Author: Megan Rose Dickey

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Uber appoints Rachel Holt as head of new modalities

Uber is racing ahead to become the go-to multi-modal transportation service. On the heels of a multimillion-dollar acquisition of JUMP bikes, the launch of UberRENT, its permit application to deploy electric scooters in San Francisco and a partnership with public transit company Masabi, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has tapped Rachel Holt to lead the company’s New Modalities organization.

As head of new modalities, Holt will be responsible for the ramp-up and onboarding of additional mobility services — be that public transit integration, scooters, car rentals, bikes and whatever else Uber has up its sleeves. That means she’ll also work closely with JUMP CEO Ryan Rzepecki.

“I’m excited to bring my learnings and experiences scaling Uber’s rides business to bear as we incubate and build new ways to move around the more than 600 cities we serve,” Holt said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch.

Holt has worked at Uber since October 2011, when the company was live in just three cities. In May 2016, she became VP and regional general manager of Uber’s operations in the U.S. and Canada.

The move signals the seriousness of Uber’s efforts to expand beyond traditional ride-sharing, and even autonomous ride-sharing. Khosrowshahi has repeatedly voiced his intent for Uber to become a multi-modal transportation company, so the creating of a new department is not all that surprising. And as Uber gets closer to its 2019 initial public offering, the company is clearly trying to highlight its variety of potential revenue streams.

Uber CEO outlines mobility plans

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Grace Hopper computing conference looks to bring more attention to women of color

AnitaB.org, the organization behind the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, has released its second-ever diversity report.

As of today, AnitaB.org employs 59 people — 27 white people, seven black people, seven Latinx people, 13 Asian people, 1 Native American person, three people of two or more races and one person with an unspecified race. At the leadership level, AnitaB.org appointed Brenda Darden Wilkerson, a black woman, to serve as its CEO and president. The organization has also made some slight improvements in terms of gender balance, growing from just 4.2 percent male in 2016 to 11 percent male in 2017. 

Onstage, ABI has a goal of ensuring women of color make up at least 30 percent of the speakers, but did not disclose the exact breakdown for its most recent conference.

Under Wilkerson’s leadership, AnitaB.org looks to become more inclusive. The goal, Wilkerson told TechCrunch, is to “become much more representative of the women we support.”

Since her first day, about nine months ago, that has meant “broadening the tent,” she said.

“Making it much bigger and more inclusive, to let women of all backgrounds — socioeconomic, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability and age,” Wilkerson said. “I think ageism is a huge problem.

That broadening of the tent specifically entails focusing on women of color founders, she said, pointing to a recent report that showed black women still receive a ridiculously low amount of venture funding. In total, according to digitalundivided, black women have raised just .0006 percent of all tech venture funding since 2009.

“We know that women and people of color create solutions that really solve so many people’s problems,” she said. “Those ideas grow out of the empathy of their experiences.”

Wilkerson expects to see some of these ideas come from the organization’s inaugural PitcHER startup contest this September. The thinking is that many of these types of companies will come from a number of women of color. If you look at categories that are focused on women and families, she said, “many times those fall more to women and people of color.”

Wilkerson also wants to recognize the women in the middle of their careers, who may “hit that ceiling and can’t go further in their organization,” she said.

AnitaB.org released its first diversity report in December 2016. At that time, AnitaB.org was 59.5 percent white, 17.5 percent Asian, 9 percent black and 9 percent Latinx. The organization did not disclose diversity at the leadership level, which was notable given that both former and current AnitaB.org employees earlier that year told me there was a lack of people of color in leadership positions.

Grace Hopper organizers struggle to practice the diversity they advocate

Now, AnitaB.org seems more willing to do the work. And perhaps it helps that the organization has a black woman at the helm.

“The excuse choir for why the needle is not being moved needs to stop,” Wilkerson said. “I’m going to call bullshit on diversity fatigue. We’re going to take bold steps and say ‘this is not hard, it can get done.’ We’re going to do the hard things technologists do.”

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Grace Hopper computing conference looks to bring more attention to women of color

AnitaB.org, the organization behind the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, has released its second-ever diversity report.

