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This Week in Apps: TikTok viral hit breaks Spotify records, inauguration boosts news app installs, judge rules against Parler

Published January 23, 2021

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

The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020.

Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices.

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

This week, we’re looking into how President Biden’s inauguration impacted news apps, the latest in the Parler lawsuit, and how TikTok’s app continues to shape culture, among other things.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple

Apple stops signing iOS 12.5, making iOS 12.5.1 the only versions of iOS available to older devices.
A report claims Apple’s iOS 15 update will cut support for devices with an A9 chip, like the iPhone 6, iPhone 6s Plus and the original iPhone SE.
New analysis estimates Apple’s upcoming iOS privacy changes will cause a roughly 7% revenue hit for Facebook in Q2. The revenue hit will continue in following quarters and will be “material.”

Platforms: Google

Google adds “trending” icons to the Play Store. New arrow icons appeared in the Top Charts tab, which indicate whether an app’s downloads are trending up or down, in terms of popularity. This could provide an early signal about those that may still be rising in the charts or beginning to fall out of favor, despite their current high position.
Google appears to be working on a Restricted Networking mode for Android 12. The mode, discovered by XDA Developers digging in the Android Open Source Project, would disable network access for all third-party apps.

Gaming

Goama (or Go Games) introduced a way for developers to integrate social games into their apps, which was showcased at CES. The company focuses on Asia and Latin America and has more than 15 partners, including GCash and Rappi, for digital payments and communications.

Goama lets developers integrate a social gaming platform into their apps

Fortnite maker Epic Games is getting into movies. The animated feature film Gilgamesh will use Epic’s Unreal Engine technology to tell the story of the king-turned-deity. The movie is not an in-house project, but rather is financed through Epic’s $100M MegaGrants fund.

Augmented Reality

Patents around Apple’s AR and VR efforts describe how a system could be identified in a way that’s similar to FaceID, then either permitted or denied the ability to change their appearance in the game.
Pinterest launches AR try-on for eyeshadow in its mobile app using Lens technology and ModiFace data. The app already offered AR try-on for lipsticks.

Pinterest launches an AR-powered try-on experience for eyeshadow

Entertainment

The CW app became the No. 1 app on the App Store this week, topping TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, thanks to CW’s season premieres of Batwoman, All American, Riverdale and Nancy Drew.
Users of podcasting app Anchor, owned by Spotify, say the app isn’t bringing them any sponsorship opportunities, as promised, beyond those from Spotify and Anchor itself.
YouTube launches hashtag landing pages on the web and in its mobile app. The pages are accessible when you click hashtags on YouTube, not via search, and weirdly rank the “best” videos through some inscrutable algorithm.

YouTube launches hashtag landing pages to all users

Apple’s Podcasts app adds a new editorial feature, Apple Podcasts Spotlight, meant to increase podcast listening by showcasing the best podcasts as selected by Apple editors.

E-commerce

WeChat facilitated 1.6 trillion yuan (close to $250 billion) in annual transactions through its “mini programs” in 2020. The figure is more than double that of 2019.

WeChat advances e-commerce goals with $250B in transactions

Fintech

Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, launched an e-wallet, Douyin Pay. The wallet will supplement the existing payment options, Alipay and WeChat Pay, and will help to support the Douyin app’s growing e-commerce business.
Neobank Monzo founder Tom Blomfield left the startup, saying he struggled during the pandemic. “I think [for] a lot of people in the world…going through a pandemic, going through lockdown and the isolation involved in that has an impact on people’s mental health,” he told TechCrunch.

Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is departing the challenger bank and says he’s ‘struggled’ during the pandemic

New estimates indicate about 50% of the iPhone user base (or 507 million users) now use Apple Pay.
Samsung’s newest phones drop support for MST, which emulates a mag stripe at terminals that don’t support NFC.

