. They account for more than 90% of the total medical scheme market in the country.

Quro Medical has grown to work with about 150 doctors. Mhlomi believes his company is a first mover in Africa, meaning that he expects other players’ arrival in line with the trends in other markets. The company that has grown to work with 150 doctors now has plans to accelerate its hospital-at-home services and scale its operations across the country to meet its growing client base’s demands. It also wants to attract and retain talent and extend into other African markets. 

Speaking on the investment for Mohau Equity Partners, CEO Dr Penny Moumakwa said, "We are very excited to be invested in Quro, they are a dynamic management team, building out a global medical solution, that will showcase the ability of entrepreneurs on the African continent in advanced digital healthcare." 

China’s Xpeng in the race to automate EVs with lidar

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 10:53 PM PDT

Elon Musk famously said any company relying on lidar is “doomed.” Tesla instead believes automated driving functions are built on visual recognition and is even working to remove the radar. China’s Xpeng begs to differ.

Founded in 2014, Xpeng is one of China’s most celebrated electric vehicle startups and went public when it was just six years old. Like Tesla, Xpeng sees automation as an integral part of its strategy; unlike the American giant, Xpeng uses a combination of radar, cameras, high-precision maps powered by Alibaba, localization systems developed in-house, and most recently, lidar to detect and predict road conditions.

“Lidar will provide the 3D drivable space and precise depth estimation to small moving obstacles even like kids and pets, and obviously, other pedestrians and the motorbikes which are a nightmare for anybody who’s working on driving,” Xinzhou Wu, who oversees Xpeng’s autonomous driving R&D center, said in an interview with TechCrunch.

“On top of that, we have the usual radar which gives you location and speed. Then you have the camera which has very rich, basic semantic information.”

Xpeng is adding lidar to its mass-produced EV model P5, which will begin delivering in the second half of this year. The car, a family sedan, will later be able to drive from point A to B based on a navigation route set by the driver on highways and certain urban roads in China that are covered by Alibaba’s maps. An older model without lidar already enables assisted driving on highways.

The system, called Navigation Guided Pilot, is benchmarked against Tesla’s Navigate On Autopilot, said Wu. It can, for example, automatically change lanes, enter or exit ramps, overtake other vehicles, and maneuver another car’s sudden cut-in, a common sight in China’s complex road conditions.

“The city is super hard compared to the highway but with lidar and precise perception capability, we will have essentially three layers of redundancy for sensing,” said Wu.

By definition, NGP is an advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) as drivers still need to keep their hands on the wheel and take control at any time (Chinese laws don’t allow drivers to be hands-off on the road). The carmaker's ambition is to remove the driver, that is, reach Level 4 autonomy two to four years from now, but real-life implementation will hinge on regulations, said Wu.

“But I’m not worried about that too much. I understand the Chinese government is actually the most flexible in terms of technology regulation.”

The lidar camp

Musk’s disdain for lidar stems from the high costs of the remote sensing method that uses lasers. In the early days, a lidar unit spinning on top of a robotaxi could cost as much as $100,000, said Wu.

“Right now, [the cost] is at least two orders low,” said Wu. After 13 years with Qualcomm in the U.S., Wu joined Xpeng in late 2018 to work on automating the company’s electric cars. He currently leads a core autonomous driving R&D team of 500 staff and said the force will double in headcount by the end of this year.

“Our next vehicle is targeting the economy class. I would say it’s mid-range in terms of price,” he said, referring to the firm’s new lidar-powered sedan.

The lidar sensors powering Xpeng come from Livox, a firm touting more affordable lidar and an affiliate of DJI, the Shenzhen-based drone giant. Xpeng’s headquarters is in the adjacent city of Guangzhou about 1.5 hours’ drive away.

Tesla’s China rival Xpeng to use lidar sensors from DJI affiliate Livox

Xpeng isn’t the only one embracing lidar. Nio, a Chinese rival to Xpeng targeting a more premium market, unveiled a lidar-powered car in January but the model won’t start production until 2022. Arcfox, a new EV brand of Chinese state-owned carmaker BAIC, recently said it would be launching an electric car equipped with Huawei’s lidar.

Musk recently hinted that Tesla may remove radar from production outright as it inches closer to pure vision based on camera and machine learning. The billionaire founder isn’t particularly a fan of Xpeng, which he alleged owned a copy of Tesla’s old source code.

In 2019, Tesla filed a lawsuit against Cao Guangzhi alleging that the former Tesla engineer stole trade secrets and brought them to Xpeng. XPeng has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. Cao no longer works at Xpeng.

Supply challenges

While Livox claims to be an independent entity “incubated” by DJI, a source told TechCrunch previously that it is just a “team within DJI” positioned as a separate company. The intention to distance from DJI comes as no one’s surprise as the drone maker is on the U.S. government’s Entity List, which has cut key suppliers off from a multitude of Chinese tech firms including Huawei.

Other critical parts that Xpeng uses include NVIDIA’s Xavier system-on-the-chip computing platform and Bosch’s iBooster brake system. Globally, the ongoing semiconductor shortage is pushing auto executives to ponder over future scenarios where self-driving cars become even more dependent on chips.

Xpeng is well aware of supply chain risks. “Basically, safety is very important,” said Wu. “It’s more than the tension between countries around the world right now. Covid-19 is also creating a lot of issues for some of the suppliers, so having redundancy in the suppliers is some strategy we are looking very closely at.”

