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Trafi, the Lithuanian startup that created a platform that lets users plan, book and pay for various modes of transportation within a city, is expanding beyond the European market where it got its start to tackle one of the most congested urban areas in the world.
The company said it has reached an agreement to provide its mobility-as-a-service platform in Bogota, Colombia.
Trafi’s platform is a white label product. But underneath the name — whether it’s Yuomov in Zurich, Jelbi in Berlin or MVG in Munich — is the same underlying technology. The company, which operates in seven European cities, is able to capture transportation data to provide real-time route planning for users. It also handles the payment system, which helps it stand apart from some of its competitors.
Trafi doesn’t just work with cities, however. The company’s tech is also used by Google, Lyft, Dott and nextbike — to name a few.
In Bogota, the platform will pull together all the forms of public transit, including buses and trams, as well as local taxis and e-bikes. Users can use the single-payment system to book and pay for the various modes of transportation. The app includes real-time departure information, a “nearby function” that will show the user all mobility options available within their location and “intermodal routing,” which proposes combinations of up to three different modes such as taking an e-bike to the bus stop.
Image Credits: Trafi
Bogota is just the start. Trafi co-founder and CEO Martynas Gudonavičius told TechCrunch that the company plans to expand to other LatAm cities. The company will target capital cities in other LatAm countries first, places like São Paulo in Brazil. Gudonavičius said Trafi will seek out contracts with smaller and medium-sized cities in the region as well. Any city with digital ticketing and various modes of transportation, including scooter and bicycles, buses and ride-hailing, is a good fit for the company, he added.
“Latin America is a superb example where mobility-as-a-service can really strive,” Gudonavičius said. “This is why we’re in Bogota, it’s this young, dynamic, fast-growing population. And we are here to help them do the big transition from transportation patterns and behavior they have at the moment, to a mobility-as-a service concept.”
Trafi is hiring for a director in the region and plans to hire more people in all departments this year. It’s also eyeing an expansion into Asia in the second half of 2021. Gudonavičius wouldn’t provide specific details, but said the company had a short list of cities it wanted to enter. He specifically noted that Trafi planned to expand to a city in Japan.
Chalk one up for Jigsaw, an “anti-superficial” dating app that has scored £2.7 million ($3.7 million) in seed funding to put toward U.S. expansion. The round is led by a lead generation company for online dating companies, called The Relationship Corp., with backing from angel investors in the U.S. and U.K. “primarily” in the tech sector.
As the startup’s name suggests, Jigsaw adds a little cryptic fun to the transactional business of swiping photos of other singles in search of dating chemistry in a bid to offer a less superficial experience.
Albeit their (patented) anti-superficial twist looks a tad gimmicky at first blush: They literally superimpose a digital jigsaw over the faces of users, with pieces removed gradually the more you interact — and the full face only revealed after a pre-set amount of in-app engagement.
Digital filters are also banned, per the app’s FAQ; they only want “real” selfies. So no cute cat ears, etc.
They’ve got a few more tricks up their sleeve but don’t want to offer a public reveal of the planned features we guessed were coming just yet (but, well, a quick glance at the app and it’s basically a half finished jigsaw puzzle of their product roadmap).
The U.K. startup — which was founded back in 2016 by a couple of friends, Alex Durrant (co-founder and CEO) and Max Adamski (co-founder and CPO), when they were at university (and finding the dating app scene frustratingly superficial, as they tell it, going on to quit their jobs and go all in on the project in 2018) — launched its puzzle-faced dating experience in London in 2019; and opened up to the U.S. in November last year.
Jigsaw has some 150,000+ registered users across those two markets at this point, with 50,000 in the U.S. — and an appetite to step things up over the pond now that they’re flush with new funds.
Durrant says the team is hoping to hit half a million U.S. users in the next six months. They reckon there’s a trend toward less superficial swiping in the American dating app scene that Jigsaw is well-positioned to tap into.
“We’re not insane and think people look better with puzzles over their faces, I promise, the puzzle is our middle finger to the superficial dating industry,” he says. “It exists as you say to encourage more meaningful/sustained interactions and to help users look beyond the looks.”
Currently, Jigsaw’s face-shielding mechanism involves a puzzle made up of 16 pieces. All photos start with one piece removed “so you get a sneak peek”. Another then comes off when a user likes (matches with) the person so at the start of chatting there are two pieces revealed.
More pieces are removed as the pair mutually exchange messages until there’s no more puzzle bits left. Hopefully you also won’t run out of conversation at that point.
“Over six messages each (12 in total) is what we believe is the minimum needed for a meaningful conversation,” says Durrant. “That’s why the jigsaw puzzle currently unveils fully after seven messages are exchanged (14 pieces revealed in total), revealing the face underneath. This number has been tested and this is the current sweet spot for our users.”
