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04.06.20 telecommunications

The Station: Via hits $2.25B valuation, letters from readers, layoffs in a time of COVID-19

Hi, and welcome back to The Station, a weekly newsletter dedicated to all the ways people and packages travel from Point A to Point B. I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. If this is your first time, hello; I’m glad you’re with us.

I have started to publish a version of the newsletter on TechCrunch. That’s what you’re reading now. For the whole newsletter, which comes out every weekend, you can subscribe by heading over here, and clicking “The Station.” It’s free!

Last week, I asked readers to share how they were doing amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The response was overwhelming. It wasn’t just the number of you who reached out. It was your words — devoid of pretense, the veneer exposed — that struck me.

There were, of course, those who used the opportunity to make a marketing push or pitch a story. I get the impulse, but you won’t be rewarded here. I’m seeking something different. And I will share below some of what you sent me in hopes that it provides insight, solace or, dare I suggest, an esprit de corps among us.

I will repeat my appeal from last week: Maybe you’re a startup founder, a safety driver at an autonomous vehicle developer, a venture capitalist, engineer or gig economy worker. I’m interested in how you’re doing, what you’re doing to cope and how you’re getting around in your respective cities.

Please reach out and email me at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com to share thoughts, opinions or tips or send a direct message to @kirstenkorosec.

Micromobbin’

the

As we’ve seen the past few weeks, operators are stepping up to respond and adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lyft began offering its scooters for free to healthcare and other essential workers. As part of the program, up to 30-minute rides will be free for members of critical workforces through April 30 in Austin, Denver, Los Angeles, the Washington D.C. metro area, San Diego and Santa Monica.

Spin, similarly, introduced a new initiative that provides free, 30-minute rides and helmets to essential healthcare workers. Spin, which began offering this on April 1, is making this available in Baltimore, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Tampa and Washington, D.C.

‘Micromobility winter on steroids’

That’s how RideReport CEO William Henderson described the current state of the micromobility industry in a recent interview with TechCrunch reporter Megan Rose Dickey.

Ride Report creates software that enables cities to work with micromobility operators. That gives Henderson a bird’s-eye view on the industry, which he shared with TechCrunch.

Yep, this is an Extra Crunch article, and you need a subscription. A few of the highlights include biking as one of the few bright spots, how some companies have pivoted to providing rides to healthcare workers and insights on how the industry and cities might have reacted had the pandemic occurred two years in the future.

A novel rewards program

These times have sparked a host of new ideas. Here’s one. A Nashville-based startup called Hytch Rewards developed an app that companies and governments can use to give their employees incentives to walk, bike, rideshare or use public transit. The company’s entire purpose has been to reward commuter behavior that reduces traffic congestion and lowers emissions.

Now it’s pivoting to reward people for staying at home. The office of Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper is among the first employer to partner on Hytch’s Shelter in Place initiative, which offers a small daily reward to staff for working from home.

— Megan Rose Dickey  (with a cameo from Kirsten Korosec)

Deal of the week

money

This week, we’ll highlight Via’s Series E funding round that was led by Exor. The on-demand shuttle startup raised $400 million, TechCrunch learned. Exor contributed $200 million of that raise. The remaining $200 million came from new investors Macquarie Capital, Mori Building and Shell, as well as existing investors 83North, Broadscale Group, Ervington Investments, Hearst Ventures, Planven Ventures, Pitango and RiverPark Ventures.

Noam Ohana, who heads up Exor Seeds, the holding company’s early-stage investment arm, will join Via’s board.

Via gets the “deal of the week” designation not just because its post-funding valuation is now $2.25 billion. Via’s actions during the pandemic offers a little bit of understanding on how companies are adapting and where opportunities may lie. Via has two sides of its business: a consumer-facing shuttle and a “partnerships” division that sells its software platform to cities and transit authorities that allows them to deploy their own shuttles.

As you might expect, the consumer-facing shuttles has been adversely affected by COVID-19. There is some promise with the partnerships side of the business, according to CEO Daniel Ramot .

Existing partners, a list that includes transit authorities in Berlin, Germany, Ohio and Malta, have worked with Via to convert or adapt the software to meet new needs during the pandemic. A city might dedicate its shuttle service to transporting goods or essential personnel. For instance, Berlin converted its 120-shuttle fleet transport to an overnight service that provides free transit to healthcare workers traveling to and from work.

“There has been a real interest in emergency services,” Ramot told me, adding he expects to see more demand for the software platform and the flexibility it provides as the pandemic unfolds.

