Indian lawmakers accuse Facebook of political bias

Facebook is facing heat in India, its biggest market by users, over a report that claimed the company compromised its hate speech policy to favor the ruling party.

Politicians from both Bharatiya Janata Party, which rules the government in India, and opposition Indian National Congress lambasted Facebook for its supposed favoritism to the other and thereby taking a political stand in the country.

The debate was sparked by a Wall Street Journal report on Friday which claimed that Ankhi Das, Facebook’s top public-policy executive in India, had opposed applying the company’s hate-speech rules to a member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party.

The report added that posts from at least three more members of BJP individuals and groups were flagged internally for “promoting or participating in violence.”

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said the platform prohibits hate speech and content that incites violence and that it enforces “these policies globally without regard to anyone’s political position/party affiliation.”

“We’re making progress on enforcement and conducting regular audits of our process to ensure fairness and accuracy,” the statement follows.

Rahul Gandhi of Congress, who until mid-last year served as its President, tweeted over the weekend that “BJP controls Facebook and WhatsApp in India. “They spread fake news and hatred through it and use it to influence the electorate.”

Several more politicians with Congress including Shashi Tharoor have shared similar statements. Tharoor tweeted that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology “would certainly wish to hear from Facebook about these reports and what they propose to do about hate-speech in India.”

BJP officials have offered a range of responses. India’s IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad pointed to Congress’ link with Cambridge Analytica and accused Congress’ supposed alliance with Facebook itself to “weaponise data before the elections.” He added, “Now [they] have the gall to question us?”

In an op-ed published with local media, Member of Parliament Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore accused Facebook of being “left-leaning in India.”

“Merely scratching the surface reveals how this storm in a teacup is merely an exercise to browbeat Facebook for ‘allowing’ certain opinions to even exist. It is no secret globally that Facebook has been hauled up by various government bodies for controlling the flow of facts,” he wrote in a piece for Indian Express.

“In India, too, we have seen examples of Facebook actually filtering out non-Left and non-Congress viewpoints through manufactured labels of ‘fake news.’ They are even accused of using shadow banning algorithms,” he wrote.

New Delhi-based digital rights advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation on Monday wrote to the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology, calling for summoning of Facebook’s top global executives, extensive hearings and an international human rights audit leading to reparations for victims.

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AutoX launches its RoboTaxi service in Shanghai, competing with Didi’s pilot program

Autonomous vehicle startup AutoX announced the public launch of of its self-driving taxi service in Shanghai today. Called simply RoboTaxi, AutoX’s offering already faces competition from Didi, China’s largest ride-hailing platform, which launched its own robo-taxi pilot program in Shanghai at the end of June.

AutoX’s RoboTaxis will first be available in Jiading District, starting with a fleet of 100 vehicles. Rides can be booked through AutoNavi, the mapping and transportation-booking app owned by Alibaba, one of the startup’s investors. AutoX, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, raised a $100 million Series A last year from backers including Dongfeng Motor, one of China’s largest vehicle manufacturers, Alibaba, and Plug and Play’s China fund.

AutoX’s service will compete against Didi’s self-driving taxi pilot, which also operates in Jiading District, a large suburban district that is fairly close to Shanghai’s center, but less congested. Didi’s service launched a few weeks after the company announced it had raised $500 million from investors including SoftBank for its new autonomous driving subsidiary. Didi’s ambitious goal is to deploy more than one million autonomous vehicles by 2030.

AutoX and Didi are both competing against a list of autonomous taxi services from Chinese rivals like Pony.ai, Baidu and WeRide. All have already deployed robotaxi programs in different cities. Other companies, like Momenta, are focused on building and selling software for self-driving taxis to partners, which may enable even more robotaxi fleets to launch. Momenta’s progress is due in part to state support, because the Chinese government has created several large funds for industries including autonomous driving, 5G and artificial intelligence, as it tries to offset the economic impact of COVID-19.

When asked about the competitive landscape, Jewel Li, the chief operating officer of AutoX, told TechCrunch that one of its advantages is investor list, which includes original equipment manufacturers and Alibaba. This means AutoX’s backers not only provide funds, but also “the use cases in both mobility and logistics for autonomous driving. This investor portfolio is one of a kind, not only in the China market, but also globally.”

