//

As the fight against climate change heats up, Cove.Tool is looking to help tackle carbon emissions one building at a time.

The Atlanta-based startup provides an automated big-data platform that helps architects, engineers and contractors identify the most cost-effective ways to make buildings compliant with energy efficiency requirements. After raising an initial round earlier this year, the company completed the final close of a $750,000 seed round. Since the initial announcement of the round earlier this month, Urban Us, the early-stage fund focused on companies transforming city life, has joined the syndicate comprised of Tech Square Labs and Knoll Ventures.

Helping firms navigate a growing suite of energy standards and options

Cove.Tool software allows building designers and managers to plug in a variety of building conditions, energy options, and zoning specifications to get to the most cost-effective method of hitting building energy efficiency requirements (Cove.Tool Press Image / Cove.Tool / https://covetool.com).

In the US, the buildings we live and work in contribute more carbon emissions than any other sector. Governments across the country are now looking to improve energy consumption habits by implementing new building codes that set higher energy efficiency requirements for buildings. 

However, figuring out the best ways to meet changing energy standards has become an increasingly difficult task for designers. For one, buildings are subject to differing federal, state and city codes that are all frequently updated and overlaid on one another. Therefore, the specific efficiency requirements for a building can be hard to understand, geographically unique and immensely variable from project to project.

Architects, engineers and contractors also have more options for managing energy consumption than ever before – equipped with tools like connected devices, real-time energy-management software and more-affordable renewable energy resources. And the effectiveness and cost of each resource are also impacted by variables distinct to each project and each location, such as local conditions, resource placement, and factors as specific as the amount of shade a building sees.

With designers and contractors facing countless resource combinations and weightings, Cove.Tool looks to make it easier to identify and implement the most cost-effective and efficient resource bundles that can be used to hit a building’s energy efficiency requirements.

Cove.Tool users begin by specifying a variety of project-specific inputs, which can include a vast amount of extremely granular detail around a building’s use, location, dimensions or otherwise. The software runs the inputs through a set of parametric energy models before spitting out the optimal resource combination under the set parameters.

For example, if a project is located on a site with heavy wind flow in a cold city, the platform might tell you to increase window size and spend on energy efficient wall installations, while reducing spending on HVAC systems. Along with its recommendations, Cove.Tool provides in-depth but fairly easy-to-understand graphical analyses that illustrate various aspects of a building’s energy performance under different scenarios and sensitivities.

Cove.Tool users can input granular project-specifics, such as shading from particular beams and facades, to get precise analyses around a building’s energy performance under different scenarios and sensitivities.

Democratizing building energy modeling

Traditionally, the design process for a building’s energy system can be quite painful for architecture and engineering firms.

An architect would send initial building designs to engineers, who then test out a variety of energy system scenarios over the course a few weeks. By the time the engineers are able to come back with an analysis, the architects have often made significant design changes, which then gets sent back to the engineers, forcing the energy plan to constantly be 1-to-3 months behind the rest of the building. This process can not only lead to less-efficient and more-expensive energy infrastructure, but the hectic back-and-forth can lead to longer project timelines, unexpected construction issues, delays and budget overruns.

Cove.Tool effectively looks to automate the process of “energy modeling.” The energy modeling looks to ease the pains of energy design in the same ways Building Information Modeling (BIM) has transformed architectural design and construction. Just as BIM creates predictive digital simulations that test all the design attributes of a project, energy modeling uses building specs, environmental conditions, and various other parameters to simulate a building’s energy efficiency, costs and footprint.

By using energy modeling, developers can optimize the design of the building’s energy system, adjust plans in real-time, and more effectively manage the construction of a building’s energy infrastructure. However, the expertise needed for energy modeling falls outside the comfort zones of many firms, who often have to outsource the task to expensive consultants.

The frustrations of energy system design and the complexities of energy modeling are ones the Cove.Tool team knows well. Patrick Chopson and Sandeep Ajuha, two of the company’s three co-founders, are former architects that worked as energy modeling consultants when they first began building out the Cove.Tool software.