Via isn’t the only company shifting its attention to emergency services. Moovit, an Israeli-based Mobility as a Service startup, launched an Emergency Mobilization On-Demand service. The feature was developed to turn unused vehicle fleets into an on-demand solution to get essential workers to their destination. Moovit is also offering transit agencies and operators a transit data manager for free for three months. This management tool lets transit agencies communicate schedules, line changes and service alerts to users.

Other deals:

  • Qcraft.ai raised what it described as an “eight-figure USD investment” in a seed funding round from IDG Capital, Vision+ Capital and Tide Capital. Qraft didn’t provide the exact number; VentureBeat reported it is $24 million.
  • Phantom.ai, which has focused on advanced driver assistance systems, raised $22 million in a Series A round led by Celeres Investments; Celeres was joined by Ford Motor and Korean telecommunications giant KT. Two existing investors, Millennium Technology Value Partners and DSC Investment, also participated in the round.
  • Seegrid, a company that makes self-driving industrial vehicles for material handling, closed a $25 million growth-equity investment from G2VP.
  • GM and Honda deepened their relationship and said they will jointly develop two new electric vehicles slated for 2024. Under the plan, the automakers will focus on their respective areas of expertise. Honda will design the exterior and interiors of the new electric vehicles; GM will contribute its new electric vehicle architecture and Ultium batteries, its OnStar safety and security services and its hands-free advanced driver assistance technology, known as Super Cruise.
  • Enovix, which has developed a silicon-based lithium-ion battery, has raised $45 million in new funds. The company said T. J. Rodgers and York Capital participated, as well as an unnamed “major new strategic investor.”

Layoffs in a time of COVID-19

We’ve all seen the bars, restaurants, retail shops and salons in our community shuttered because of stay-at-home directives from local and state governments. We’ve started to see the results of those closures in the form of tens of thousands of jobless claims.

Startups are not immune. It is difficult to get an exact number, but Layoffs.fyi is working to track what is going on in the startup world. As of April 4, the site had calculated 126 startups had laid off more than 10,000 people since March 11.

The transportation sector has been among those hardest hit. Some of the companies that have laid off 20% or more of their staff include shared scooter company Bird; peer-to-peer car rental startups Getaround and Turo; Cabin; freight brokerage KeepTruckin: and Moovel and Zipcar.

Maybe your company is actually hiring. If so, go check out Layoffs.fyi, the site doesn’t just list layoffs. The site also includes spreadsheet that list employees you might want to hire.

From you

I have selected a few excerpts from readers who shared with me — and now you all — their observations about what is happening in their lives in this COVID-19 world. I have edited these for length and clarity.

I plan to share more with you in the weeks ahead, so please reach out.

From Canoo CPO James Cox, who also advises founders of Routable.ai, a startup that developed a real-time routing engine for high-capacity rides. Cox explained in his email to me that Routable’s CEO wrote a piece in Medium (which you can read here) about providing critical transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic:

As a result of the piece, the Boston Medical Center reached out last week. They’ve now adapted their technology to provide rides to homeless people and solve an allocation problem of which bed in which hospital in Boston to send them to.

They’ve worked directly with the frontline doctors and nurses and IT teams on it. They were previously using a whiteboard, which is obviously not going to scale to solve the problem! The trial launches Monday and is a really interesting short-term pivot that is solely focussed on doing good and adjusting to this crazy world we are now living in.

From Aryan Bhasin, a college student under lockdown in India:

There is no sense of transportation at all. Public transport is becoming interesting because even though all forms of transport are banned (one can only use a vehicle to buy essentials at grocery stores), the Indian government has been sending hoards of buses to get villagers back to their villages — completely blowing apart all rules of social distancing.

Airlines, too, have been a very interesting sector to follow. Most airlines have changed their business models significantly in lieu of COVID-19 as governments organize airlifts for stranded citizens.

From Luis Orsini-Rosenberg, CEO of GetHenry, a Berlin-based micromobility startup that focuses on B2B services. GetHenry, which is part of the Techstars Smart Mobility Accelerator, operates in Austria, Germany and Spain. He shared what is happening in Austria:

All of our business partners in Austria had to close its gates. A day after the lockdown was communicated by the government, we started to reach out to hundreds of restaurants, deliveries, couriers, hospitals, pharmacies and medical services to offer them our vehicles for individual transportation or last-mile delivery cases. Last week, the first e-scooters went out to restaurant partners and medical services.

We are starting to generate some revenues again, but it will not be enough to keep the business alive long-term. We have applied for public aid funds and wage subsidies and will cut costs to an absolute minimum in the coming weeks. Going forward, we will either: wait and do nothing or solely focus on the last-mile delivery service.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/06/the-station-via-hits-2-25b-valuation-letters-from-readers-layoffs-in-a-time-of-covid-19/

07.24.19 Credit Cards

Using Spotify and Netflix payments to build your credit score? Grow Credit has a service for that.