Tech and auto execs tackle global chip shortage at White House summit

Taking on robotaxis

Xpeng could have easily tapped the flurry of autonomous driving solution providers in China, including Pony.ai and WeRide in its backyard Guangzhou. Instead, Xpeng becomes their competitor, working on automation in-house and pledges to outrival the artificial intelligence startups.

“The availability of massive computing for cars at affordable costs and the fast dropping price of lidar is making the two camps really the same,” Wu said of the dynamics between EV makers and robotaxi startups.

“[The robotaxi companies] have to work very hard to find a path to a mass-production vehicle. If they don’t do that, two years from now, they will find the technology is already available in mass production and their value become will become much less than today’s,” he added.

“We know how to mass-produce a technology up to the safety requirement and the quarantine required of the auto industry. This is a super high bar for anybody wanting to survive.”

Xpeng has no plans of going visual-only. Options of automotive technologies like lidar are becoming cheaper and more abundant, so “why do we have to bind our hands right now and say camera only?” Wu asked.

“We have a lot of respect for Elon and his company. We wish them all the best. But we will, as Xiaopeng [founder of Xpeng] said in one of his famous speeches, compete in China and hopefully in the rest of the world as well with different technologies.”

5G, coupled with cloud computing and cabin intelligence, will accelerate Xpeng’s path to achieve full automation, though Wu couldn’t share much detail on how 5G is used. When unmanned driving is viable, Xpeng will explore “a lot of exciting features” that go into a car when the driver’s hands are freed. Xpeng’s electric SUV is already available in Norway, and the company is looking to further expand globally.

Daimler-backed Momenta says its robotaxis will be fully driverless and profitable in 2024

Vietnam-based healthcare booking app Docosan gets $1M seed funding led by AppWorks

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 10:02 PM PDT

Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Docosan helps patients avoid long waits by letting them search and book doctors through its app. The company announced today it has raised more than $1 million in seed funding, which is claims is one of the largest seed rounds ever for a Vietnamese healthtech startup. The investment was led by AppWorks, the Taiwan-based early-stage investor and accelerator program, with participation from David Ma and Huat Ventures.

Founded in 2020, the app has been used by about 50,000 patients for bookings and now has more than 300 individual healthcare providers, ranging from small family pediatric clinics to neurosurgeons at large private hospitals, co-founder and chief executive officer Beth Ann Lopez told TechCrunch. Providers are vetted before being added to the platform and have on average 18 years of clinical experience.

Lopez said advance doctor bookings aren't the norm in Vietnam. Instead, people who use private healthcare providers have to "choose between over 30,000 private hospitals and clinics spread across the hospital with huge variations in price and quality. This is why people use word of mouth recommendations from their family and friends to choose a healthcare provider. Then they show up at a hospital or clinic and wait in line, sometimes for hours."

Can data fix healthcare?

Docosan's users can filter providers with criteria like location and specialty, and see pricing information and verified customer reviews. It recently added online payment features and insurance integrations. The company, which took part in Harvard's Launch Lab X plans to launch telehealth and pharmacy services as well.

For healthcare providers on the app, Docosan provides software to manage bookings and ease wait times, a key selling point during the COVID-19 pandemic because many people are reluctant to sit in crowded waiting rooms. Lopez said another benefit is reducing the number of marketing and adminstrative tasks doctors have to do, allowing them to spend more time with patients.

The startup plans to expand into other countries. "Docosan is a solution that works well anywhere with a large, fragmented private healthcare system," said Lopez. "We would all benefit from a world in which it's as easy to find a great doctor as it is a book a Grab taxi."

In press statement, AppWorks partner Andy Tsai said, "We noticed Docosan's potential early on because of its participation in the AppWorks Accelerator. Docosan's founders demonstrated strong experience and dedication to the healthcare issues in the region. We are proud to be supporting Docosan's vision of better healthcare access for all."

Praava Health raises $10.6M to increase access to quality healthcare in Bangladesh

New Quest 2 software brings wireless PC streaming, updated ‘office’ mode

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 05:40 PM PDT

After a relatively quiet couple of months from Oculus on the software front, Facebook’s VR unit is sharing some details on new functionality coming to its Quest 2 standalone headset.

The features, which include wireless Oculus Link support, “Infinite Office” functionality and upcoming 120hz support will be rolling out in the Quest 2’s upcoming v28 software update. There’s no exact word on when that update is coming but the language in the blog seems to intimate that the rollout is imminent.

The big addition here is a wireless version of Oculus Link which will allow Quest 2 users to stream content from their PCs directly to their standalone headsets, enabling more graphics-intensive titles that were previously only available on the now pretty much defunct Rift platform. Air Link is a feature that will enable users to ditch the tethered experience of Oculus Link, though many users have been relying on third-party software to do this already, utilizing Virtual Desktop.

It appears this upgrade is only coming to Quest 2 users in a new experimental mode, but not owners of the original Quest headset. Users will need to update the Oculus software on both their Quest 2 and PC to the v28 version in order to use this feature.

Accompanying the release of Air Link in this update is new features coming to “Infinite Office” a VR office play that aims to bring your keyboard and mouse into VR and allow users to engage with desktop-style software. Facebook debuted it back at their VR-focused Facebook Connect conference, but they haven’t said much about it since.