Social

Indian messaging app, StickerChat, owned by Hike, is shutting down. Founder Kavin Bharti Mittal said India will never have a homegrown messenger unless it bars Western companies from its market. Hike pivoted this month to virtual social apps, Vibe and Rush, which it believes have more potential.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri, in a Verge podcast, said he’s not happy with Reels so far, and how he feels most people probably don’t understand the difference between Instagram video and IGTV. He says the social network needs to simplify and consolidate ideas.
Facebook and Instagram improve their accessibility features. The apps’ AI-generated image captions now offer far more details about who or what is in the photos, thanks to improvements in image recognition systems.
TikTok launches a Q&A feature that lets creators respond to fan questions using text or videos. The feature, rolled out to select creators with more than 10,000 followers, makes it easier to see all the questions in one place.

TikTok’s new Q&A feature lets creators respond to fan questions using text or video

Health & Fitness

Health and fitness app spending jumped 70% last year in Europe to record $544 million, a Sensor Tower report says. The year-over-year increase is far larger than 2019, when growth was just 37.2%. COVID-19 played a large role in this shift as people turned to fitness apps instead of gyms to stay in shape.

Government & Policy

Biden’s inauguration boosted installs of U.S. news apps up to 170%, Sensor Tower reported. CNN was the biggest mover, climbing 530 positions to reach No. 41 on the App Store, and up 170% in terms of downloads. News Break was the second highest, climbing 13 positions to No. 65. Right-wing outlet Newsmax climbed 43 spots to reach No. 108. In 2020, the top news apps were: News Break (23.7 million installs); SmartNews (9 million); CNN (5 million); and Fox News (4 million). This month, however, News Break saw 1.2 million installs, followed by Newsmax with about 863,000 installs, the report said.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) sent a draft decision to fellow EU Data Protection Authorities over the WhatsApp-Facebook data sharing policy. This means a decision on the matter is coming closer to a resolution in terms of what standards of transparency is required by WhatsApp.

WhatsApp-Facebook data-sharing transparency under review by EU DPAs after Ireland sends draft decision

German app developer Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents filed a complaint with the EU, U.S. DOJ and other antitrust watchdogs around the world over Apple and Google’s rejection of his COVID-related mobile game. Both stores had policies to only approve official COVID-19 apps from health authorities. Mueller renamed the game Viral Days and removed references to the novel coronavirus to get the app approved. However, he still feels the stores’ rules are holding back innovation.

Productivity

Basecamp’s Hey, which famously fought back against Apple’s App Store rules over IAP last year, has launched a business-focused platform, Hey for Work, expected to be public in Q1. The app has more App Store ratings than rival Superhuman, a report found. Currently, Hey has a 4.7-star rating across 3.3K reviews; Superhuman has 3.9 rating across only 274 reviews.

Trends

Baby boomers are increasingly using apps. Baby boomers/Gen Xers in the U.S. spent 30% more time year-over-year in their most used apps, App Annie reports. That’s a larger increase than either Millennials or Gen Z, at 18% and 16%, respectively.

Funding and M&A

Curtsy, a clothing resale app for Gen Z women, raised an $11 million Series A led by Index Ventures. The app tackles some of the problems with online resale by sending shipping supplies and labels to sellers, and by making the marketplace accessible to new and casual sellers.
Storytelling platform Wattpad acquired by South Korea’s Naver for $600 million. The reading apps whose stories have turned into book and Netflix hits will be incorporated into Naver’s publishing platform Webtoon.

Wattpad, the storytelling platform, is selling to South Korea’s Naver for $600 million