The company also has a robotaxi fleet in Shenzhen’s Nanshan District, she added, giving the company experience with autonomous rides in a densely-populated urban area.

AutoX is currently the third, and only China-focused company, to hold a permit for driverless robotaxis in California, which Li calls the “highest standard permit in the autonomous driving industry.” (The other two holders are Waymo and Nuro).

Autonomous vehicle startup AutoX lands driverless testing permit in California

AutoX’s RoboTaxis will also be available for bookings through Shanghai-based taxi fleet Letzgo’s app. The two companies announced a strategic partnership today that will have Letzgo staff running RoboTaxis at AutoX’s Shanghai operations center, which opened in April.

AutoX also has plans to build out its robotaxi service in Europe.

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As it adds Jeremy Milken to the partnership, Watertower Ventures nears $50 million close for its new fund

Derek Norton and Jeremy Milken have known each other for twenty years. Over their longtime personal and professional relationship, the two Los Angeles-based serial entrepreneurs have invested in each other’s companies and investment firms, but never worked together until now.

Milken is taking the plunge into institutional investing, joining Norton as a partner in Watertower Ventures just as the firm prepares to close on a $50 million new fund.

It’s an auspicious time for both Los Angeles-based businessmen, as the LA venture community sees a wave of technology talent relocating from New York and San Francisco in the newly remote work culture created by the COVID-19 epidemic.

“I see two things happen. One people look at the effects of where the market’s going. We’re seeing a lot more companies that are starting up now as a result of a [the pandemic],” said Norton. “New company formation is happening faster than before covid. [And] a lot of venture capitalists that have relocated to LA. They’ve moved down to LA for lifestyle reasons and they’re saying that they don’t need to go back to San Francisco.”

For Milken, the opportunity to get into venture now is a function of the company creation and acceleration of digital adoption that Norton referenced. “The pandemic is accelerating change in the marketplace. Things that might have taken a decade are taking two years now,” Milken said.

These opportunities are creating an opening for Watertower Ventures in markets far beyond the Hollywood hills. The firm, whose original thesis focused on Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, is now cutting checks on investments in Texas and Utah, and spending much less time looking for companies in the Bay Area.

Derek Norton, founder, Watertower Ventures: Image Credit: Watertower Ventures

Norton’s latest fund is the only the most recent act in a career that has seen the investor traverse the financial services digital media and the early days of the internet. Norton built Digital Boardwalk, a pioneering internet service provider and the second commercial partner for the trailblazing browser service, Netscape.

Later, at Jeffries Technologies, and the $120 million Entertainment Media Ventures seed and early stage venture capital fund, Norton was intimately involved in bringing tech to market and focusing on early stage investments. With that in mind, the Watertower Ventures group, which launched in 2017 with a small, $5 million fund, is a return to those roots.

The plan, even at the time, was always to raise a larger fund. After founding and running the boutique investment banking business at Watertower Group, Norton knew he had to raise a starter fund to prove the thesis he was working on.

That thesis was to provide a bridge between early stage companies and large technology companies using the network that Norton has built in the Southern California tech and entertainment community over decades.

“We want to take our contacts at Google, Apple, Facebook, Disney, Microsoft, Cisco, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and other companies we believe should have a relationship with our portfolio companies, and help the CEOs and management teams more effectively do business development,” Norton told SoCal Tech when he closed his first fund in 2017. “We want to connect them to the right person at those companies to create a commercial relationship. That has a really large impact on early stage companies, who typically don’t have a deep network of relationships, and the ability to get to those type of people. It’s because of our advisory business that we have those relationships, and that’s also why those relationships stay fresh and active, versus people who aren’t in those businesses. It’s almost a full time job to maintain that, and that’s where our value-add is.”

Milken, who has spent his professional career in entrepreneurship, was ready to try investing, and was intimately familiar with Watertower and its portfolio, as an investor in the firm’s first $5 million fund.