Today’s updates include added keyboard support that not only allows users to link their device but see it inside VR, this support is limited to a single model from a single manufacturer (the Logitech K830) but Facebook says they’ll be adding support down the road to other keyboards. Users with this keyboard will be able to see outlines of their hands as well as a rendering of the keyboard in its real position, enabling users to accurately type (theoretically). Infinite Office will also allow users to designate where their real world desk is, a feature that will likely help users orient themselves. Even with a keyboard, there’s not much users can do at the moment beyond accessing the Oculus Browser it seems.

Lastly, Oculus is allowing developers to sample out 120hz frame rate support for their titles. Facebook says that there isn’t actually anything available with that frame rate yet, not even system software, but that support is here for developers in an experimental fashion.

Oculus says the new software update will be rolling out “gradually” to users.

FBI launches operation to remove backdoors from hacked Microsoft Exchange servers

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 04:33 PM PDT

A court in Houston has authorized an FBI operation to “copy and remove” backdoors from hundreds of Microsoft Exchange email servers in the United States, months after hackers used four previously undiscovered vulnerabilities to attack thousands of networks.

The Justice Department announced the operation on Tuesday, which it described as “successful.”

In March, Microsoft discovered a new China state-sponsored hacking group — Hafnium — targeting Exchange servers run from company networks. The four vulnerabilities when chained together allowed the hackers to break into a vulnerable Exchange server and steal its contents. Microsoft fixed the vulnerabilities but the patches did not close the backdoors from the servers that had already been breached. Within days, other hacking groups began hitting vulnerable servers with the same flaws to deploy ransomware.

The number of infected servers dropped as patches were applied. But hundreds of Exchange servers remained vulnerable because the backdoors are difficult to find and eliminate, the Justice Department said in a statement.

“This operation removed one early hacking group's remaining web shells which could have been used to maintain and escalate persistent, unauthorized access to U.S. networks,” the statement said. “The FBI conducted the removal by issuing a command through the web shell to the server, which was designed to cause the server to delete only the web shell (identified by its unique file path).”

2020 was a disaster, but the pandemic put security in the spotlight

The FBI said it’s attempting to inform owners via email of servers from which it removed the backdoors.

Assistant attorney general John C. Demers said the operation “demonstrates the Department's commitment to disrupt hacking activity using all of our legal tools, not just prosecutions.”

The Justice Department also said the operation only removed the backdoors, but did not patch the vulnerabilities exploited by the hackers to begin with or remove any malware left behind.

It’s believed this is the first known case of the FBI effectively cleaning up private networks following a cyberattack. In 2016, the Supreme Court moved to allow U.S. judges to issue search and seizure warrants outside of their district. Critics opposed the move at the time, fearing the FBI could ask a friendly court to authorized cyber-operations for anywhere in the world.

Other countries, like France, have used similar powers before to hijack a botnet and remotely shutting it down.

Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department commented by press time.

America’s small businesses face the brunt of China’s Exchange server hacks

Daily Crunch: Spotify unveils an in-car entertainment system

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 03:43 PM PDT

Spotify wants to have a bigger presence in your car, Apple hints at iPad-centric announcements and Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop goes on sale. This is your Daily Crunch for April 13, 2021.

The big story: Spotify unveils an in-car entertainment system

Spotify’s new device is the oddly (but memorably!) named Car Thing. While there are plenty of other ways to listen to Spotify while driving, the company said this will provide a “more seamless” and personalized experience. Car Thing includes a touchscreen, a navigation knob, voice control and preset buttons to access your favorite music, podcasts and playlists.

This is actually an updated version of an in-car device that Spotify started testing a couple years ago. While Spotify is now making Car Thing available more broadly, it sounds like the company still views this as a bit of an experiment — during this limited U.S. release, it’s available for free, with users just paying for the cost of shipping.

The tech giants

Apple's next event is April 20 — Invites for its "Spring Loaded" event went out today, sporting what appears to be a doodle drawn on an iPad.

Microsoft's latest Surface Laptop goes on sale this week, starting at $999 — Sometimes the classics are classics for a reason.

Facebook, Instagram users can now ask 'oversight' panel to review decisions not to remove content — The move expands the Oversight Board’s remit beyond reviewing (and mostly reversing) content takedowns.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Fortnite-maker Epic completes $1B funding round — The company is amassing a large portfolio of titles through acquisitions, a trend that is almost certain to continue with this latest massive round.

Home gym startup Tempo raises $220M to meet surge in demand for its workout device — Tempo's freestanding cabinet, which the company launched in February 2020, includes a 42-inch touchscreen with a 3D motion-tracking camera that consistently scans, tracks and coaches users as they work out.

ConsenSys raises $65M from JP Morgan, Mastercard, UBS to build infrastructure for DeFi — The fundraise looks like a highly strategic one, based around the idea that traditional institutions will need visibility into the increasingly influential world of "decentralized finance.”

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

What's fueling hydrogen tech? — In 2021, the world may be ready for hydrogen.

Five product lessons to learn before you write a line of code — To uncover some basic truths about building products, we spoke to three entrepreneurs who have each built more than one company.

Expect an even hotter AI venture capital market in the wake of the Microsoft-Nuance deal — The $19.7 billion transaction is Microsoft's second-largest to date, only beaten by its purchase of LinkedIn.

(Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

Republican antitrust bill would block all big tech acquisitions — There are about to be a lot of antitrust bills taking aim at big tech.

Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 is filling up fast — If you're busy shoving envelopes and busting down boundaries, don't miss your chance to exhibit in Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 in September.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

Coinbase sets direct listing reference price at $250/share, valuing the company at as much as $65B

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 02:30 PM PDT

Coinbase, the American cryptocurrency trading giant, has set a reference price for its direct listing at $250 per share. According to the company’s most recent SEC filing, it has a fully diluted share count of 261.3 million, giving the company a valuation of $65.3 billion. Using a simple share count of 196,760,122 provided in its most recent S-1/A filing, Coinbase would be worth a slimmer $49.2 billion.

Regardless of which share count is used to calculate the company’s valuation, its new worth is miles above its final private price set in 2018 when the company was worth $8 billion.

Immediate chatter following the company’s direct listing reference price was that the price could be low. While Coinbase will not suffer usual venture capital censure if its shares quickly appreciate as it is not selling stock in its flotation, it would still be slightly humorous if its set reference price was merely a reference to an overly conservative estimate of its worth.

Its private backers are in for a bonanza either way. Around four years ago in 2017 Coinbase was worth just $1.6 billion, according to Crunchbase data. For investors in that round, let alone its earlier fundraises, the valuation implied by a $250 per-share price represents a multiple of around 40x from the price that they paid.

The Coinbase direct listing was turbocharged recently when the company provided a first-look at its Q1 2021 performance. As TechCrunch reported at the time, the company’s recent growth was impressive, with revenue scaling from $585.1 million in Q4 2020, to $1.8 billion in the first three months of this year. The new numbers set an already-hot company’s public debut on fire.

Place your bets now concerning where Coinbase might open, and how high its value may rise. It’s going to be quite the show.

Five takeaways from Coinbase’s S-1

Republican antitrust bill would block all Big Tech acquisitions

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 01:43 PM PDT

There are about to be a lot of antitrust bills taking aim at Big Tech, and here’s one more. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) rolled out a new bill this week that would take some severe measures to rein in Big Tech’s power, blocking mergers and acquisitions outright.

The “Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act” would ban any acquisitions by companies with a market cap of more than $100 billion, including vertical mergers. The bill also proposes changes that would dramatically heighten the financial pain for companies caught engaging in anti-competitive behavior, forcing any company that loses an antirust suit to forfeit profits made through those business practices.

At its core, Hawley’s legislation would snip some of the red tape around antitrust enforcement by amending the Sherman Act, which made monopolies illegal, and the Clayton Act, which expanded the scope of illegal anti-competitive behavior. The idea is to make it easier for the FTC and other regulators to deem a company’s behavior anti-competitive — a key criticism of the outdated antitrust rules that haven’t kept pace with the realities of the tech industry.

The bill isn’t likely to get too far in a Democratic Senate, but it’s not insignificant. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who chairs the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee, proposed legislation earlier this year that would also create barriers for dominant companies with a habit of scooping up their competitors. Klobuchar’s own ideas for curtailing Big Tech’s power similarly focus on reforming the antitrust laws that have shaped U.S. business for more than a century.

Click to access The%20Trust-Busting%20for%20the%20Twenty-First%20Century%20Act.pdf

The Republican bill may have some overlap with Democratic proposals, but it still hits some familiar notes from the Trump era of hyperpartisan Big Tech criticism. Hawley slams “woke mega-corporations” in Silicon Valley for exercising too much power over the information and products that Americans consume. While Democrats naturally don’t share that critique, Hawley’s bill makes it clear that antitrust reform targeting Big Tech is one policy area where both political parties could align on the ends, even if they don’t see eye to eye on the why.

Hawley’s bill is the latest, but it won’t be the last. Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), who spearheads tech antitrust efforts in the House, previously announced his own plans to introduce a flurry of antitrust reform bills rather than one sweeping piece of legislation. Those bills, which will be more narrowly targeted to make them difficult for tech lobbyists to defeat, are due out in May.

Will startup valuations change given rising antitrust concerns?

New antitrust reform bill charts one possible path for regulating big tech

Risk startup LogicGate confirms data breach

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 12:34 PM PDT

Risk and compliance startup LogicGate has confirmed a data breach. But unless you’re a customer, you probably didn’t hear about it.

An email sent by LogicGate to customers earlier this month said on February 23 an unauthorized third party obtained credentials to its Amazon Web Services-hosted cloud storage servers storing customer backup files for its flagship platform Risk Cloud, which helps companies to identify and manage their risk and compliance with data protection and security standards. LogicGate says its Risk Cloud can also help find security vulnerabilities before they are exploited by malicious hackers.

The credentials “appear to have been used by an unauthorized third party to decrypt particular files stored in AWS S3 buckets in the LogicGate Risk Cloud backup environment,” the email read.

“Only data uploaded to your Risk Cloud environment on or prior to February 23, 2021, would have been included in that backup file. Further, to the extent you have stored attachments in the Risk Cloud, we did not identify decrypt events associated with such attachments,” it added.

LogicGate did not say how the AWS credentials were compromised. An email update sent by LogicGate last Friday said the company anticipates finding the root cause of the incident by this week.

But LogicGate has not made any public statement about the breach. It’s also not clear if the company contacted all of its customers or only those whose data was accessed. LogicGate counts Capco, SoFi and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City as customers.