As of today, AnitaB.org employs 59 people — 27 white people, seven black people, seven Latinx people, 13 Asian people, 1 Native American person, three people of two or more races and one person with an unspecified race. At the leadership level, AnitaB.org appointed Brenda Darden Wilkerson, a black woman, to serve as its CEO and president. The organization has also made some slight improvements in terms of gender balance, growing from just 4.2 percent male in 2016 to 11 percent male in 2017. 

Onstage, ABI has a goal of ensuring women of color make up at least 30 percent of the speakers, but did not disclose the exact breakdown for its most recent conference.

Under Wilkerson’s leadership, AnitaB.org looks to become more inclusive. The goal, Wilkerson told TechCrunch, is to “become much more representative of the women we support.”

Since her first day, about nine months ago, that has meant “broadening the tent,” she said.

“Making it much bigger and more inclusive, to let women of all backgrounds — socioeconomic, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability and age,” Wilkerson said. “I think ageism is a huge problem.

That broadening of the tent specifically entails focusing on women of color founders, she said, pointing to a recent report that showed black women still receive a ridiculously low amount of venture funding. In total, according to digitalundivided, black women have raised just .0006 percent of all tech venture funding since 2009.

“We know that women and people of color create solutions that really solve so many people’s problems,” she said. “Those ideas grow out of the empathy of their experiences.”

Wilkerson expects to see some of these ideas come from the organization’s inaugural PitcHER startup contest this September. The thinking is that many of these types of companies will come from a number of women of color. If you look at categories that are focused on women and families, she said, “many times those fall more to women and people of color.”

Wilkerson also wants to recognize the women in the middle of their careers, who may “hit that ceiling and can’t go further in their organization,” she said.

AnitaB.org released its first diversity report in December 2016. At that time, AnitaB.org was 59.5 percent white, 17.5 percent Asian, 9 percent black and 9 percent Latinx. The organization did not disclose diversity at the leadership level, which was notable given that both former and current AnitaB.org employees earlier that year told me there was a lack of people of color in leadership positions.

Grace Hopper organizers struggle to practice the diversity they advocate

Now, AnitaB.org seems more willing to do the work. And perhaps it helps that the organization has a black woman at the helm.

“The excuse choir for why the needle is not being moved needs to stop,” Wilkerson said. “I’m going to call bullshit on diversity fatigue. We’re going to take bold steps and say ‘this is not hard, it can get done.’ We’re going to do the hard things technologists do.”

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Self-driving car startup Nuro teams up with Kroger for same-day grocery delivery

Nuro, an autonomous vehicle startup focused on local deliveries, has partnered with 135-year-old grocery retailer Kroger to offer same-day deliveries. The two have yet to announce which market this will be live in, but the plan is to launch the several-month-long pilot this fall.

Nuro’s intent is to use its self-driving technology in the last mile for the delivery of local goods and services. That could be things like groceries, dry cleaning, an item you left at a friends house or really anything within city limits that can fit inside one of Nuro’s vehicles. Nuro has two compartments that can fit up to six grocery bags each.

When it came to going to market, Nuro CEO Dave Ferguson told me groceries were most exciting to him. And Kroger particularly stood out because of its smart shelf technology and partnership Ocado around automated fulfillment centers.

“With the pilot, we’re excited about getting more experience interacting with real customers and understanding exactly what they want,” Ferguson said. “The things they love about it, the things they don’t love as much. As an organization for us, it’s also very valuable for us to have to exercise our operational muscle.”

Throughout the pilot program, Nuro will be looking to see how accurate its estimated delivery times are, how the public reacts to the vehicles and how regular, basic cars interact with self-driving ones.

The pilot will be live in just one market, but Kroger has 2,800 stores nationwide so Nuro sees the partnership as an opportunity to reach the vast majority of America. Kroger already offers same-day delivery to 75 percent of its customers. With Nuro on board, the idea is to deploy the self-driving cars in areas where Kroger has yet to offer delivery services.

“We want to be available to every single customer of ours,” Kroger Chief Digital Officer Yael Cosset told TechCrunch.