Can subscriptions and everyday payments be used to help build or rebuild a credit score? The Los Angeles-based Grow Credit thinks so.

The service, which launched earlier this month, is one of the slew of new ideas coming from businesses that are angling to help build up credit scores for folks who can’t (or won’t) get a credit card, or who are rebuilding their credit.

The company is the latest evolution of a credit-based approach to financial services from the LA-based serial entrepreneur, Joe Bayen.

Bayen’s last startup was Lenny, a credit monitoring and lending service that was aimed at helping people better manage their payments to avoid damaging their credit scores.

Bayen scrapped the Lenny business model after realizing that he’d have a hard time finding a debt financing partner. So Bayen resolved to be more of a sourcing partner for new customers rather than developing a credit and lending business himself.

Hatch Bank, the new business arm for Firstrust Bank, is acting as the lender of record for Grow Credit’s secured Mastercard credit business.

Bayen has always been focused on helping the under-banked make better decisions, and in-between Grow Credit and Lenny there was still another business model that Bayen wanted to try.

It would have been a platform called LennyBike, which would have been a subscription service for customers to get access to a bicycle for $30 a month, and those payments would then count toward building credit.

However, it’s a much simpler proposition to get people to use their existing subscription services as a credit-building device than trying to get folks to pay for something new… thus, Grow Credit was born. (It also didn’t help that Bird raised $300 million and Lime another $250 million around the time that Lenny Bike was trying to get to market.)

The company uses a virtual Mastercard that allows for consumers to pay for online subscriptions only. “We have been able to transform a healthy, positive habit, which is making subscription payments, and we have turned that into a credit-building opportunity,” says Bayen.

It’s a pretty elegant way to solve a problem that’s a real barrier to entry for a large number of financial services. Credit scores can impact mortgages, the ability to receive small business loans and a host of other services that are ways to boost economic opportunity.

The company has even brought on board experienced executives like Nick Roberts, the former chief marketing officer of Acorns, to help get their messaging out.

There are two main competitors to a service like Grow Credit in the market for providing opportunities to build up a credit score, Roberts says. One is forced savings programs, the other is using fixed-limit credit cards with massive fees. A host of new services that would use reporting utility, rental, mobile phone payments and other monthly expenditures toward credit scoring have yet to gain traction.

Grow Credit offers 0% APR financing for its service, but has two tiers. A free tier for an unlimited $25 revolving credit line and a subscription service that charges $4.99 for a 12-month service offering periodic credit limit increases of up to $300. Both the free and subscription versions offer free FICO scores and automatic subscription detection.

The company makes money by giving subscription services the chance to upsell customers using the credit lines. ClassPass has already signed on as a partner, according to Bayen.

“This is establishing a small dollar loan and a line of credit,” says Roberts. “People on debit cards and stored value cards that are out there… they’re  using debit cards so the money is immediately debited from their account. What we’re doing is paying the bill and establishing the line of credit and getting paid back at the end of the month.”

The idea of using more data sources and alternative data to how credit bureaus determine credit scores is one that’s already resonating with a few Democratic contenders for the presidential nomination.

Senator Kamala Harris has called for amending the Fair Credit Reporting Act to require credit agencies to include rent payments, cellphone bills and things like utility payments in their credit score calculations.

Roughly 26 million people are invisible to credit ratings and another 19 million have files that are unscorable, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . These are people who lack enough bank or credit-union accounts to have a credit score — and they’re a group that’s more likely to include African American and Latinx consumers.

Roughly 15% of African American and Latinx consumers are unable to receive a credit rating, according to data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as cited by MarketWatch.

“Expanding the calculation of credit scores to include payments made on rent, phone bills, and other utilities will increase access to credit for those with a limited or ‘invisible’ credit history or poor credit scores,” according to the Harris website.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/23/using-spotify-and-netflix-payments-to-build-your-credit-score-grow-credit-has-a-service-for-that/

09.22.17 Merchant Services

Sex Dust and vampire repellent: a stroll through Gwyneth Paltrow’s new LA store

Visitors to Goop Lab, the first permanent brick-and-mortar store to feature the actors lifestyle brand, found themselves in something akin to heaven

In the apothecary section, two young women were inspecting shelves with detox kits, Sex Dust, psychic vampire repellent and a shamanic pouch with healing stones that included the goddess stone chrysocolla.