On-demand delivery app Glovo partnered with Swiss-based real estate firm, Stoneweg, which is investing €100 million in building and refurbishing real estate in key markets to build out Glovo’s network of “dark stores.”
Pocket Casts app is up for sale. The podcast app was acquired nearly three years ago by a public radio consortium of top podcast producers (NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago and This American Life). The owners have now agreed to sell the app, which posted a net loss in 2020. (NPR’s share of the loss was over $800,000.)
Travel app Maps.me raised $50 million in a round led by Alameda Research. The funding will go toward the launch of a multi-currency wallet. Cryptocurrency lender Genesis Capital and institutional cryptocurrency firm CMS Holdings also participated in the round, Coindesk reported.
Bangalore-based hyperlocal delivery app Dunzo raised $40 million in a round that included investment from Google, Lightbox, Evolvence, Hana Financial Investment, LGT Lightstone Aspada and Alteria.
London-based food delivery app Deliveroo raised $180 million in new funding from existing investors, led by Durable Capital Partners and Fidelity Management, valuing the business at more than $7 billion.
Dating Group acquired Swiss startup Once, a dating app that sends one match per day, for $18 million.

‘Slow dating’ app Once is acquired by Dating Group for $18M as it seeks to expand its portfolio

Downloads

Bodyguard

Image Credits: Bodyguard

A French content moderation app called Bodyguard, detailed here by TechCrunch, has brought its service to the English-speaking market. The app allows you to choose the level of content moderation you want to see on top social networks, like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Twitch. You can choose to hide toxic content across a range of categories, like insults, body shaming, moral harassment, sexual harassment, racism and homophobia and indicate whether the content is a low or high priority to block.

Bodyguard is a mobile app that hides toxic content on social platforms

Beeper

Image Credits: Beeper

Pebble’s founder and current YC Partner Eric Migicovsky has launched a new app, Beeper, that aims to centralize in one interface 15 different chat apps, including iMessage. The app relies on an open-source federated, encrypted messaging protocol called Matrix that uses “bridges” to connect to the various networks to move the messages. However, iMessage support is more wonky, as the company actually ships you an old iPhone to make the connection to the network. But this system allows you to access Beeper on non-Apple devices, the company says. The app is slowly onboarding new users due to initial demand. The app works across MacOS, Windows, Linux‍, iOS and Android and charges $10/mo for the service.

Pebble founder launches Beeper, a universal chat app that works with iMessage and others

VCs and startups consider HaaS model for consumer devices

Published July 27, 2020

I’ve been following consumer audio electronics company Nura with great interest for a few years now — the Melbourne-based startup was one of the first companies I met with after starting with TechCrunch. At the time, its first prototype was a big mess of circuits and wires — the sort of thing you could never imagine shrunk down into a reasonably sized consumer device.

Nura managed, of course. And the final product looked and sounded great; hell, even the box was nice. If I’m lucky, I see a consumer hardware product once or twice a year that seems reasonably capable of disrupting an industry, and Nura’s custom sound profiles fit that bill. But the company was unique for another reason. A graduate of the HAX accelerator, the startup announced NuraNow roughly this time last year.

Hardware as a service (HaaS) has been a popular concept in the IT/enterprise space for some time, but it’s still fairly uncommon in the consumer category. For one thing: A hardware subscription presents a new paradigm for thinking about purchases. That is a big lift in a country like the U.S., which spent years weaning consumers off contract-based smartphones.

That Nura jumped at the chance shouldn’t be a big surprise. Backers HAX/SOSV have been proponents of the model for some time now. I’ve visited their Shenzhen offices a few times, and the topic of HaaS always seems to come up.

In a recent email exchange, General Partner Duncan Turner described HaaS as “a great way to keep in contact with your customers and up-sell them on new features. Most importantly, for startups, recurring revenue is critical for scaling a business with venture capital (and will help appeal to a broad set of investors). HaaS often has a low churn (as easier to put onto long-term contracts).”

Grab your ticket: Only one week to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020

Published February 26, 2020

It’s T-minus one week to the big day, March 3, when more than 1,000 startuppers will convene in Berkeley, Calif. for TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020. We’re talking a hefty cross-section representing big companies and exciting new startups. We’re talking some of the most innovative thinkers, makers, researchers, investors and influencers — all focused on creating the future of these two world-changing technologies.