After seeing their clients’ initial excitement over the ability to quickly analyze millions of combinations and instantly identify the ones that produce cost and energy savings, Patrick and Sandeep teamed up with CTO Daniel Chopson and focused full-time on building out a comprehensive automated solution that would allow firms to run energy modeling analysis without costly consultants, more quickly, and through an interface that would be easy enough for an architectural intern to use.

So far there seems to be serious demand for the product, with the company already boasting an impressive roster of customers that includes several of the country’s largest architecture firms, such as HGA, HKS and Cooper Carry. And the platform has delivered compelling results – for example, one residential developer was able to identify energy solutions that cost $2 million less than the building’s original model. With the funds from its seed round, Cove.Tool plans further enhance its sales effort while continuing to develop additional features for the platform.

Changing decision-making and fighting climate change

The value proposition Cove.Tool hopes to offer is clear – the company wants to make it easier, faster and cheaper for firms to use innovative design processes that help identify the most cost-effective and energy-efficient solutions for their buildings, all while reducing the risks of redesign, delay and budget overruns.

Longer-term, the company hopes that it can help the building industry move towards more innovative project processes and more informed decision-making while making a serious dent in the fight against emissions.

“We want to change the way decisions are made. We want decisions to move away from being just intuition to become more data-driven.” The co-founders told TechCrunch.

“Ultimately we want to help stop climate change one building at a time. Stopping climate change is such a huge undertaking but if we can change the behavior of buildings it can be a bit easier. Architects and engineers are working hard but they need help and we need to change.”

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2SoO0ro

//

Telemedicine startup Nurx — once dubbed the “Uber for birth control” — has launched a direct-to-consumer Human papillomavirus (HPV) testing kit. The addition means its customers can test for the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. and a cause of genital warts and cervical cancer in the comfort of their own homes.

The Y-Combinator graduate is backed with about $42 million in venture capital funding from Kleiner Perkins, Union Square Ventures, Lowercase Capital and others. It launched in 2015 to facilitate women’s access to birth control across the U.S. with a HIPAA-compliant web platform and mobile application that delivers contraceptives directly to customer’s doorsteps. Nurx’s telemedicine platform ensure its users can communicate with doctors and are provided the resources necessary in choosing the correct method of birth control.

The HPV test is free with insurance, aside from the $15 shipping and lab processing fee, and $69 for those without insurance. Beginning today, the kit is available to all current Nurx users and will be fully rolled out to new customers in 2019.

In addition to birth control and the HPV test, the company also ships PrEp, a once-daily pill that reduces the risk of getting HIV. Nurx’s expansion beyond birth control is part of the company’s goal of helping people take control of their health, especially the millions in the U.S. who live in “contraceptive deserts,” or areas where there is no reasonable access to a public clinic.

“Our mission here is to leverage telemedicine to change public healthcare,” Nurx co-founder and chief executive officer Hans Gangeskar told TechCrunch. “We are building a full-stack primary care telemedicine platform at an unparalleled cost.”

The HPV testing kit is only approved for women over 30 and is not a replacement for a Pap smear, which collects a sample of cells from the cervix to check for abnormalities. Still, the kit, which requires only a vaginal swab, is able to assess for 14 high-risks of HPV that lead to cervical cancer. The company says the test will be a game-changer for women who are not regularly able to get Pap smears or who have not had access to the HPV vaccine, like women who live in rural areas and those without health insurance.

Nurx raised a $36 million round with support from the Clinton Foundation in July. As part of the deal, Chelsea Clinton joined its board of directors. The company has used that investment to incorporate the HPV testing kit, as well as to expand into several new markets in 2018. 

Nurx is currently available in 22 states, including the District of Columbia.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2E0zMZN

//

The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission has approved new rules that set a minimum hourly wage of $17.22 (after expenses) for drivers who work with app-based services like Uber, Lyft, Via and Juno.

