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Sources: US federal and state authorities are preparing as many as four antitrust cases targeting Facebook and Google by the end of January 2021 — Federal and state authorities, probing whether the tech giants abused their power in the internet economy, are preparing as many as four cases
Italy's antitrust watchdog fines Apple €10M for alleged misleading iPhone water resistance claims in its promotional messages — Apple has been slapped with a 10 million euro ($12 million) fine by Italy's antitrust watchdog for unfair commercial practices related to its iPhone marketing in the country.
Filing: DoorDash is looking to raise up to $2.8B in its IPO, at a valuation of up to $30B, and plans to list shares at $75 to $85 — - Food delivery app DoorDash is looking to raise up to $2.8 billion in its IPO, which would value the company at $30 billion on a fully diluted basis, the company revealed in a new filing Monday.
ServiceNow, the cloud-based IT services company, is making a significant acquisition today to fill out its longer-term strategy to be a big player in the worlds of automation and artificial intelligence for enterprises. It is acquiring Element AI, a startup out of Canada founded by AI pioneers and backed by some of the world’s biggest AI companies — it raised hundreds of millions of dollars from the likes of Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia and Tencent, among others — with an aim of building and provisioning AI-based IT services to enterprises, in many cases organizations that are not technology companies by nature.
Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, a spokesperson told TechCrunch, but we are attempting to find out elsewhere. Element AI was valued at between $600 million and $700 million when it last raised money, $151 million (or C$200 million at the time) in September 2019.
If it’s anywhere near or around that figure, this deal would be ServiceNow’s biggest acquisition, although it’s not clear that it is.
The spokesperson confirmed that ServiceNow is making a full acquisition and will retain most of Element AI’s technical talent, including AI scientists and practitioners: “Our focus with this acquisition is to gain technical talent and AI capabilities,” she said. That will also include Element AI co-founder and CEO, JF Gagné, joining ServiceNow, and co-founder Dr. Yoshua Bengio taking on a role as technical advisor.
The startup is headquartered in Montreal, and ServiceNow’s plan is to create an AI Innovation Hub based around that “to accelerate customer-focused AI innovation in the Now Platform.” (That is the brand name of its automation services.)
Last but not least, ServiceNow will start re-platforming some of Element AI’s capabilities, she said. “We expect to wind down most of Element AI’s customers after the deal is closed.”
The deal is the latest move for a company aiming to build a modern platform fit for our times.
ServiceNow, under CEO Bill McDermott (who joined in October 2019 from SAP), has been on a big investment spree in the name of bringing more AI and automation chops to the SaaS company. That has included a number of acquisitions this year, including Sweagle, Passage AI, and Loom (respectively for $25 million, $33 million and $58 million), plus regular updates to its larger workflow automation platform.
ServiceNow has been around since 2004, so it’s not strictly a legacy business, but all the same the publicly-traded company, with a current market cap of nearly $103 billion, is vying to position itself as the go-to company for “digital transformation” — the buzz term for enterprise IT services this year, as everyone scrambles to do more online, in the cloud, and remotely to continue operating through a global health pandemic and whatever comes in its wake.
“Technology is no longer supporting the business, technology is the business,” McDermott said earlier this year. In a tight market where it is completely plausible that Salesforce might scoop up Slack, ServiceNow is making a play for more tools to cover its own patch of the field.
“AI technology is evolving rapidly as companies race to digitally transform 20th century processes and business models,” said ServiceNow Chief AI Officer Vijay Narayanan, in a statement today. “ServiceNow is leading this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make work, work better for people. With Element AI’s powerful capabilities and world class talent, ServiceNow will empower employees and customers to focus on areas where only humans excel – creative thinking, customer interactions, and unpredictable work. That’s a smarter way to workflow.”
Element AI was always a very ambitious concept for a startup. Dr Yoshua Bengio, winner of the 2018 Turing Award who co-founded the company with AI expert Nicolas Chapados and Jean-François Gagné (Element AI’s CEO) alongside Anne Martel, Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer and Philippe Beaudoin, saw a gap in the market.