Don’t miss out on this one-day conference of interviews, panel discussions, Q&As, workshops and demos dedicated to every aspect of robotics and AI. General admission tickets cost $345. Snag your ticket now and save, because prices go up at the door. Want to save even more? Save 15% when you buy four or more tickets. Are you a student? Grab a ticket for just $50.

What do we have planned for this TC Session? Here’s a small sample of the fab programming that awaits you, and be sure to check out the full TC Session agenda here.

Q&A with Founders: This is your chance to ask questions of Sébastien Boyer, co-founder and CEO of FarmWise and Noah Ready-Campbell, founder and CEO of Built Robotics — some of the most successful robotics founders on our stage.
Disney Robotics: Imagineers from Disney will present state-of-the-art robotics built to populate its theme parks.
Investing in Robotics and AI: Lessons from the Industry’s VCs: Dror Berman, founding partner at Innovation Endeavors, Jocelyn Goldfein, managing director at Zetta Venture Partners and Eric Migicovsky, general partner at Y Combinator will discuss the rising tide of venture capital funding in robotics and AI. The investors bring a combination of early-stage investing and corporate venture capital expertise, sharing a fondness for the wild world of robotics and AI investing.

And — new this year — don’t miss watching the finalists from our Pitch Night competition. Founders of these early-stage companies, hand-picked by TechCrunch editors, will take the stage and have just five minutes to present their wares.

With just one more week until TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 kicks off, you don’t have much time left to save on tickets. Why pay more at the door? Buy your ticket now and join the best and brightest for a full day dedicated to all things robotics.

72 hours left to save $150 on tickets to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020

Published January 28, 2020

We’re counting the days (35 to be precise) until TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 takes place on March 3 in Berkeley, Calif. But we’re also counting the days that you can save on the price of admission. The early-bird pricing ends in just three days, on January 31. Buy your ticket right here before that bird flies south, and you’ll save $150.

This single-day conference features interviews, panel discussions, Q&As and demos with the leaders, founders and investors focused on the future of robotics and AI. TechCrunch editors will interview the people making it happen, explore the promise, expose the hype and address the challenges of these revolutionary industries.

The lineup, as impressive as ever, also includes workshops and demos, because who doesn’t want to see robots in action? From autonomous cars and assistive robotics to advances in agriculture and outer space, our conference agenda covers the leading edges of the complex and exciting world of robots and AI.

Here’s a taste of what we’re serving:

Engineering for the Red Planet: Maxar Technologies has been involved with U.S. space efforts for decades and is about to send its sixth robotic arm to Mars aboard NASA’s Mars 2020 rover. Lucy Condakchian, general manager of robotics at Maxar, will speak to the difficulty and exhilaration of designing robotics for use in the harsh environments of space and other planets.
Investing in Robotics and AI — Lessons from the Industry’s VCs: Leading investors will discuss the rising tide of venture capital funding in robotics and AI. Dror Berman, founding partner at Innovation Endeavors; Kelly Chen, partner at Data Collective (DCVC); and Eric Migicovsky, general partner at Y Combinator, bring a combination of early-stage investing and corporate venture capital expertise, sharing a fondness for the wild world of robotics and AI investing.

We’ve added a new, exciting element this year. It’s Pitch Night, a sort of mini Startup Battlefield. The night before the conference, 10 teams will pitch to an audience of VCs and other influencers at a private event. Judges will choose five finalists, and those teams will pitch again from the Main Stage at the conference. We’re taking applications until February 1, so apply right here. It’s free, and a great way to showcase your startup to the people who can supercharge your startup dreams.

Don’t miss your chance to learn from, share with and pitch to the brightest minds, makers, investors and researchers in robotics and AI. And don’t miss out on serious savings. Buy an early-bird ticket to TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 — before prices go up on January 31 — and you’ll keep $150 in your wallet.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Going fast: Buy a demo table at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020

Published January 7, 2020

Startup founders, set your sites on TC Sessions: Robotics+AI, which takes place on March 3, 2020. This annual day-long event draws the brightest minds and makers from these two industries — 1,500 attendees last year alone. And if you really want to make 2020 a game-changing year, grab yourself a demo table and showcase your early-stage robotics or AI startup in front of those big names and serious influencers.