On the customer side, the experience will surely be different from what they’re used to. Currently, Kroger customers expect the grocery delivery drivers to bring their items to their front door. With Nuro’s vehicles, they’ll only go as far as curbside.

“This is an area where we’re going to learn a lot from the pilot,” Cosset said. “We have theories and assumptions about high density and low density and we want to see how that plays out.”

Cosset went on to describe how he doesn’t see the current model for delivery and autonomous vehicle-powered delivery as mutually exclusive.

“We believe they’re complimentary,” Cosset said. “We may realize the optimal time to use autonomous vehicles is between 10 – 11 in the morning and the rest of the day have a fully-staffed model.”

Down the road, Nuro will continue looking at additional partners for its local delivery ambitions. Although Nuro is excited about the partnership with Kroger, it’s not an exclusive one.

“Given we’re a startup, we can’t afford to put our eggs in one basket,” Ferguson said. “But we do have the full intention of going big with Kroger and trying to do as much as we can together.”

Other potential partners for Nuro may include those like local dry cleaners, bakeries and florists.

“I think the only way realistically to do that is to provide a way for customers to access all of these local services through one spot,” Ferguson said. “That way, we’ll be able to collectively provide this local community delivery service and have some way to get all these local businesses within the same experience.”

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Self-driving car startup Nuro teams up with Kroger for same-day grocery delivery

Nuro, an autonomous vehicle startup focused on local deliveries, has partnered with 135-year-old grocery retailer Kroger to offer same-day deliveries. The two have yet to announce which market this will be live in, but the plan is to launch the several-month-long pilot this fall.

Nuro’s intent is to use its self-driving technology in the last mile for the delivery of local goods and services. That could be things like groceries, dry cleaning, an item you left at a friends house or really anything within city limits that can fit inside one of Nuro’s vehicles. Nuro has two compartments that can fit up to six grocery bags each.

When it came to going to market, Nuro CEO Dave Ferguson told me groceries were most exciting to him. And Kroger particularly stood out because of its smart shelf technology and partnership Ocado around automated fulfillment centers.

“With the pilot, we’re excited about getting more experience interacting with real customers and understanding exactly what they want,” Ferguson said. “The things they love about it, the things they don’t love as much. As an organization for us, it’s also very valuable for us to have to exercise our operational muscle.”

Throughout the pilot program, Nuro will be looking to see how accurate its estimated delivery times are, how the public reacts to the vehicles and how regular, basic cars interact with self-driving ones.

The pilot will be live in just one market, but Kroger has 2,800 stores nationwide so Nuro sees the partnership as an opportunity to reach the vast majority of America. Kroger already offers same-day delivery to 75 percent of its customers. With Nuro on board, the idea is to deploy the self-driving cars in areas where Kroger has yet to offer delivery services.

“We want to be available to every single customer of ours,” Kroger Chief Digital Officer Yael Cosset told TechCrunch.

On the customer side, the experience will surely be different from what they’re used to. Currently, Kroger customers expect the grocery delivery drivers to bring their items to their front door. With Nuro’s vehicles, they’ll only go as far as curbside.

“This is an area where we’re going to learn a lot from the pilot,” Cosset said. “We have theories and assumptions about high density and low density and we want to see how that plays out.”

Cosset went on to describe how he doesn’t see the current model for delivery and autonomous vehicle-powered delivery as mutually exclusive.

“We believe they’re complimentary,” Cosset said. “We may realize the optimal time to use autonomous vehicles is between 10 – 11 in the morning and the rest of the day have a fully-staffed model.”

Down the road, Nuro will continue looking at additional partners for its local delivery ambitions. Although Nuro is excited about the partnership with Kroger, it’s not an exclusive one.

“Given we’re a startup, we can’t afford to put our eggs in one basket,” Ferguson said. “But we do have the full intention of going big with Kroger and trying to do as much as we can together.”

Other potential partners for Nuro may include those like local dry cleaners, bakeries and florists.

“I think the only way realistically to do that is to provide a way for customers to access all of these local services through one spot,” Ferguson said. “That way, we’ll be able to collectively provide this local community delivery service and have some way to get all these local businesses within the same experience.”