We sent a list of questions, including how many customers were affected and if the company has alerted U.S. state authorities as required by state data breach notification laws. When reached, LogicGate chief executive Matt Kunkel confirmed the breach but declined to comment citing an ongoing investigation. “We believe it’s best to communicate developments directly to our customers,” he said.

Kunkel would not say, when asked, if the attacker also exfiltrated the decrypted customer data from its servers.

Data breach notification laws vary by state, but companies that fail to report security incidents can face heavy fines. Under Europe’s GDPR rules, companies can face fines of up to 4% of their annual turnover for violations.

In December, LogicGate secured $8.75 million in fresh funding, totaling more than $40 million since it launched in 2015.

Why ‘blaming the intern’ won’t save startups from cybersecurity liability

Stop saying, ‘We take your privacy and security seriously’

Are you a LogicGate customer? Send tips securely over Signal and WhatsApp to +1 646-755-8849. You can also send files or documents using our SecureDrop. Learn more. 

5 product lessons to learn before you write a line of code

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 12:16 PM PDT

Before a startup can achieve product-market fit, founders must first listen to their customers, build what they require and fashion a business plan that makes the whole enterprise worthwhile. The numbers will tell the true story, but when it happens, you’ll feel it in your bones because sales will be good, customers will happy and revenue will growing.

Reaching that tipping point can be a slog, especially for first-time founders. To uncover some basic truths about building products, we spoke to three entrepreneurs who have each built more than one company:

Find out what your customers want — and build it

First-time founders often try to build the product they think the market wants. That’s what Scratchpad co-founder Salehi did when he founded his previous startup PersistIQ. Before launching his latest venture, he took a different approach: Instead of plowing ahead with a product and adjusting after he got in front of customers, he decided to step back and figure out what his customers needed first.

“Tactically what we did differently at Scratchpad is we tried to be much more deliberate up front. And what that looked like was [ … ] to not start with building, even though the product is such an important part, but really step back and understand what we are doing here in the first place,” he said.

CMU teaches its snake robot to swim

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 12:02 PM PDT

The snake robot has been something of an institution in the Carnegie Mellon robotics labs. Every time I visit the school, the biomimetic robot has seemingly learned a new trick. This week, the school announced it has added swimming to the list.

Testing actually began last month in one of CMU's pools, with the snake robot outfitted with new housing designed for underwater navigation. Work on the project began last July. “I’m surprised that we made this robot work as fast as we did,” professor Howie Choset said in a release tied to the announcement. "The secret is the modularity and the people working on this technology at CMU.”

The Hardened Underwater Modular Robot Snake (HUMRS) was developed with a grant from the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute.

In its terrestrial version, the snake robot is notable for its ability to squeeze into tight spaces like pipes, which might otherwise be inaccessible for other more standard robotic form factors. Underwater, it serves a similar function. The project finds the team eyeing Defense Department usage — specifically the ability to inspect submarines, ships and other watercraft to detect damage.

Other nonmilitary applications include inspections for rigs and tanks, along with underwater pipes.

How Carnegie Mellon's snake robot became the multi-legged snake monster

2020 will change the way we look at robotics

Facebook tests video speed dating events with ‘Sparked’

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 10:45 AM PDT

Facebook confirmed it’s testing a video speed-dating app called Sparked, after the app’s website was spotted by The Verge. Unlike dating app giants such as Tinder, Sparked users don’t swipe on people they like or direct message others. Instead, they cycle through a series of short video dates during an event to make connections with others. The product itself is being developed by Facebook’s internal R&D group, the NPE Team, but had not been officially announced.

“Sparked is an early experiment by New Product Experimentation,” a spokesperson for Facebook’s NPE Team confirmed to TechCrunch. “We're exploring how video-first speed dating can help people find love online.”

They also characterized the app as undergoing a “small, external beta test” designed to generate insights about how video dating could work, in order to improve people’s experiences with Facebook products. The app is not currently live on app stores, only the web.

Sparked is, however, preparing to test the experience at a Chicago Date Night event on Wednesday, The Verge’s report noted.

Image Credits: Facebook

During the sign-up process, Sparked tells users to “be kind,” “keep this a safe space” and “show up.” A walkthrough of how the app works explains that participants will meet face to face during a series of four-minute video dates, which they can then follow up with a 10-minute date if all goes well. They can additionally choose to exchange contact info, like phone numbers, emails or Instagram handles.

Facebook, of course, already offers a dating app product, Facebook Dating.

That experience, which takes place inside Facebook itself, first launched in 2018 outside the U.S., and then arrived in the U.S. the following year. In the early days of the pandemic, Facebook announced it would roll out a sort of virtual dating experience that leveraged Messenger for video chats — a move that came at a time when many other dating apps in the market also turned to video to serve users under lockdowns. These video experiences could potentially compete with Sparked, unless the new product’s goal is to become another option inside Facebook Dating itself.

Image Credits: Facebook

Despite the potential reach, Facebook’s success in the dating market is not guaranteed, some analysts have warned. People don’t think of Facebook as a place to go meet partners, and the dating product today is still separated from the main Facebook app for privacy purposes. That means it can’t fully leverage Facebook’s network effects to gain traction, as users in this case may not want their friends and family to know about their dating plans.