Simply purchase an Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package — the price includes four tickets to the event, so bring your crew, flex your networking mojo and take in some of the many discussions throughout the day. Get yours before they’re gone — only eight left.

The day’s programming covers a wide range of crucial issues focused on robotics and AI. TC editors conduct in-depth interviews and moderate panel discussions and Q&As with the industries’ leading minds, makers, technologists, researchers and investors. You’ll enjoy workshops, demos and plenty of networking opportunities.

We’re talking topics that appeal to every hungry startup founder. Like a panel discussion on investing featuring Eric Migicovsky, Kelly Chen and Dror Berman — all top VCs in robotics and AI.

These folks have their fingers on the pulse of robotics, AI and automation. They’ll be on hand to share insights on future industry trends, talk about the most compelling startups and what they look for when it comes to funding.

We’ll be sharing details and the names of plenty more speakers in the coming weeks, so keep checking back. You can always check out last year’s program to get a sense of what to expect.

Did you know we have a new twist to this year’s Session? It’s a pitch competition — Pitch Night. It takes place the night before, it doesn’t cost a thing and it’s open to founders of early-stage startups focused on robotics and AI. There’s only one small hoop to jump through: apply here by February 1.

TC Sessions: Robotics+AI takes place on March 3, 2020 at UC Berkeley. Buy your Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package today, and come impress the top technologists, makers, thinkers, researchers and investors. Make 2020 your game-changing year.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Leading robotics VCs talk about where they’re investing

Published November 26, 2019

The Valley’s affinity for robotics shows no signs of cooling. Technical enhancements through innovations like AI/ML, compute power and big data utilization continue to drive new performance milestones, efficiencies and use cases.

Despite the old saying, “hardware is hard,” investment in the robotics space continues to expand. Money is pouring in across robotics’ billion-dollar sub verticals, including industrial and labor automation, drone delivery, machine vision and a wide range of others.

According to data from Pitchbook and Crunchbase, 2018 saw new highs for the number of venture deals and total invested capital in the space, with roughly $5 billion in investment coming from nearly 400 deals. With robotics well on its way to again set new investment peaks in 2019, we asked 13 leading VCs who work at firms spanning early to growth stages to share what’s exciting them most and where they see opportunity in the sector:

Shahin Farshchi, Lux Capital
Kelly Chen, DCVC
Rob Coneybeer, Shasta Ventures
Aaron Jacobson, NEA
Eric Migicovsky, Y Combinator
Helen Liang, FoundersX Ventures
Andrew Byrnes, Micron Ventures
Ludovic Copéré Sony Innovation Fund
Costantino Mariella, Sony Innovation Fund
Cyril Ebersweiler, SOSV & HAX
Peter Barrett, Playground Global
Bruce Leak, Playground Global
Jim Adler, Toyota AI Ventures

Participants discuss the compelling business models for robotics startups (such as “Robots as a Service”), current valuations, growth tactics and key robotics KPIs, while also diving into key trends in industrial automation, human replacement, transportation, climate change, and the evolving regulatory environment.

Shahin Farshchi, Lux Capital

Which trends are you most excited in robotics from an investing perspective?

The opportunity to unlock human superpowers:

Increase productivity to enhance creativity leading to new products and businesses.

Automating dangerous tasks and eliminating undesirable, dangerous jobs in mining, manufacturing, and shipping/logistics.

Making the most deadly mode of transport: driving, 100% safe.

How much time are you spending on robotics right now? Is the market under-heated, overheated, or just right?

Three-quarters of the new opportunities I look at involve some sort of automation.

The market for robot startups attempting direct human labor replacement, floor-sweeping, and dumb-waiter robots, and robotic lawnmowers and vacuums is OVER heated (too many startups).

The market for robot startups that assist human workers, increase human productivity, and automate undesirable human tasks is UNDER heated (not enough startups).