Their idea was to build AI services for businesses that were not tech companies in their DNA, but would still very much need to tap into the innovations of the tech world in order to continue growing and remaining competitive with said tech companies as the latter moved deeper into a wider range of industries and the companies themselves required increasing sophistication to operate and grow. They needed, in essence, to disrupt themselves before getting unceremoniously disrupted by someone else.
And on top of that, Element AI could work for and with the tech companies taking strategic investments in Element AI, as those investors wanted to tap some of that expertise themselves, as well as work with the startup to bring more services and win more deals in the enterprise. In addition to its four (sometimes fiercely competitive) investors, other backers included the likes of McKinsey.
Yet what form all of that would take was never completely clear.
When I covered the startup’s most recent tranche of funding last year, I noted that it wasn’t very forthcoming on who its customers actually where. Looking at its website, it still isn’t, although it does lay out several verticals where it aims to work. They include insurance, pharma, logistics, retail, supply chain, manufacturing, government and capital markets.
There were some other positive points too. Element AI also played a strong ethics card with its AI For Good efforts, starting with work with Amnesty in 2018 and most recently Mozilla. Indeed, 2018 was the year AI seemed to hit the mainstream consciousness (and also start to appear somewhat more creepy, with algorithmic misfires, pervasive facial recognition, and more “automated” applications that didn’t work that well), so this definitely made sense.
But for all of that, it seems that there perhaps were not enough threads to need a bigger cloth as a standalone business.
“Element AI’s vision has always been to redefine how companies use AI to help people work smarter,” said Element AI Founder and CEO, Jean-Francois Gagné in a statement. “ServiceNow is leading the workflow revolution and we are inspired by its purpose to make the world of work, work better for people. ServiceNow is the clear partner for us to apply our talent and technology to the most significant challenges facing the enterprise today.”
The acquisition is expected to be completed by early 2021.
Drugmaker Moderna has completed its initial efficacy analysis of its COVID-19 vaccine from the drug’s Phase 3 clinical study, and determined that it was 94.1% effective in preventing people from contracting COVID-19 across 196 confirmed cases from among 30,000 participants in the study. Moderna also found that it was 100% effective in preventing severe cases (such as those that would require hospitalization) and says it hasn’t found any significant safety concerns during the trial. On the basis of these results, the company will file an application for emergency use authorization (EUA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday.
Seeking an EUA is the next step towards actually beginning to distribute and administer Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, and if granted the authorization, it will be able to provide it to high-risk individuals in settings where it could help prevent more deaths, such as with front-line healthcare workers, ahead of receiving a full and final regulatory approval from the U.S. healthcare monitoring agency. Moderna will also seek conditional approval from the European Medicines Agency, which will enable similar use ing the EU.
Moderna’s vaccine is an mRNA vaccine, which provides genetic instructions to a person’s body that prompts them to create their own powerful antibodies to block the receptor sites that allows COVID-19 to infect a patient. It’s a relatively new therapeutic approach for human use, but has the potential to provide potentially even more resistance to COVID-19 than do natural antibodies, and without the risk associated with introducing any actual virus, active or otherwise, to an inoculated individual in order to prompt their immune response.
In mid-November, Moderna announced that its COVID-19 vaccine showed 94.5% efficacy in its preliminary results. This final analysis of that same data hews very close to the original, which is promising news for anyone hoping for an effective solution to be available soon. This data has yet to be peer reviewed, though Moderna says that it will now be submitting data from the Phase 3 study to a scientific publication specifically for that purpose.
Moderna’s vaccine candidate is part of the U.S’s Operation Warp Speed program to expedite the development, production and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, initiated earlier this year as a response to the unprecedented global pandemic. Other vaccines, including one created by Pfizer working with partner BioNTech, as well as an Oxford University/AstraZeneca-developed candidate, are also far along in their Phase 3 testing and readying for emergency approval and use. Pfizer has already applied with the FDA for its own EUA, while the Oxford vaccine likely won’t be taking that step in the U.S. until it completes another round of final testing after discovering an error in the dosage of its first trial – which led to surprising efficacy results.