Facebook’s competition in dating is fierce, too. Even the pandemic didn’t slow down the dating app giants, like Match Group or newly IPO’d Bumble. Tinder’s direct revenues increased 18% year-over-year to $1.4 billion in 2020, Match Group reported, for instance. Direct revenues from the company’s non-Tinder brands collectively increased 16%. And Bumble topped its revenue estimates in its first quarter as a public company, pulling in $165.6 million in the fourth quarter.

Image Credits: Facebook

Facebook, on the other hand, has remained fairly quiet about its dating efforts. Though the company cited over 1.5 billion matches in the 20 countries it’s live, a “match” doesn’t indicate a successful pairing — in fact, that sort of result may not be measured. But it’s early days for the product, which only rolled out to European markets this past fall.

The NPE Team’s experiment in speed dating could ultimately help to inform Facebook of what sort of new experiences a dating app user may want to use, and how.

The company didn’t say if or when Sparked would roll out more broadly.

Running a queer dating startup amid a pandemic and racial justice uprising

What’s fueling hydrogen tech?

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 10:20 AM PDT

Hydrogen — the magical gas that Jules Verne predicted in 1874 would one day be used as fuel — has long struggled to get the attention it deserves. Discovered 400 years ago, its trajectory has seen it mostly mired in obscurity, punctuated by a few explosive moments, but never really fulfilling its potential.

Now in 2021, the world may be ready for hydrogen.

Hydrogen is not an energy source, but an energy carrier — one with exceptional long-duration energy storage capabilities, which makes it a complement to weather-dependent energies like solar and wind.

This gas is capturing the attention of governments and private sector players, fueled by new tech, global green energy legislation, post-pandemic "green recovery" schemes and the growing consensus that action must be taken to combat climate change.

Joan Ogden, professor emeritus at UC Davis, started researching hydrogen in 1985 — at the time considered "pretty fringy, crazy stuff." She's seen industries and governments inquisitively poke at hydrogen over the years, then move on. This new, more intense focus feels different, she said.

The funding activity in France is one illustration of what is happening throughout Europe and beyond. "Back in 2018, the hydrogen strategy in France was €100 million — a joke," Sabrine Skiker, the EU policy manager for land transport at Hydrogen Europe, said in an interview with TechCrunch. "I mean, a joke compared to what we have now. Now we have a strategy that foresees €7.2 billion.”

The European Clean Hydrogen Alliance forecasts public and private sectors will invest €430 billion in hydrogen in the continent by 2030 in a massive push to meet emissions targets. Globally, the hydrogen generation industry is expected to grow to $201 billion by 2025 from $130 billion in 2020 at a CAGR of 9.2%, according to research from Markets and Markets published this year. This growth is expected to lead to advancements across multiple sectors including transportation, petroleum refining, steel manufacturing and fertilizer production. There are 228 large-scale hydrogen projects in various stages of development today — mostly in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Hydrogen breakdown

When the word "hydrogen" is uttered today, the average non-insider's mind likely gravitates toward transportation — cars, buses, maybe trains or 18-wheelers, all powered by the gas.

But hydrogen is, and does, a lot of things, and a better understanding of its other roles — and challenges within those roles — is necessary to its success in transportation.

Hydrogen is already being heavily used in petroleum refineries and by manufacturers of steel, chemicals, ammonia fertilizers and biofuels. It's also blended into natural gas for delivery through pipelines.

EV charging stations, biofuels, the hydrogen transition and chemicals are pillars of Shell’s climate plan

Hydrogen is not an energy source, but an energy carrier — one with exceptional long-duration energy storage capabilities, which makes it a complement to weather-dependent energies like solar and wind. Storage is critical to the growth of renewable energy, and greater use of hydrogen in renewable energy storage can drive the cost of both down.

However, 95% of hydrogen produced is derived from fossil fuels — mostly through a process called steam-methane reforming (SMR). Little of it is produced via electrolysis, which uses electricity to split hydrogen and oxygen. Even less is created from renewable energy. Thus, not all hydrogen is created equal. Grey hydrogen is made from fossil fuels with emissions, and blue hydrogen is made from non-renewable sources whose carbon emissions are captured and sequestered or transformed. Green hydrogen is made from renewable energy.

Where the action is

The global fuel cell vehicle market is hit or miss. There are about 10,000 FCVs in the U.S., with most of them in California — and sales are stalling. Only 937 FCVs were sold in the entire country in 2020, less than half the number sold in 2019. California has 44 hydrogen refueling stations and about as many in the works, but a lack of refueling infrastructure outside of the state isn't helping American adoption.

Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 is filling up fast. Apply today.

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 10:00 AM PDT

Startup Alley — the very name conjures up images of early-stage startups demonstrating game-changing products, platforms and services to thousands of Disrupt attendees and industry influencers. It's where you'll find envelope pushing and boundary breaking going down.

If you're busy shoving envelopes and busting down boundaries, don't miss your chance to exhibit in Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 in September. But here's the thing — we're limiting the number of exhibitors this year, and Startup Alley spots are filling up fast.

Apply for Startup Alley now to secure your place. Budget-friendly tip: Grab your Startup Alley Pass for just $199 — but that deal expires on May 13 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT).

Startup Alley will still have plenty of amazing companies. But we want to showcase the very best and give those exhibiting companies the focused exposure they so richly deserve.