Jigsaw isn’t unique in the concept of shielding facial visuals to encourage dating app users to do more chatting and less mindless swiping. There are a whole bunch of “slower reveal” style twists aimed at reducing “dating app fatigue” — as another app, INYN, which also limits the velocity of the profile reveal, puts it.
Another app which blurs users’ photos until they do some chatting is Taffy. There’s also Muslim matchmaking app Veil — which offers a “digital veil” feature (aka an opaque filter) that it applies to all profile photos, male and female, until a mutual match is made.
Other “anti-superficial” dating apps, like Willow, try a Q&A style approach — getting users to answer questions to see more photos. The list goes on.
Still, Jigsaw has come up with perhaps the most visually obvious (and gamified) twist on this slow-reveal format. And being so immediately, well, obvious, it might make its “slow reveal” twist stick for longer than the average “love is blind” alternative dating app.
Its seed investment is not about buying users, either. We made sure to check.
The Relationship Corp. does offer user acquisition/traffic generation services to dating apps — including those it invests in — but in Jigsaw’s case the investment is a straight equity investment, per Durrant. So it’s at least sounding confident in its ability to grow.
“They’re super low-key but are known in the industry,” says Durrant of the lead seed investor. “Steve Happas their CEO is ex-Match and… sits on our advisory board [as part of the investment]. We had an option to work with them to acquire users but instead, they are supporting our internal team in an advisory capacity.”
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/15/jigsaw-scores-3-7m-to-slow-down-your-dating-swipes/
Parler, a social network adopted by the far right and recently kicked off AWS for its userbase’s habit of advocating violence, is back online. The restoration questions the notion that “big tech” can take and keep an unwanted presence offline, but Parler’s return is not quite a triumph, and its new CEO doesn’t suggest much of a change in philosophy.
Users can now log in to Parler on the web, but when they do they will find that all their old posts and content have been removed. It’s unclear whether this was a consequence of the hurried exit from AWS last month, a scorched-earth policy regarding the content that got the site in hot water in the first place, or for some other reason.
Fortunately someone had the presence of mind to make a backup, though not with the intention of restoring it. @donk_enby scraped millions of posts and media files from the site for posterity, something that has already borne fruit as researchers have used the files to show, or example, where certain users were on the day of the Capitol riots. (She is currently pointing out various problems with the new Parler’s web rollout.)
The new site is described in a statement as using “sustainable, independent technology and not reliant on so-called ‘Big Tech’ for its operations.” The new host is SkySilk, seemingly a reseller of OVHcloud, and I’ve asked if the company plans to enforce its terms, which generally but not specifically prohibit things like threats of violence. (The details of the terms violations were made more public in Parler’s attempt to force Amazon to reinstate it.)
Parler, for its part, aims to make itself a bit less of an easy target by upping its moderation game. The site will supposedly be using both AI and human moderators to watch for content that could rock the boat — though Facebook has been trying this for years and still hasn’t quite got the hang of it.
They may have an easier job of it, considering Parler is still barred from the Google Play Store and iOS App Store. That’s a huge damper on activity, since mobile users make up a large part of social networks. So the flood of content the site could not adequately monitor in early January may have slowed to a trickle. (I’ve asked the company for more information on this and other matters and will update this post if I hear back.)
Meanwhile the operation is being overseen by a new interim CEO after the ouster of John Matze by the board. The one to fill the role is Mark Meckler, founder of the Tea Party Patriots, staunch opponents of Obamacare and big fans of debunked COVID-19 treatment hydroxychloroquine. The group was also behind the infamous “America’s Frontline Doctors” event and was one of the organizers of the March to Save America that turned into the Capitol Riots.
Meckler’s pedigree suggests that despite the claimed moderation improvements, this is hardly Parler turning a new leaf. With the deliberate (and apparently unavoidable) break with “Big Tech,” however it is defined, and a CEO who embodies the same qualities that ran amok before, it seems a lot more like stubborn defiance than introspection and graceful compromise.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/15/parler-crawls-back-online-empty-and-with-a-tea-party-ceo/
GoPuff, the U.S.-based startup that operates its own “microfulfillment” network and promises to deliver items such as over-the-counter medicine, baby food and alcohol in 30 minutes or less, is in talks to acquire the U.K.’s Fancy Delivery, TechCrunch has learned.
According to sources, terms of the acquisition are still being fleshed out, and the deal has yet to get over the line. However, an announcement could come in the next few weeks if not sooner. GoPuff declined to comment. Fancy’s founders couldn’t be reached before publication, either.
Launched late last year, Fancy currently operates in four cities in the U.K. and is a graduate of the Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator. It has a strikingly similar model to its potential buyer, leading some to describe it as a mini goPuff. The two companies are fully vertically integrated, meaning they each contract their own fleet of drivers and operate their own microfulfillment centres — sometimes dubbed “dark stores” — designed specifically for online ordering and hyperlocal delivery.