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Electric scooter and bike parking has arrived

Zagster, the bike-share company behind the Pace brand, is launching what it’s calling Pace Parking. The idea is for it so serve as a parking platform for bikes, electric bikes and electric scooters. Pace is first launching these in Chicago, Austin and Bloomington, Ind., with the plan to launch in additional cities this year.

This parking platform is designed to support dockless lock-to vehicles, like JUMP bikes and Skip scooters. In partnership with cities, private landowners and local businesses, the idea is to make sure communities have proper parking infrastructure.

“With the meteoric rise of dockless bikes, ebikes and scooters in the U.S., our cities are now in the early stages of a massive transformation in how people get around — one as significant as the personal automobile in 20th century,” Zagster CEO Tim Ericson said in a statement. “Imagine a city with tens of thousands of cars and nowhere to park them — this is the huge challenge faced by every major U.S. city right now. Without mobility parking infrastructure, cities have no solution to secure the flood of new vehicles descending upon their streets and sidewalks, and we are the first company to do something about it. As the pioneer of lock-to dockless bike sharing, we’re proud to deliver the first ever universal, secure, smart parking platform for parking not just Pace bikes, but other shared bikes, personal bikes, electric scooters, and future mobility vehicles.”

Earlier this year, Zagster raised a $15 million round led by Edison Capital Partners. The startup has also unveiled its new bike parking system for both shared and personal bikes.

“Bikes have always locked to things,” Zagster CEO Tim Ericson said in a press release. “Cities have been willing to experiment with dockless bikes that don’t lock to anything because they lack sufficient bike parking and, until Pace, lacked a partner willing to install this infrastructure at no cost.”

Zagster’s Pace is one of the newer entrants to the bike-share space, which consists of a number of startups and larger companies battling for contracts with cities all over the world.

Pace, which launched in December, currently operates in Tallahassee, Florida and Knoxville, Tennessee. With the funding, Zagster plans to launch Pace in additional cities this year. Zagster also operates a bike-share solution for municipalities looking to offer their own city-specific services. Zagster, which launched in 2007, operates more than 200 bike-shares across 35 states in the U.S. This move to support multi-modal transportation options likely signals the entrance of yet another electric scooter service.

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b8ta raises $19 million Series B led by Macy’s

b8ta, the retail-as-a-service startup, has closed a $19 million Series B round led by Macy’s, with participation from Sound Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, Capitaland, Graphene Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Plug and Play Ventures. This round brings b8ta’s total funding to $39 million.

Macy’s decision to lead this round comes in light of its recent partnership with b8ta to enhance the retailer’s experiential-based concept called The Market. Macy’s is also expanding its partnership with b8ta to launch The Market in a larger space, entirely powered by Built by b8ta, which functions as a retail-as-a-service platform for brands that want a physical presence. b8ta’s software solution includes checkout, inventory, point of sale, inventory management, staff scheduling services and more.

“Testing a shop with them in their store and having really good success made us feel bullish that this model would work well for them,” b8ta CEO Vibhu Norby told TechCrunch.

To the outsider, there’s this idea that Macy’s is struggling — in light of a bunch of store closures. That was a conversation b8ta had internally, Norby said.

“As an example, our board was initially not certain we should do something with them, but I felt like it was worth a shot,” Norby told me. “For us to get comfortable, we spent a lot of time trying to understand their business. What we found was that perception in the media didn’t really meet the reality for us. The reality is Macy’s is one of the most important companies in the country.”

Macy’s, Norby said, is also one of the largest real estate companies in the world and owns “so much real estate in all of the best places.”

He added, “it’s not that retail itself is dying, it’s just that it’s changing. The way people want to shop is changing and we have a shared alignment on bringing that next generation of a company into the space.”

In addition to the expanded partnership with Macy’s, b8ta is opening new flagship stores in Chicago and Tysons Corner, Va. b8ta currently has more than 78 flagship stores across the country to let consumers experience tech gadgets in real life.