Sources: in IPOs, Airbnb will target a valuation of $30B-$33B, up from the expected $30B, and DoorDash plans a range of ~$25B-$28B, more than the expected $25B — - Firms target valuation increases amid end of year listing rush — Tech companies' fortunes diverged amid coronavirus pandemic
HungryPanda, which develops a Mandarin-language food delivery app for overseas Chinese consumers, raises $70M Series C led by Kinnevik — Food delivery apps have been a big deal this year both for consumers stuck at home and unable (or unwilling) to go to restaurants or grocery stores …
Apple’s marketing of iPhones as ‘water resistant’ without clarifying the limits of the feature and also having a warranty that excludes cover for damage by liquids has got the company into hot water in Italy.
The Italian competition authority (AGCM) has informed the tech giant of an intent to fine it €10 million for commercial practices related to the marketing and warranty of a number of iPhone models since October 2017, starting with the iPhone 8 through to the iPhone 11, following an investigation into consumer complaints related to its promotion of water resistance and subsequent refusal to cover the cost of repairs caused by water damage.
In a document setting out the AGCM’s decision dated towards the end of October — which was made public today (via Reuters) — the regulator concludes Apple violated the country’s consumer code twice because of what it characterizes as “misleading” and “aggressive” commercial practices.
Its investigation found Apple’s iPhone marketing tricked consumers into believing the devices were impermeable to water, rather than merely water resistant — with the limitations of the feature not given enough prominence in ads. While a disclaimer stating that Apple’s warranty excludes damage by liquids was deemed an aggressive attempt to circumvent consumer rights obligations — given its heavy promotion of the devices as water resistant.
Apple places a liquid contact indicator inside iPhones, which changes from white or silver to red on contact with liquid, and checking the indicator is a standard step undertaken by its repair staff.
The AGCM report cites examples of consumers who’s iPhone had taken a “short dive” in the sea being refused cover. Another complainant had been washing their device under the tap — which Apple deemed improper use.
A third reported that their one-month old iPhone XR stopped working after coming into contact with water. Apple told them they must buy a new device — albeit at a subsidized price.
While an iPhone XS user, with a one-year old handset who reported it had never come into contact with water was refused coverage by Apple support who said it had, complained to the regulator there’s no way for a consumer to prove their device was not immersed in water for more than the length of time and depth to which Apple’s small print specifies it has water resistance.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on the AGCM’s findings.
The tech giant has 60 days from the date it was notified of the regulator’s intent to fine to appeal the decision.
The size of the penalty is well under half of the operating profit the regulator says Apple’s Italian operation made in the year September 2018 to September 2019, when it note it recorded revenues on its sales and services of €58,652,628; and an operating profit of €26,918,658.
Two years ago Italy’s competition watchdog also fined Apple and Samsung around $15M for forcing updates on consumers that may slow or break their devices. While, this February, France fined Apple $27 million for capping the OS performance of iPhones with older batteries.
Apple has also faced much larger penalties from competition authorities elsewhere in Europe — including being notified of a $1.2BN fine by France’s competition authority in March this year, which accused the tech giant of operating a reseller cartel along with two wholesale distribution partners, Ingram Micro and Tech Data.
Apple also had to stump up as much as €500M in back taxes demanded by French authorities last year.
While some $15BN from Apple’s European HQ is sitting in an escrow account to cover a 2016 European Commission ‘State Aid’ charge that it illegally benefited from corporate tax arrangements in Ireland between 2003 and 2014.
In July Apple and Ireland won the first round of an appeal against the charge. But the Commission filed an appeal in September — meaning the case will go up to the CJEU, likely adding years more of legal wrangling.
EU lawmakers are continuing to work on pushing for global reform of digital taxation, while some Member States push on with their own digital taxes.
Best 2020 Cyber Monday deals on gaming consoles, laptops, monitors, Apple, Sonos, and Amazon devices, smartphones, headphones, speakers, and more — We've sifted through the junk to pick out the tech deals most worth your time. — Cyber Monday has arrived.
A look at several clinically effective apps that treat mental illness directly with CBT and other therapy courses, as the FDA expedites the app approval process — - The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the US mental-health crisis, with apps like Calm and Headspace booming as people try to cope.