What can you expect when you exhibit in Startup Alley this year? For starters, high visibility. Every exhibiting startup gets two minutes to pitch to a global audience during featured breakout feedback sessions. Disrupt attendees include all kinds of influencers — investors, tech icons, the media — and potential customers.

You'll receive two lists that define opportunity — press and investors. Pitch your story to members of the press and increase your brand exposure. Schedule meetings with investors to explore funding options or to get feedback on your startup.

"Disrupt is a great avenue to network with potential investors. It carries a lot of street cred and talking about our CEO's experience pitching in Startup Alley helps us make those connections and start important conversations." — Jessica McLean, Director of Marketing and Communications, Infinite-Compute.

You'll also have a shot to be featured in one of the many Startup Alley Crawls. Every tech category will have its own one-hour crawl. The TechCrunch team will interview a select number of exhibiting founders within each category live from the Disrupt stage.

But wait, there’s more. You just might be one of only two exhibiting startups chosen as a Startup Battlefield Wild Card selection. The TechCrunch editorial team makes that call, and the anointed ones will participate in the legendary Startup Battlefield pitch competition for a chance to win the $100,000 prize. Win or lose, Startup Battlefield is a solid launchpad.

And here's a big reason not only to exhibit, but to get your Startup Alley pass ASAP. TechCrunch will choose 50 exhibiting startups to participate in Startup Alley+. That cohort will see benefits kick in at TC Early Stage in July — before Disrupt even begins. We're talking founder masterclasses, pitch-offs at Extra Crunch Live and very warm introductions to top, relevant investors.

TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 takes place on September 21-23. Push those envelopes, break those boundaries and don't miss your chance to exhibit in Startup Alley. Don't forget: Tickets are limited this year and the early-bird price ends on May 13 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT).

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

5 questions about Grab’s epic SPAC investor deck

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 09:49 AM PDT

As expected, Southeast Asian superapp Grab is going public via a SPAC.

The combination, which TechCrunch discussed over the weekend, will value Grab on an equity basis at $39.6 billion and will provide around $4.5 billion in cash, $4 billion of which will come in the form of a private investment in public equity, or PIPE. Altimeter Capital is putting up $750 million in the PIPE — fitting, as Grab is merging with one of Altimeter’s SPACs.

Ride-sharing is a profitable business for Grab, though the segment did take a pandemic-induced whacking.

Grab, which provides ride-hailing, payments and food delivery, will trade under the ticker symbol “GRAB” on Nasdaq when the deal closes. The announcement comes a day after Uber told its investors it was seeing recovery in certain transactions, including ride-hailing and delivery.

Uber also told the investing public that it’s still on track to reach adjusted EBITDA profitability in Q4 2021. The American ride-hailing giant did a surprising amount of work clearing brush for the Grab deal. Extra Crunch examined Uber’s ramp toward profitability yesterday.

This morning, let’s talk through several key points from Grab’s SPAC investor deck. We’ll discuss growth, segment profitability, aggregate costs and COVID-19, among other factors. You can read along in the presentation here.

How harshly did COVID-19 impact the business?

The impact on Grab’s operations from COVID-19 resembles what happened to Uber in that the company’s deliveries business had a stellar 2020, while its ride-hailing business did not.

From a high level, Grab’s gross merchandise volume (GMV) was essentially flat from 2019 to 2020, rising from $12.2 billion to $12.5 billion. However, the company did manage to greatly boost its adjusted net revenue over the same period, which rose from $1 billion to $1.6 billion.

Clubhouse rolls out payments to over 60K creators following initial test

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 09:38 AM PDT

Clubhouse is rapidly expanding access to payments, its first revenue-generating feature for creators, since its launch into testing earlier this month. At the beginning of April, Clubhouse said it would give a “small test group” of creators the ability to accept payments from their fans and supporters through the social audio app. These donations go 100% to the creators, Clubhouse noted at the time. Though tests began with just 1,000 users, Clubhouse this weekend rolled out payments to another 60,000-plus users in the U.S., the company said during its Town Hall weekly event. And it expects to have payments roll out to everyone over the next few weeks.

That’s a fast pace of development for an app that’s now being challenged on all sides from companies including Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, Reddit, Discord and even LinkedIn. By making payments more quickly available, Clubhouse could potentially better retain its top creators who could otherwise be influenced to jump ship for a rival app with a broader reach.

During Clubhouse’s Town Hall event, co-founder Paul Davison noted that another 66,000 creators gained the ability to receive payments this weekend, following the launch of the original test. To send a payment, users can visit a creator’s profile, then tap on the button at the bottom that says “Send Money.” This will launch a screen that suggests amounts like $5, $10 or $20, or you can fill in your own amount. The feature is being powered by Stripe and currently requires a debit or credit card to work.

Image Credits: Clubhouse screenshot

Davison again noted that creators will receive the full amount users send, while the fees paid on transactions will go to its partner Stripe to cover the payment processing fees. He added, too, that users should not send Clubhouse team members like himself payments, even though their profiles include the feature. Though he didn’t say why — only noting that all such donations would be given to charity — the reason has to do with how in-app purchases work on the App Store.

Apple a couple of years ago carved out an exception to its rules around commissions on in-app purchases in those cases where the business wasn’t profiting in any way from the donations or tips being sent to creators using the app. That’s why Clubhouse has stressed that it doesn’t take a cut of creator revenue at this time and why it’s emphasizing that it doesn’t keep any donations sent its way, either.