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Autonomous delivery drone startup Matternet raises $16 million round led by Boeing’s venture arm

Because autonomous delivery drones are undoubtedly coming, Boeing HorizonX Ventures, the aviation company’s venture arm, led a $16 million round in drone startup Matternet . Other investors include Swiss Post, Sony Innovation Fund and Levitate Capital. With this funding, Matternet’s plan is to further expand throughout the U.S. and internationally in urban environments.

“Matternet’s technology and proven track record make the development of a safe, global autonomous air mobility system a near-term reality,” Boeing HorizonX Ventures Managing Director Brian Schettler said in a statement. “Between the company’s success in Switzerland and being selected by the FAA to test unmanned aerial networks in the U.S., we are excited to work together to reimagine how the world connects and shape the next generation of transportation solutions.”

Just last month, the Federal Aviation Administration selected, among others, Matternet for drone logistics operations for U.S. hospitals as part of its Unmanned Aircraft System pilot program. In 2015, Matternet started testing the first drone delivery system in Zurich, Switzerland to transport blood and pathology samples to labs.

Matternet has since expanded its operations in Switzerland, and has conducted more than 1,700 flights over densely populated areas to make more than 850 deliveries of patient samples.

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Meru Health wants to make mental health care more accessible

Getting mental health services can be burdensome. And if you’re already going through a tough time, you’re probably looking for help sooner than later. But based on the current landscape, it can take months to find the right therapist who also takes your insurance.

This is where Meru Health hopes to come in. By providing its service as a benefit for employers to offer to their employees, Meru Health can operate as a first line of treatment where people can get help in a matter of weeks, Meru Health co-founder and CEO Kristian Ranta told TechCrunch.

Ranta, who lost his brother to suicide a few years ago, said there are “unfortunately lots of people suffering from depression and who are vulnerable to burnout.”

It’s true. Worldwide, more than 300 million people suffer from depression and 260 million suffer from anxiety disorders, according to the World Health Organization.

Meru Health offers an eight-week treatment program for depression, burnout and anxiety. The program, currently led by five licensed therapists, utilizes both cognitive behavioral therapy, behavioral activation and mindfulness-based intervention. Provided as an employee benefit, Meru Health only charges companies if the patients report feeling any better.

Meru Health’s current customers include WeWork and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. To date, Meru Health says 75 percent of the people who go through its program report symptom reduction.

Other startups working in the mental health space include Pacifica and Lantern, a mental health startup that offers tools to deal with stress, anxiety and body image. To date, Lantern has raised more than $20 million in funding. Another one is Talkspace, which aims to be an alternative to traditional therapy.

Down the road, Meru Health may make its service available to everyday consumers, but right now, Ranta said the focus is on selling to larger employers and doing clinical research. Meru Health is also looking to bring on board a doctor to help with medication management and, possibly, even providing prescriptions, Ranta said. Meru Health, which is currently participating in Y Combinator, envisions bringing on a medical doctor post-YC.

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Uber drivers made more than $600 million in tips in one year

Since finally launching in-app tipping for drivers last year, Uber has facilitated more than $600 million worth of payments in tips to its drivers. In August, Uber hit $50 million in tips.

Since introducing mid-trip ratings and tips in May, there has been a 30 percent increase in tipping, Uber product manager Dhruv Tyagi wrote in a blog post. In April, Lyft announced drivers hit $500 million in tips since its launch, with tip averages increasing by nearly 8 percent in 2017 compared to 2016.

Lyft, of course, is not available in nearly as many markets as Uber. Lyft only operates in the U.S. and Canada, while Uber operates in the U.S., Canada, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. So, more continents and cities means more opportunities for tipping.

Uber drivers make the most tips in Salt Lake City, Utah, San Antonio, Texas, Kansas City, Mo, New Orleans, La. and Nashville, Tenn. When Lyft ran its numbers, it found riders are most generous in New York City, Atlanta, Ga., Detroit, Mich., Dallas, Tx., San Jose, Calif., Minneapolis, Minn. and Westchester County, NY.

In terms of popular times to tip, people tip the most on Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they tip the most at 8:12pm on Thursday, 10:33pm on Saturday and 5:17am on Sunday.