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but don’t? Plus any other thoughts you want to share with TechCrunch readers.

I want to see more founders that are building robotics startups that:

Solve LATENT pain points in specific, well-understood industries (vs. building a cool robot that can do cool things).

Focus on increasing HUMAN productivity (vs. trying to replace humans).

Are solving for building interesting BUSINESSES (vs. emphasizing cool robots).

Kelly Chen, DCVC

Three years ago, the most compelling companies to us in the industrial space were in software. We now spend significantly more time in verticalized AI and hardware. Robotic companies we find most exciting today are addressing key driver areas of (1) high labor turnover and shortage and (2) new research around generalization on the software side. For many years, we have seen some pretty impressive science projects out of labs, but once you take these into the real world, they fail. In these changing environmental conditions, it’s crucial that robots work effectively in-the-wild at speeds and economics that make sense. This is an extremely difficult combination of problems, and we’re now finally seeing it happen. A few verticals we believe will experience a significant overhaul in the next 5 years include logistics, waste, micro-fulfillment, and construction.

With this shift in robotic capability, we’re also seeing a shift in customer sentiment. Companies who are used to buying outright machines are now more willing to explore RaaS (Robot as a Service) models for compelling robotic solutions – and that repeat revenue model has opened the door for some formerly enterprise software-only investors. On the other hand, companies exploring robotics in place of tasks with high labor shortages, such as trucking or agriculture, are more willing to explore per hour or per unit pick models.

Adoption won’t be overnight, but in the medium term, we are very enthusiastic about the ways robotics will transform industries. We do believe investing in this space requires the right technical know-how and network to evaluate and support companies, so momentum investors looking to dip their hand into a hot space may be disappointed.

Rob Coneybeer, Shasta Ventures

We’re entering the early stages of the golden age of robotics. Robotics is already a huge, multibillion-dollar market – but today that market is dominated by industrial robotics, such as welding and assembly robots found on automotive assembly lines around the world. These robots repeat basic tasks, over and over, and are usually separated by caged walls from humans for safety. However, this is rapidly changing. Advances in perception, driven by deep learning, machine vision and inexpensive, high-performance cameras allow robots to safely navigate the real world, escape the manufacturing cages, and closely interact with humans.

I think the biggest opportunities in robotics are those which attack enormous markets where it’s difficult to hire and retain labor. One great example is long-haul trucking. Highway driving represents one of the easiest problems for autonomous vehicles, since the lanes tend to be well-marked, the roads have gentle curves, and all traffic runs in the same direction. In the United States alone, long haul trucking is a multi-hundred billion dollar market every year. The customer set is remarkably scalable with standard trailer sizes and requirements for shipping freight. Yet at the same time, trucking companies have trouble hiring and retaining drivers. It’s the perfect recipe for robotic opportunity.

I’m intrigued by agricultural robots. I’ve seen dozens of companies attacking every part of the farming equation – from field clearing and preparation, to seeding, to weeding, applying fertilizer, and eventually harvesting. I think there’s a lot of value to be “harvested” here by robots, especially since seasonal field labor is becoming harder to find and increasingly expensive. One enormous challenge in this market, however, is that growing seasons mean that the robotic machinery has a lot of downtime and the cost of equipment isn’t as easily amortized in other markets with higher utilization. The other big challenge is that fields are very, very tough on hardware and electronics due to environmental conditions like rain, dust and mud.

There are a ton of important problems to be solved in robotics. The biggest open challenges in my mind are locomotion and grasping. Specifically, I think that for in-building applications, robots need to be able to do all the thing which humans can do – specifically opening and closing doors, climbing stairs, and picking items off of shelves and putting them down gently. Plenty of startups have tackled subsets of these problems, but to date no one has built a generalized solution. To be fair, to get to parity with humans on generalized locomotion and grasping, it’s probably going to take another several decades.