The company also cleared up some rumors around who would first gain access to payments, noting that users didn’t have a start a “club” on Clubhouse in order to be considered. Instead, Davison said the app was prioritizing those users who had been recently active and who didn’t have any violations. But otherwise, the initial testers have been a largely random sampling.

Clubhouse launches payments so creators can make money

In-app payments are only one of the avenues Clubhouse plans to explore to generate revenue both for creators and, longer-term, for itself. The company is also considering features like subscriptions for creators and clubs, ticketed events and brand deals.

Clubhouse also offered an update on plans for its Creator First program. The company last month announced the program, which will help creators get their first shows off the ground with Clubhouse’s help. Selected creators will receive equipment, get promotional and marketing support, and receive help with booking guests and even income.

To date, Clubhouse has fielded over 5,000 submissions from interested users. To narrow down the field, the company said it will host a “pilot season” of sorts beginning April 23, where 60 yet-to-be-announced creators will debut shows at a pace of one episode over a three-week period. The Creator First program participants will then be selected based on feedback from a panel of judges and the Clubhouse community. Those initial 60 finalists will be announced April 23, the company said.

Clubhouse UX teardown: A closer look at homepage curation, follow hooks and other features

Apple’s next event is April 20

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 09:13 AM PDT

Apple only dropped info about WWDC two weeks back, but the company just announced another event — this one happening much sooner. After Siri spilled the beans this morning, the company has officially confirmed its next event for April 20. Invites for its “Spring Loaded” event went out just now, sporting what appears to be a doodle drawn on an iPad.

Of course, the assistant's earlier suggestion that the event is being held at "Apple Park in Cupertino" was only true from a certain point of view, to quote a famous space wizard. It's 2021, after all, and everything still very much happens online, which means some snazzily edited drone shots of the Spaceship Apple.

As for what this all means from a product perspective, all signs appear to point to new iPads. Specifically, the company is rumored to be releasing a 12.9-inch version of the Pro, sporting a Mini LED, improved cameras and faster chips in-line with what we’ve seen on recent Macs. Continued supply constraints, however, could present an issue.

Another long-standing rumor is the arrival of AirTags. Yes, we've heard that one before, but the company just laid the groundwork for some big Find My improvements. Along with opening the app to other companies, the company announced a bunch of third-party hardware sporting the tech. The list includes the Chipolo ONE Spot, which beats Apple to the punch as the first device tag to use the tech.

The event kicks off 10 a.m. PT. We'll (virtually) see you there.

Apple's first virtual WWDC keynote set a new standard for remote presentations

E-bikes and earbuds among the first third-party hardware to support Apple’s Find My tracking

JXL turns Jira into spreadsheets

Posted: 13 Apr 2021 09:00 AM PDT

Atlassian’s Jira is an extremely powerful issue tracking and project management tool, but it’s not the world’s most intuitive piece of software. Spreadsheets, on the other hand, are pretty much the de facto standard for managing virtually anything in a business. It’s maybe no surprise then that there are already a couple of tools on the market that bring a spreadsheet-like view of your projects to Jira or connect it to services like Google Sheets.

The latest entrant in this field is JXL Spreadsheets for Jira (and specifically Jira Cloud), which was founded by two ex-Atlassian employees, Daniel Franz and Hannes Obweger. And in what has become a bit of a trend, Atlassian Ventures invested in JXL earlier this year.

Franz built the Good News news reader before joining Atlassian, while his co-founder previously founded Radiant Minds Software, the makers of Portfolio for Jira, which was acquired by Atlassian.

Image Credits: JXL

“Jira is so successful because it is awesome,” Franz told me. “It is so versatile. It’s highly customizable. I’ve seen people in my time who are doing anything and everything with it. Working with customers [at Atlassian] — at some point, you didn’t get surprised anymore, but what the people can do and track with Jira is amazing. But no one would rock up and say, ‘hey, Jira is very pleasant and easy to use.’ ”

As Franz noted, by default, Jira takes a very opinionated view of how people should use it. But that also means that users often end up exporting their issues to create reports and visualizations, for example. But if they make any changes to this data, it never flows back into Jira. No matter how you feel about spreadsheets, they do work for many people and are highly flexible. Even Atlassian would likely agree because the new Jira Work Management, which is currently in beta, comes with a spreadsheet-like view and Trello, too, recently went this way when it launched a major update earlier this year.

Image Credits: JXL

Over the course of its three-month beta, the JXL team saw how its users ended up building everything from cross-project portfolio management to sprint planning, backlog maintenance, timesheets and inventory management on top of its service. Indeed, Franz tells me that the team already has some large customers, with one of them having a 7,000-seat license.

Pricing for JXL seems quite reasonable, starting at $1 flat for teams with up to 10 users. Larger teams pay per user/month, with prices that go down to $0.45/user/month for licenses with over 5,000 seats. There is also a free trial.

One of the reasons the company can offer this kind of pricing is because it only needs a very simple backend. None of a customer’s data sits on JXL’s servers. Instead, it sits right on top of Jira’s APIs, which in turn also means that changes are synced back and forth in real time.

JXL is now available in the Atlassian Marketplace and the team is actively hiring as it looks to build out its product (and put its new funding to work).

ClickUp CEO talks hiring, raising and scaling in the white-hot productivity space

Atlassian launches a whole new Trello
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