Strategically, the potential acquisition of Fancy looks to be a good fit, and most notably would signal goPuff’s intent to expand to the U.K. via purchasing a nascent local player rather than starting entirely from scratch. Sources tell me Fancy will continue to operate under the Fancy brand and that goPuff intends to invest in its growth, including hiring and opening additional fulfillment centers. One source tells TechCrunch the acquisition will be an all-stock deal.
GoPuff was recently valued at $3.9 billion and has raised $1.35 billion in funding to-date (backers include Accel, D1 Capital Partners, Luxor Capital and SoftBank Vision Fund). It already operates in 500 U.S. cities, and isn’t shy of making acquisitions, either, most recently purchasing alcohol-focussed BevMo.
Meanwhile, Europe is seeing a slew of startups inspired by goPuff’s vertically integrated model sprouting up. They include Berlin’s much-hyped Gorillas and London’s Dija and Weezy, and France’s Cajoo, all of which claim to focus more on fresh food and groceries, where margins are arguably tighter. There’s also the likes of Zapp, which is still in stealth and more focused on a higher-margin convenience store offering.
It’s becoming harder for the U.S. to ignore the very real effects of global climate change — and despite the efforts of naysayers, it’s not a push to renewables that’s to blame for the outages sweeping the nation. It’s the country’s energy infrastructure.
Severe weather conditions caused by global warming have now caused massive blackouts across some of the largest cities in the United States. The inability of the U.S. power grid to withstand the stresses caused by extreme weather events show that the nation needs a massive investment plan to upgrade energy infrastructure in an effort to make it more resilient.
These problems are now painfully apparent to the 29 million residents of Texas who are now subject to rolling blackouts caused by the frigid weather sweeping across the country.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said it had “entered emergency conditions and initiated rotating outages at 1:25 a.m. today,” in a statement. The Texas grid shed 10.5 gigawatts of load — or enough to power 2 million homes at its peak.
“Extreme weather conditions caused many generating units – across fuel types – to trip offline and become unavailable,” the energy provider said in a statement.
Part of the problem lies with natural gas generators that supply much of the power to the grid in Texas, according to Princeton professor, Jesse Jenkins, who has a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment.
Citing a market participant, Jenkins noted on Twitter that roughly 26 gigawatts of thermal energy is offline because natural gas is being diverted to provide heat instead of power. Only about 4 gigawatts of wind is offline because of icing, Jenkins noted.
Confidential info from a market participant in ERCOT: As of ~10 AM Eastern time, the system has ~30 GW of capacity offline, ~26 GW of thermal — mostly natural gas which cant get fuel deliveries which are being priorities for heating loads — and ~4 GW of wind due to icing. https://t.co/Bfpn0WeRIq
— JesseJenkins (@JesseJenkins) February 15, 2021
The current blackouts have nothing to do with renewables and everything to do with cold weather slowing down natural gas production because of freeze offs and spiking demand for heating at the same time.
As Dr. Emily Grubert, an assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and, by courtesy, of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, noted, the problem is more of a total systems issue than one associated with renewable power.
“Let us be absolutely clear: if there are grid failures today, it shows the existing (largely fossil-based) system cannot handle these conditions either,” Grubert wrote on Twitter. “These are scary, climate change-affected conditions that pose extreme challenges to the grid. We are likely to continue to see situations like this where our existing system cannot easily handle them. Any electricity system needs to make massive adaptive improvements.”
Renewable energy and energy storage can potentially provide a solution to the problem and help contribute to a more resilient grid. Residential energy developer Swell Energy raised $450 million in financing late last year to begin development of several projects across three states that would pair distributed, residential solar energy generation with battery storage to create what are called virtual power plants that can ease stress on energy grids in times of increased demand.
“Utilities are increasingly looking to distributed energy resources as valuable ‘grid edge’ assets,” said Suleman Khan, CEO of Swell Energy, in a statement, at the time of the announcement. “By networking these individual homes and businesses into virtual power plants, Swell is able to bring down the cost of ownership for its customers and help utilities manage demand across their electric grids.”
Other companies, like Evolve Energy or Griddy, try to help consumers manage costs by charging them wholesale rates for power. Those companies can only be economical when the rates for wholesale power are low. Right now, with demand for power skyrocketing, prices for energy in the ERCOT have surged above $5,000 per MW and hit the $9,000 cap in many nodes, according to Bloomberg Energy reporter Javier Bias.
The blackouts in Texas today and in California in January show that the current grid in the United States needs an overhaul. Whether it’s heavily regulated markets like California or a free market like Texas, current policy can’t stop the weather from wreaking havoc and putting people’s lives at risk.
