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Archer Aviation, the electric aircraft startup that recently announced a deal to go public via a merger with a blank-check company, plans to launch a network of its urban air taxis in Los Angeles by 2024.

The announcement comes two months after the formation of the Urban Air Mobility Partnership, a one-year initiative between Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and Urban Movement Labs to develop a plan for how to integrate urban aircraft into existing transportation networks and land use policies. Urban Movement Labs, launched in November 2019, is a public-private partnership involving local government and companies to develop, test and deploy transportation technologies. Urban Movement Labs and the city of Los Angeles are working on the design and access of “vertiports,” where people can go to fly on an “urban air mobility” aircraft. Urban air mobility, or UAM, is industry-speak for a highly automated aircraft that can operate and transport passengers or cargo at lower altitudes within urban and suburban areas.

Archer Aviation’s announcement comes two weeks since it landed United Airlines as a customer and an investor in its bid to become a publicly traded company via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. Archer Aviation reached an agreement in early February to merge with special purpose acquisition company Atlas Crest Investment Corp., an increasingly common financial path that allows the startup to eschew the once traditional IPO process. The combined company, which will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker symbol “ACHR,” will have an equity valuation of $3.8 billion.

United Airlines, which has a major hub in Los Angeles, was one of the investors in the deal. Under the terms of its agreement, United placed an order for $1 billion of Archer’s aircraft. United has the option to buy an additional $500 million of aircraft.

“Archer’s commitment to launch their first eVTOL aircraft in one of United’s hubs means our customers are another step closer to reducing their carbon footprint at every stage of their journey, before they even take their seat,” Michael Leskinen, vice president of corporate development and investor relations at United Airlines, said in a statement. “We’re confident that Los Angeles is only the beginning for Archer and we look forward to helping them extend their reach across all of our Hubs.”

Archer has a ways to go before it’s ready to shuttle passengers. The company has yet to mass produce its electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, which is designed to travel up to 60 miles on a single charge at speeds of 150 miles per hour. The company previously said it plans to unveil its full-scale eVTOL later this year and is aiming to begin volume manufacturing in 2023.

Designing and building a hub of vertiports is among the numerous tasks that must be completed in the next three years. Brett Adcock and Adam Goldstein, the company’s co-founders and co-CEOs, have said they’re open to using existing infrastructure such as helipads and parking garages in the short term. Their eVTOL, known as “Maker,” is built to fit within the size of the existing infrastructure, according to the company. That flexibility, assuming the Urban Air Mobility Partnership agrees with the strategy, could help Archer meet its 2024 deadline.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/archer-aviation-aims-to-launch-network-of-urban-air-taxis-in-los-angeles-by-2024/

Twitter is running a new test that will ask users to pause and think before they tweet. According to the company’s announcement, when Twitter detects what appears to be a potentially harmful or offensive reply to someone else’s tweet, it will prompt you to consider revising your text instead of tweeting.

Users whose tweets are flagged in this way will see a pop-up message appear on their screen, which asks, “Want to review this before Tweeting?” There are three buttons to then choose from: one to tweet the reply anyway, an Edit button (this is as close as we’ll get, apparently), and a delete button to discard the tweet entirely. There is also a small link to report if the system got things wrong.

This is not the first time Twitter has run a test like this.

In May 2020 and again in August 2020, Twitter ran variations on this same experiment. In those cases, the text on the pop-up screen was largely the same, but the layout of the three buttons looked different and were less colorful.

The earlier tests ran on Android, iOS and web, but this current iteration is only on iOS, for the time being.

At the time of the initial test, Twitter explained its systems were able to detect harmful language based on the kind of language that had been used in other tweets that had been reported in the past.

It’s been shown that these sorts of built-in small nudges can have an impact.

For example, when Twitter began prompting users to read the article linked in a tweet before retweeting it, the company found that users would open the articles 40% more often than without the nudge. Twitter has also built similar experiments to try to slow down the pace of online conversation on its platform, by doing things like discouraging retweets without commentary or slow down “Likes” on tweets containing misinformation.

Other social networks use small nudges like this, too, to influence their users’ behavior. Instagram back in 2019 launched a feature that would flag potentially offensive comments before they were posted, and later expanded this to captions. TikTok more recently launched a banner that would ask users if they were sure they wanted to share a video that contains “unverified content.”

It’s unclear why Twitter hasn’t simply rolled out the pop-up to combat online abuse — still a serious issue on its platform — and then iterated on the design and style of the message box, as needed.

Compared with the much larger engineering and design efforts the company has had underway — including its newer Stories feature known as Fleets and a Clubhouse rival called Spaces — a box asking users to pause and think seems like something that could have graduated to a full product by now.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/twitter-relaunches-test-that-asks-users-to-revise-harmful-replies/

Amidst all the hype that Lemonade (IPO), Root (IPO), Metromile (SPAC-led debut) and other insurtech players have generated in the last year, it’s been easy to forget about Oscar Health. But now that the company founded in 2012 is approaching the public markets, one of the early tech-themed insurance companies is catching up on the attention front.

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There is some naughty language in The Exchange today. It is necessary. We’ll get back to PG-ifying this column tomorrow. — Alex

So this morning we’re digging into Oscar Health’s first IPO pricing interval, hoping to understand how the market is valuing its unprofitable health-insurance enterprise.