Overall, I feel like the funding environment for robotics is about right, with a handful of overfunded areas (like autonomous passenger vehicles). I think that the most overlooked near-term opportunity in robotics is teleoperation. Specifically, pairing fully automated robotic operations with occasional human remote operation of individual robots. Starship Technologies is a perfect example of this. Starship is actively deploying local delivery robots around the world today. Their first major deployment is at George Mason University in Virginia. They have nearly 50 active robots delivering food around the campus. They’re autonomous most of the time, but when they encounter a problem or obstacle they can’t solve, a human operator in a teleoperation center manually controls the robot remotely. At the same time. Starship tracks and prioritizes these problems for engineers to solve, and slowly incrementally reduces the number of problems the robots can’t solve on their own. I think people view robotics as a “zero or one” solution when in fact there’s a world where humans and robots work together for a long time.

Robotics VCs on what’s real, what’s coming, and what to keep in mind

Published April 24, 2019

Last week, at TechCrunch’s robotics event at UC Berkeley, we sat down with four VCs who are making a range of bets on robotics companies, from drone technologies to robots whose immediate applications aren’t yet clear. Featuring Peter Barrett of Playground Global, Helen Liang of FoundersX Ventures, Eric Migicovsky of Y Combinator and Andy Wheeler of GV (pictured above), we covered a lot of terrain (no pun intended), including whether last-mile delivery robots make sense and how much robots should be expected to do without human intervention.

We also discussed climate change and how it factors into their bets, and why the many private enterprises focused on creating fully automated vehicles may need to do much more to empower the cities in which they plan to operate. You can find excerpts of our talk below. And for access to the full transcript, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free.

TC: How do you think about investing in the here and now, versus the future (which is complicated for VCs, given that venture funds need to produce returns within a ten-year window, typically):

PB: One of the challenges with investing in robotics is that robotics companies do tend to take a lot longer to mature than your average enterprise SaaS company. There are some classes of investments that we know the technology works; it’s just a question of commercializing it and bringing it to market, and Canvas [a Playground-backed company that makes autonomous warehouse carts and was just acquired by Amazon] did an extraordinary job of finding a market that existed and had technology in hand that would solve that problem.

There’s other stuff like the amazing work that the folks are doing at Agility [Robotics] with a biped that can operate for many hours in unstructured human environments that today is really, candidly, a research robot, and to reach its long-term aspirations, there’s a whole other set of technologies that we’ll need to develop as the company matures.

We think about blending the stuff that’s very impactful but is going to take a long time because it’s fundamentally a new science and technology that needs to be created, [with] immediate applications of technologies that are proven today, that we’re deploying against real markets.

AW: As for whether we try to build a portfolio where there are exits at different stages, generally, when I’m looking to invest in a robotics thing, I understand that the timeframes can be fairly long, and so what we’re looking for are things that really are going to be very large opportunities — that can generate billion-dollar-plus exits.

TC: A growing number of small last-mile delivery robots has attracted funding. Helen, your firm is an investor in one of these startups, Robby. What’s the appeal?

HL: We look at where we see a pain point in the market. During our team meetings on Fridays, we always use DoorDash. It feels awkward when we order a $100 meal, and the delivery person has driven a long way. We’ll give him a $15, but it’s still [tricky for that person] in terms of economics. If you have a central station for the food delivery, and robots can handle that last-mile delivery, we think that’s a more cost-effective approach.

Robby has partnered with PepsiCo [to delivering snacks to students attending the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Ca.] that makes it more like a vending machine, and we think that’s an interesting market, too. We’ll see how fast adoption will happen.

EM: YC is an investor in Robby as well, and we think of this as kind of the perfect example of how hackers can get into a fairly complex industry. When you look at some robotics and specifically autonomous vehicles, you see extremely large investments going into some of the some of the big players, but then at the same time, you see groups and hackers that are able to use off-the-shelf technology to solve real problems that affect businesses or people, and build services or products that that are valuable. We’ve seen this over and over.