“Two years ago we started having those conversations,” said Norton in an interview. “As Jeremy exited his business in September it created the opportunity to go out and raise together as the evolution of our partnership.”

Jeremy Milken, general partner, Watertower Ventures. Image Credit: Watertower Ventures

With the new capital coming in, Norton expects to back some 30 to 35 companies, he said. And, in a testament to the first fund’s performance, which has it in the top decile of venture funds for its vintage, Norton said he was able to raise the capital amidst the economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some 70 percent of the existing portfolio has been marked up, according to Norton.

Even though limited partners, the investors who back venture funds, were reluctant to commit capital to new firms in March and April, fundraising returned with a vengeance in June and July, according to Norton. The paper performance likely was enough to woo additional limited partners and individual investors including TikTok chief executive Kevin Mayer, the former head of streaming at Disney.

Mayer’s presence in the firm’s investor base is a testament to the firm’s pitch to founders. “We view fundraising as a massive distraction for these early stage companies from their business. We try to deliver that network that’s ours to those founders,” said Norton.

“I think we’re in a unique position starting with a fresh fund here,” says Norton. “Uncertainty creates opportunity and people are bringing solutions. We haven’t noticed any slowdown whatsoever, we’re working with twenty five companies per week. Since the inception of the fund, we haven’t seen deal flow at this level.”

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Elon Musk says ’embarrassingly late’ two-factor is coming to Tesla app

Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged Friday that the company was ‘embarrassingly late’ rolling out a security layer known as two-factor authentication for its mobile app.

“Sorry, this is embarrassingly late. Two factor authentication via sms or authenticator app is going through final validation right now,” Musk wrote Friday in response to a question from a Twitter follower.

Musk said in April that the additional security layer was “coming soon.” He first mentioned that the company would add two-factor authentication back in May 2019. Tesla owners have stepped up their calls for two-factor authentication as the rest of the tech community has adopted the security feature.

Sorry, this is embarrassingly late. Two factor authentication via sms or authenticator app is going through final validation right now.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2020

Two-factor authentication — also known as two-step verification — combines something you know, like a password, with something you have, like your phone. This is a way to verify that the real account holder — or car owner — is logging in and not a hacker.

Some websites do this by sending you a code by text message. But hackers can intercept these. A more secure way of doing it is by sending a code through a phone app, often called an authenticator, which security experts prefer.

Beefing up the security on the Tesla mobile app is particularly pressing. The Tesla app is a critical tool for owners, giving them control over numerous functions on their vehicles.

When Bluetooth is enabled, the Tesla app allows drivers to use their phone as a key to Tesla’s newer vehicle models. The app also lets the user remotely lock and unlock the doors, trunk and frunk, turn on the HVAC system, monitor and control charging, locate the vehicle and schedule service — to name a few of the main capabilities.

These days, two-factor authentication is common and widely employed to stop hackers from using stolen passwords to break into users’ accounts. What’s unclear with Tesla is whether the two-factor tool will rely on SMS or a phone app. Musk said the final validation was for SMS “or” authenticator app, a statement that leaves that critical question unanswered.

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Fortnite for Android just got axed from the Google Play Store too

After Epic Games picked a fight with Apple over the sizable chunk of fees the company takes on transactions in its mobile ecosystem, it looks like the Fortnite developer will be waging a war on two fronts.

Epic added a direct payment option to its mobile game early Thursday, prompting Apple to remove Fortnite from the App Store. Now, the Android version of Fortnite has gone missing from Google’s own app marketplace too.

In a statement, Google defended the decision to remove Fortnite for breaking its platform rules:

The open Android ecosystem lets developers distribute apps through multiple app stores. For game developers who choose to use the Play Store, we have consistent policies that are fair to developers and keep the store safe for users. While Fortnite remains available on Android, we can no longer make it available on Play because it violates our policies. However, we welcome the opportunity to continue our discussions with Epic and bring Fortnite back to Google Play.

While Epic’s legal filing and in-game spoof of Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial make for a flashy fight, it’s not Epic’s first tangle over the mobile version of Fortnite. The company actually decided to keep Fortnite out of the Google Play Store back in 2018 over complaints very similar to its current crusade against the 30% cut that Google and Apple take from sales in their app stores. Fortnite is free-to-play, but players buy seasonal passes that unlock its progression system as well an in-game cosmetic items like skins that make Epic a ton of money and don’t affect gameplay.