In the kitchen area, a mother and her toddler daughter were leafing through coffee table books with titles like Foraged Flora, Sunday Suppers and Dinner Diaries: Reviving the Art of the Hostess.

Lilli Lee was in the living room area with her friends flicking through a clothes rack and lingered over a pair of lime-green trousers. She examined the price tag. Three hundred dollars. Oh, am I in trouble?

Lee wasnt in trouble. She was in Gwyneth Paltrows new Los Angeles store, the alpha zen actors first permanent brick-and-mortar space of her lifestyle brand Goop, and apparently that felt pretty close to being in heaven.

Its just beautiful, said Lee, 43, indicating the antique mantle, chandelier and blue and magenta wall coverings all inspired, like the rest of the store, by the dcor of a nearby bungalow owned by Paltrow.

The store, called Goop Lab, opened this week in Brentwood Country Mart, a cluster of boutiques in a plush, celebrity-filled neighbourhood near the Pacific Ocean which likes to call malls marts.

The shop is airy, bright and small, just 1,300 sq feet, with soft music and smiling, white-clad staff a physical embodiment of the online store that inspires devotion for Paltrows vision of wellness and scorn for products such as jade stones which women are invited to insert into their vaginas.

The
The dining room area of Gwyneth Paltrows Goop Lab store in Los Angeles. Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian

Its all been choreographed by GP, said Heather Taylor, a store manager, using a term of affection for her boss. All the products are clean. They have nothing that could be harmful to the body.

Some, however, may disembowel the wallet.

The entrance, which mimics a garden, offers buttery and soft deerskin gloves for $48, gold-handled floral scissors for $72 and the prettiest compost bin ever for $175.

Sex
Sex Dust, priced $38 per jar, for sale at Goop Lab in Los Angeles. Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian

Further inside, you find a pair of Portuguese napkin rings with images of sky blue swallows for $56 and a champagne flute for $180. A silk blouse costs $685; a floral dress $795.

The kitchen area is centred around an ivory and brass LaCanche oven where Goop food editors are due to cook and provide demonstrations. Paltrows image beams from the cover of her book, Its All Good: Delicious Weekday Recipes for the Super-Busy Home Cook ($34).

To the stores guests they are not called customers it was all good. Goop, which Paltrow started as a newsletter in 2008 and turned into a global brand, now had a sanctum: the artfully arranged flowers, the whimsical dcor, the wares which promised to stop ageing and banish bad vibes.

I think its all pretty positive and uplifting, said Heidi Brecker, 36, a longtime fan, as she browsed some dresses . Goop helps keep you young and fresh and vibrant. Brecker, it should be noted, looked about 26.

The stores vibe reminded her of London, where she used to live. It feels very Westbourne Grove.

One can only speculate what Little Nell would have made of a curiosity shop where nothing is supposed to grow old.

Brentwood Country Mart is sufficiently LA to have a sign in the car park reminding visitors theyre not at the beach: Wear shirts and shoes. Leave dogs outside No skateboards or rollerblades.

During the Guardians visit, all Goops customers were slender white women, save the toddler, who seemed destined to become one. She rummaged through the kitchenware, picking items at random. What have you got there, honey? asked her mom. Nice! You have good taste.

Some guests came out of curiosity, but all felt Goops magic, said Taylor, the manager. Nobody can come here and not buy anything. Everybody leaves with something.

Walmart and Debenhams take note: options in the apothecary included jars of Sex Dust, a lusty edible formula alchemized to ignite and excite sexy energy in and out of the bedroom ($38) and bottles of psychic vampire repellent, comprising sonically tuned gem elixirs ($30).

Psychic
Psychic vampire repellent, priced $30 per bottle, for sale at Goop Lab. Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian

The medicine bag pebbles included black obsidian for grounding and protection, carnelian for support for female issues, lapis lazuli for the speaking of ones truth and clear quartz for connection with your higher self, intuition and spirit guides ($85). There was no sign of vaginal jade stones.

Kitchenware included a $50 rolling pin with wood apparently reclaimed from the Atlantic City Boardwalk, a type of rare south American hardwood some of which is extinct today, according to Goops website. All products, it says, are designed to let people shop with meaning.

Goop collaborated with the design firm Roman and Williams to mix custom and vintage dcor, Brittany Pattner, Goops experiential creative director, said via email. Our headquarters are a short drive away from the store, so we see it as an extension of our home. A lab of sorts for us to experiment in, connect with our community of readers and shoppers.

Goop had plans for further retail expansion, Pattner added. We hope to share more news about that soon.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/22/sex-dust-and-vampire-repellent-a-stroll-through-gwyneth-paltrows-new-la-store

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