You don’t have to be looking for a large VC investment to compete in the space. It is possible to stay frugal stay nimble and build something on a small scale to demonstrate that you found a problem that people are willing to pay money to solve. Then, if you’re interested, [you can] pursue larger VC investment or not. It’s kind of open right now.

TC: VCs we’ve talked with in the past have suggested that in robotics, they often see cool ideas for which there isn’t necessarily a market or big market need. Is this also your experience?

PB: This is a common pattern where there was some mechanism, some capability of the robot, some feat of dexterity or something [and founders think, ‘That’s really cool, I’m going to make a company out of it.’ But we think about it in terms of, what do you want from the robots? What’s the outcome that everybody agrees is worthwhile? And then, how do you find and build companies to achieve those goals?

One thing we’re struggling with right now is that there’s no real hardware or software platforms. You think about 10 years hence [and] the kinds of things we’ll be investing in, [and it’s] robotics applications that are aggregates of neural networks and some explicit software bound together in some form that can be delivered, so a large enterprise can use an application and not have everybody start from first principles. Because right now, when you built a robotics application, you make all the hardware, you make all the software. All the intellectual and actual capital [money] gets dissipated, building and rebuilding those same things. So robotics applications over time will be investable, much more like the way we invest in software, and that will allow smaller units of creativity to produce useful products.

TC: Andy, how long do you think it’s going to take until we get there?

AW: I think I think we’re making we’re making steady progress on that front. To your earlier question, this space has a lot of folks that are building technology a bit in search of a problem. That’s a common thing in startups generally. I would encourage everybody who’s looking to build a startup in the space is to really find a burning business problem. In the course of solving those [problems], people will build these platforms that Peter was talking about, and we’ll eventually get there in terms of [founders] just having to focus on the application layer.

TC: There are so many buckets: delivery robots, self-driving trucks. Both relate in ways to the overarching problem for our age, which is climate change. How much do you factor climate change into the investing decisions that you make?

PB: When we look at applications and robotics in agricultural, a lot of [our questions are] around how do you deal with a minimum carbon footprint, [and] how you replace workers who are missing. And dealing with climate change will be increasingly be a central thought in what we want from our robots. [After all] what we want from them is the ability to maintain or improve the lifestyles we have without further unwinding the environment.

TC: We talked backstage, and you think we are over-indexing on autonomy as the answer.

PB: When we think about autonomy, it’s not clear how autonomy helps cities. . . There are absolutely applications for autonomy, [including] on a farm or in a logistics environment. I think we still really don’t know how to do Level 5 [which is complete automation, requiring zero human assistance]. And I don’t think we know whether it’s exponentially hard or asymptotically. I think it’s decades before there’s any significant Level 5.

[In the meantime, if] we cared about safety, we’d install roundabouts or lower the blood alcohol limit and not try and make a sentient vehicle that drives on the road the way we do, right?

I’d much rather see having the city collaborate with the vehicles and instrument the city to collaborate with clever vehicles for the benefit of everybody who lives there. But that’s not Level 5 autonomy as the way we think of it

EM: It’s slightly interesting that autonomous vehicles, specifically the individual passenger car, evolved in America, because it’s one of the countries that has the least public transport per capita. And that that’s one of the things that the industry has to acknowledge — that there are other options that can be blended into the transport solutions for cities.

It seems like it might be happening because it’s something that an individual can take somewhat control over. You can’t own a bus, but you can own or [rent] a self-driving car.

PB: Or [an electric] scooter or a bike, right. The future of mobility is going to be a blending of all of these things. But not taking advantage of a logistics platform in a city means you’re kind of doing it the hard way, trying to make a robot to have all the human priors required to drive safely. And it’s just not clear that we know how to do that yet.

TC: Andy, GV is a big investor in Uber. What what’s your thinking? Does the city need to be a kind of central brain in order for these private enterprises to work effectively?

AW: I don’t think it’s a strict requirement at all. We’ve seen success with with self-driving trials where the city is not super involved from an infrastructure perspective, I do think it makes it a lot easier if that’s the case, though.