Apple boots Fortnite from the App Store after Epic adds direct payments

When Epic gave in and brought Fortnite back to the Google Play Store this April, it did so with a statement condemning Google’s treatment of apps outside of its own app marketplace. While all apps in Apple’s iOS come from the App Store, Google actually does allow apps like Fortnite to be sideloaded outside of Google Play, but the experience is generally less smooth and accompanied with warnings about malware.

“Google puts software downloadable outside of Google Play at a disadvantage, through technical and business measures such as scary, repetitive security pop-ups for downloaded and updated software, restrictive manufacturer and carrier agreements and dealings… Because of this, we’ve launched Fortnite for Android on the Google Play Store,” an Epic Games spokesperson said in April.

Fortnite is still available on Android, just not through Google’s app store. On its website, Epic points players to a direct download via QR code and the game is also available through Samsung’s Galaxy Store on supported devices.

Epic Games launches a campaign (and lawsuit) against Apple

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Tune in tomorrow and watch five startups compete at Pitchers & Pitches

Ever hear the expression, “every master was once a disaster?” Now apply that to developing a well-crafted pitch. It takes practice and honest feedback to make a masterful pitch, and that’s exactly what you’ll get when you participate in our next Pitchers & Pitches. It’s 50 percent competition, 50 percent masterclass and 100 percent free.

Join us tomorrow, August 13, at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT as five randomly chosen Digital Startup Alley exhibitors present their rapid-fire pitches to a panel of TC editors and expert VCs. (take a peek at this session’s competitors and judges below).

Get ready to take notes, ask questions — this is an interactive educational event — and apply what you learn to pump up your own 60-second pitch. Here’s another reason to pay close attention to the live pitches; the viewing audience decides which founder throws the best pitch. It’s a competition after all, with a prize and everything.

And it’s a pretty awesome prize if we do say so ourselves. The winner walks away with a consulting session with cela, a company that connects early-stage startups to accelerators and incubators that can help scale their businesses.

Anyone can attend Pitchers & Pitches — and learn valuable tips in the process — but only companies exhibiting in Digital Startup Alley at Disrupt 2020 can compete. If you’d like a shot at competing in our next Pitchers & Pitches event on September 2, purchase a Disrupt Digital Startup Alley Package. You’ll be ready to exhibit and pitch your startup genius to thousands of disrupt attendees from around the world.

Attending Pitchers & Pitches also gives you time to check out the new virtual Disrupt platform before it goes live in September, meet and video network with other P&P attendees and connect with the five pitching founders in their virtual booth in the startup expo.

It’s time to name names — judges are standing by to give their best feedback for this session. The panel consists of two TechCrunch editors — Zack Whittaker and Natasha Mascarhenas and two leading VCs — Sydney Thomas and Curtis Rodgers. When it comes to pitches, this group’s heard ‘em all — the good, the bad and the ugly. Follow their advice and you might just make it into the first category.

And here are the five startups ready to wring every advantage out of tomorrow’s competition.

Myneral Labs

Centrly

Primeclass

CarpeMed

Cirtru

Register here for the next Pitchers & Pitches — tomorrow, August 13 at 4 p.m. ET / 1 p.m. PT. Learn to master your pitch and get ready to make the most of all the opportunities you’ll find at Disrupt 2020.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

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Stream, whose APIs help product teams build chat and activity feeds fast, just raised a $15 million Series A round

Earlier this year, the founders of Stream,  a five-year-old, 60-person startup with offices in Boulder and Amsterdam, weren’t feeling so great about their prospects. As COVID-19 began its spread in the U.S., some smaller customers of the startup — whose APIs enable product teams to build chat and activity feeds for their applications — began to fold.

“It was really scary when [the virus] initially hit, because a lot of our smaller customers went out of business, which made us worry about what would happen to the larger ones,” recalls Thierry Schellenbach, who started Stream with Tommaso Barbugli, the lead engineer at his last startup.