Recall that Oscar Health was valued at around $3.2 billion in March of 2018. That datapoint, via PitchBook, is dated. Oscar Health raised hundreds of millions since (per several venture-capital tracking databases, including Crunchbase) but we lack a final private valuation for the company.

Regardless, with Oscar Health now targeting a $32 to $34 per-share IPO range, we can get our hands dirty.

Let’s get some valuation numbers and then decide if Oscar Health feels cheap or expensive at that price.

Billion-dollar IPO

Oscar Health is looking to reap as much as $1.21 billion in its IPO, a huge sum. The company is selling 30,350,920 shares, with 4,650,000 additional shares reserved for its underwriters. Existing shareholders are selling another 649,080 shares.

This means that after the IPO, Oscar Health will have 197,037,445 Class A and B shares in circulation, or 201,687,445 after counting shares reserved for its underwriters.

Using the company’s $32 to $34 per-share range, we can calculate a valuation minimum of $6.31 billion for the company (lower share count, low-end of price range) and $6.86 billion (higher share count, high-end of price range). That’s the company’s simple IPO valuation.

Oscar Health may also sell up to $375 million of its shares at its IPO price to three different funds. The company advises that the “indication of interest is not a binding agreement or commitment to purchase,” so we can ignore it for now.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/oscar-healths-initial-ipo-price-is-so-high-it-makes-me-want-to-swear/

This morning the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index is off 2.34% after falling yesterday. Shares of Tesla are off more than 6% today, now mired in a bear-market correction after reaching new all-time highs earlier this year. Apple stock is worth $122.02 per share, down from over its recent highs of more than $145.

After a long period of time when it felt like tech stocks only went up, the recent correction is starting to feel material.

There are other ways to measure the selloff. Bessemer’s cloud index is off 4.5% today, after falling over 5% yesterday. And the now-infamous $ARKK, or ARK Innovation ETF that many investors have used as a proxy for growthy-tech stocks, is off 6.6% today after falling 5.9% yesterday.

Hell, even bitcoin has taken a pounding in the last few days, after its recent, relentless rise.

What’s driving the rapid turn-around in the value of tech companies, tech-focused indices, and tech-adjacents, like cryptocurrencies? Not merely one thing, of course, in an environment as complex as the world’s capital markets. But there is a rising narrative that you should consider.

Namely that the money-is-cheap-and-bond-yield-is-garbage-so-everyone-is-putting-money-into-stocks trade is losing steam. As some yields rise, bonds are become more attractive bets. And as COVID-19 vaccines roll out, some investors are pushing their stock-market bets into categories other than tech.

The result is that the landscape of value is shifting; the winds that were at the back of every tech company are receding, at least for now. If the changed weather persists until the very investment climate that tech stocks exist in reaches a new equilibrium, we could see the appetite for tech IPOs lessen, late-stage private valuations for startup shares dip, and more.

Here’s CNBC from earlier today on what’s changing:

Stocks dropped again on Tuesday as tech shares continued to tumble in the face of higher interest rates and a rotation into stocks more linked to the economic comeback.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal on the same theme, from yesterday:

The lift in yields largely reflects investor expectations of a strong economic recovery. However, the collateral damage could include higher borrowing costs for businesses, more options for investors who had seen few alternatives to stocks and less favorable valuation models for some hot technology shares, investors and analysts said.

And here’s Barrons from this morning, noting that what we’re seeing at home is not merely a US-issue:

While members of the NYSE FANG+ index including Tesla, Facebook and Apple have dropped sharply as the yield on the 10-year Treasury has climbed, the sector also is on the retreat overseas.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/the-current-narrative-explaining-why-tech-stocks-are-getting-hammered/

3D model provider CGTrader, has raised $9.5M in a Series B funding led by Finnish VC fund Evli Growth Partners, alongside previous investors Karma Ventures and LVV Group. Ex-Rovio CEO Mikael Hed also invested and joins as Board Chairman. We first covered the Vilnius-based company when it raised 200,000 euro from Practica Capital.

Founded in 2011 by 3D designer Marius Kalytis (now COO), CGTrader has become a signifiant 3D content provider – it even claims to be the world’s largest. In its marketplace are 1.1M 3D models and 3.5M 3D designers, service 370,000 businesses including Nike, Microsoft, Made.com, Crate & Barrel, and Staples.

Unlike photos, 3D models can also be used to create both static images as well as AR experiences, so that users can see how a product might fit in their home. The company is also looking to invest in automating 3D modeling, QA, and asset management processes with AI. 

Dalia Lasaite, CEO and co-founder of CGTrader said in a statement: “3D models are not only widely used in professional 3D industries, but have become a more convenient and cost-effective way of generating amazing product visuals for e-commerce as well. With our ARsenal enterprise platform, it is up to ten times cheaper to produce photorealistic 3D visuals that are indistinguishable from photographs.”

CGTrader now plans to consolidate its position and further develop its platform.

The company competes with TurboSquid (which was recently acquired for $75 million by Shutterstock) and Threekit.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/3d-model-provider-cgtrader-raises-9-5m-series-b-led-by-evli-growth-partners/