World Of News

When in 2010, former VC Michael Kim set out to raise a fund that he would invest in a spate of micro VC managers, the investors to which he turned didn’t get it. Why pay Kim and his firm, Cendana Capital ,  a management fee on top of the management fees that the VC managers themselves charge? Fast forward to today, and Kim has apparently proven to his backers that he’s worth the extra cost. Three years after raising $260 million across a handful of vehicles whose capital he plugged into up-and-coming venture firms, Kim is now revealing a fresh $278 million in capital commitments, including $218 million for its fourth flagship fund, and $60 million that Cendana will be managing expressly for the University of Texas endowment. We talked with Kim last week about how he plans to invest the money, which differs slightly from how he has invested in the past. Rather than stick solely with U.S.-based seed-stage managers who are raising vehicles of $100 million or less, he will split Cenda

Facebook’s recently launched app, Hobbi , an experiment in short-form content creation around personal projects, hobbies, and other Pinterest-y content, is already shutting down. The app first arrived on iOS in February as one of now several launches from Facebook’s internal R&D group, the NPE Team. Hobbi users have now been notified by way of push notification that the app is shutting down on July 10, 2020. The app allows users to export their data from its settings. In the few months it’s been live on the U.S. App Store, Hobbi only gained 7,000 downloads, according to estimates from Sensor Tower. Apptopia also reported the app had under 10K downloads and saw minimal gains during May and June. Though Hobbi clearly took cues from Pinterest, it was not designed to be a pinboard of inspirational ideas. Instead, Hobbi users would organize photos of their projects — like gardening, cooking, arts & crafts, décor, and more — in a visual diary of sorts. The goal was to photograph

Lyft’s self-driving vehicle division has restarted testing on public roads in California, several months after pausing operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Lyft’s Level 5 program said Tuesday some of its autonomous vehicles are back on the road in Palo Alto and at its closed test track. The company has not resumed a pilot program that provided rides to Lyft employees in Palo Alto. The company said it is following CDC guidelines for personal protective equipment and surface cleaning. It has also enacted several additional safety steps to prevent the spread of COVID. Each autonomous test vehicle is equipped with partitions to separate the two safety operators inside, the company said. The operators must wear face shields and submit to temperature checks. They’re also paired together for two weeks at a time. Lyft’s Level 5 program — a nod to the SAE automated driving level that means the vehicle handles all driving in all conditions — launched in July 2017 but didn’t starting testi

The good ship Extra Crunch Live sails along today, bringing two noted venture capitalists aboard to discuss the world’s investing patterns, their own deals and much more. Extra Crunch members can join the conversation with Hans Tung and Jeff Richards from GGV Capital at 3:30 p.m. EDT/12:30 p.m. PDT/7:30 p.m. GMT. We’ll collect audience questions as we go, so buy  an Extra Crunch trial now so you can participate. Of course, TechCrunch has a list of its own queries — GGV Capital invests globally, which means it has eyes and ears in a number of different markets. We’ll dig into how different markets are faring: Is China’s VC scene as slow as it seems? Is Europe bouncing back as we’ve been hearing? And what’s the current temperature here in the United States for Series A through C rounds? With the stock market back to form, exits are hot again, which gives us a new set of topics to explore, including how GGV views M&A appetite today from a price perspective, and whether any of th

Amazon Web Services ( AWS) is upping its space industry game with a dedicated business unit called Aerospace and Satellite Solutions (as first reported by the WSJ ) that’s focused on space projects, including from customers like NASA, the U.S. military, and private space players including Lockheed Martin and others. AWS has already served satellite and space industry customers, including with its AWS Ground Station offering, which provides satellite communication and data processing as a service, helping customers bypass the need to set up their own dedicated ground stations when establishing their satellite networks and constellations. The AWS segment will be led by retired Air Force Major General Glint Crosier, who was involved in the set up of the U.S. Space Force arm of the U.S. military. The choice of leadership is a good indicator of what the primary purpose of this unit will be: landing and serving large, lucrative customers mostly form the defense industry. In a high-prof

Over the years, a number of support organizations geared toward fostering diversity and inclusion in tech have emerged. Black Innovation Alliance , which launches today, aims to serve as a unifying force for the many organizations focused on supporting Black innovators. Meanwhile, The Alliance’s existence signals to white folks that there are other organizations focused on advancing Black people beyond the NAACP, United Negro College Fund, Color of Change and others. “There’s so much that we owe to the organizations like the NAACP and UNCF and others,” Aniyia Williams, co-creator of BIA and founder of Black & Brown Founders told TechCrunch. “They’re wonderful, but are they going to get us to the next stage of where this movement has to go? I have people who work in these organizations that I know who also tell me the answer is no. […] It’s like white people want to grab the closest Black thing to them and say, ‘here, you fix the problem.’ But can we be just a little bit more inten

It’s been a busy last 24 hours or so for on-demand delivery company Postmates . According to reporting, the company is reviving its IPO plans , possibly selling to Uber , or perhaps looking to go public with the help of a special purpose acquisition vehicle , also known as a SPAC. For Postmates, a company caught somewhere between DoorDash’s cash-fueled rise and Uber’s ability to lose hundreds of millions on its Uber Eats delivery service every quarter, multiples options are likely welcome. Postmates first filed to go public in early 2019 , but its IPO failed to materialize. The company was also reported to be pursuing a sale in 2019 after it had filed to go public . An M&A exit also failed to appear. The Exchange is a daily look at startups and the private markets for Extra Crunch subscribers; use code EXCHANGE to get full access and take 25% off your subscription . But 2020 is very different from 2019. With GrubHub’s bidding war behind us , Uber appears hungry for more vo

WeWork, the once $47 billion company that was on the brink of a public offering, has been divesting a great number of its assets as it looks to right the course since releasing its S-1 , which exposed its expanding costs, among other things, and sent its valuation plummeting. Today, WeWork is announcing the sale of 100 percent of the equity in Flatiron School to Carrick Capital Partners, an investment firm focused on software-enabled businesses. Other terms of the deal, such as acquisition price, were not disclosed. WeWork acquired Flatiron School , a coding academy that offers ‘intensive and expensive’ technical courses, according to founder and CEO Adam Enbar, in 2017. New York-based Flatiron School launched in 2012 and raised more than $14 million from investors like Matrix Partners, CRV, BoxGroup and Thrive Capital before being acquired. One of the strategic benefits of the merger with WeWork was Flatiron School’s access to hundreds of thousands of square feet of real estate sp