“One [larger customer] did go bankrupt, which impacted our numbers.” But then a strange thing happened, he says. Companies in education and healthcare and online events and even religious communities began beefing up their online operations, and turning in part to Stream to do it.

Schellenbach understood the impulse  He and Barbugli created Stream to address a pain they felt firsthand at Schellenbach’s first company out of college — a social network that was ultimately acquired for a modest sum by a private equity firm in the Netherlands, says Schellenbach. Though it grew to “millions of users,” he says, its activity feed was routinely failing as the network scaled, given its many moving partners involved, and it took a “ton of engineering resources to keep it working well.” The two knew the world needed more off-the-shelf software and specifically software focused on activity feeds, so they began building it themselves.

But that’s not the only reason the company is gaining traction. Schellenbach attributes Stream’s resiliency in the pandemic to a decision 10 months ago to also begin developing a chat API (after seeing customers trying to build their own atop their activity feeds). Now, not only are schools like Harvard, social media companies like Dubsmash, and the health information site Healthline customers nowbut investors are beginning to take more notice.

Indeed, today the company is announcing it has closed a $15 million Series A round that was led by GGV Capital and included 01 Advisors, Knight, seed round lead investor Arthur Ventures, and other backers, including Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel and GitHub cofounder Tom Preston-Werner. The round brings the company’s total funding to $20.25 million.

It was also raised from many individuals who Schellenbach (based in Boulder), and Barbugli (based in Amsterdam), have never met in person, including the GGV team.

Schellenbach credits GGV for not hewing too closely to old models during these socially distanced days, as did “three or four” VCs with whom he’d spoken and who said he’d have to meet them in San Francisco in order to make a deal happen.

He also credits Stream’s fundraising success to the accelerator program TechStars, which Stream entered when it was just two months old back in 2015. As he explains, his first startup — that social network — was based in the Netherlands, and launching Stream, he and Barbuglihad “no VC connections. So TechStars was important to open up the fundraising side of things.”

Those references have only bred more references — and now, more than ever — it makes a difference, he observes. “We’re lucky,” he says. Stream was introduced to GGV. GGV then introduced the team to Dick Costolo of 01 Advisors.

Meanwhile, for “companies trying to raise a seed round, if you don’t have clear references, right now, it’s tough.”

Photo of Schellenbach and  Barbugli, circa 2015, courtesy of Stream.

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Moka, the HR tool for Arm and Shopee in China, closes $43M Series B

Investors are betting on the automation of human resources management in China. We reported last year that Moka, one of the key players in the space, secured roughly $27 million for its Series B led by Hillhouse Capital. This week, the startup announced closing a Series B+ at over 100 million yuan ($14.4 million), lifting its total raise for the B round to 300 million yuan ($43.2 million).

The startup declined to disclose its investors in the latest round, saying the proceeds will go towards recruitment, product innovation and business expansion. GGV Capital invested in its Series A round.

Chinese investors have in recent years shifted more attention to enterprise-facing products as the consumer tech market becomes crammed. Moka makes software to aid HR managers’ day-to-day operations, from posting job openings, discovering potential candidates, to managing current staff. For instance, Moka will alert the HR manager when employees update their resumes, a sign that they could be sniffing out new opportunities.

Moka’s newly appointed CEO Li Guoxing, a former engineer at Facebook

As the new round closed, Moka also appointed its co-founder Li Guoxing as its new chief executive officer. The five-year-old Beijing-based startup was founded by Li, a Facebook veteran, and Zhao Oulun, who was previously the CEO of the company. Zhao worked at the car-sharing service Turo in San Francisco before returning to China.

The new CEO claimed that Moka acquires users at two-third of the industry average cost, with subscription renewal rate for its software-as-a-service hovering above 100%. “The future of business competition definitely lies in the fight for talent,” he said. “So hiring will surely become a company strategy in the future.”

As of June, Moka had accumulated over 700 paid clients, from tech giants like Xiaomi, Didi, Arm China, Shopee, Alibaba, to fast-food giants Burger King and McDonald’s. Its team of 300 staff operates out of five major cities in China.

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