Fast Company reports that the rules try to deliver that minimum wage by requiring drivers be paid according to a formula that incorporates mileage, time and utilization rate (the average percentage of time drivers have passengers in their cars). They also call a higher payment when drivers have to take passengers far outside the city (to compensate for them for the return trip).

A proposed bonus payment for drivers offering Uber Pool and other shared ride options appears to have been removed from the rules.

The Independent Drivers Guild, a labor organization that advocates for drivers, has been advocating for these changes, and it praised the TLC vote in a press release.

“Today we brought desperately needed relief to 80,000 working families,” said IDG founder Jim Conigliaro, Jr. “All workers deserve the protection of a fair, livable wage and we are proud to be setting the new bar for contractor workers’ rights in America. We are thankful to the Mayor, Commissioner [Meera] Joshi and the Taxi and Limousine Commission, City Council Member Brad Lander and all of the city officials who listened to and stood up for drivers.”

Uber and Lyft, meanwhile, criticized the decision, though with careful wording emphasizing that the companies aren’t opposed to ensuring that drivers receive a living wage.

“Uber supports efforts to ensure that full-time drivers in NYC – whether driving with taxi, limo or Uber – are able to make a living wage, without harming outer borough riders who have been ignored by yellow taxi and underserved by mass transit,” said Uber Director of Public Affairs Jason Post in a statement. “The TLC’s implementation of the City Council’s legislation to increase driver earnings will lead to higher than necessary fare increases for riders while missing an opportunity to deal with congestion in Manhattan’s central business district.”

Post argued that the rules do not account for the bonuses and other incentive payments that Uber and other companies might make. He criticized the TLC for adopting “an industry-wide utilization rate that does not hold bases accountable for keeping cars full with paying passengers.”

And here’s the statement from Lyft:

Lyft believes all drivers should earn a livable wage and we are committed to helping drivers reach their goals. Unfortunately, the TLC’s proposed pay rules will undermine competition by allowing certain companies to pay drivers lower wages, and disincentive drivers from giving rides to and from areas outside Manhattan. These rules would be a step backward for New Yorkers, and we urge the TLC to reconsider them.

Specifically Lyft says that companies would be able to essentially adopt a lower minimum wage by claiming a higher utilization rate than the industry average. It also says that it will be nearly impossible to implement the higher out-of-town payment rates in the 30-day window before the new rules take effect.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2RubAmI

//

More evidence has emerged that the e-scooter sharing market faces a bumpy ride, as news circulates that authorities in Madrid have revoked licenses for all three operators in the city.

Lime, Wind and Voi, are being given a maximum of 72 hours to remove scooters from the city’s streets, whilst I understand the follows a recent change in mobility laws in Madrid that stipulate where and at what speed e-scooters can be driven.

Specifically, e-scooters can only operate in designated bike lanes and on only roads that have a speed limit below 30 kilometres per hour. Sidewalk and pedestrian areas were also recently banned following Spain’s first death from a e-scooter accident in August.

Meanwhile, my sources in Madrid tell me a meeting has just taken place between the city’s transport authorities to presumably find a resolution for the conflict. What the outcome of those talks are isn’t yet known, although the path to compliance may actually be relatively simple.

Lime, Wind and VOI will need to make changes to their respective apps, which could include geo-fencing where the e-scooters can be ridden, as well as communicating those restriction to users and legally enforcing them via their terms of service. In other words, this may yet prove to be little more than a speed bump in the current e-scooter frenzy.

Asked to comment on the situation in Madrid, Voi — which has made a virtue out of its ability to work with local governments and transport authorities – issued the following statement:

Voi is working closely with the authorities in Madrid to make sure that our app complies fully with the city’s new guidelines. We are confident that we will be able to get our scooters back on the streets of Madrid in a short time, to help residents and visitors travel around the city quickly and safely, in an environmentally-friendly, low-impact way.

I’ve also reached out to Lime and Wind and will update this article if and when I hear back.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2G0X44F

//

FortressIQ, a startup that wants to bring a new kind of artificial intelligence to process automation called imitation learning, emerged from stealth this morning and announced it has raised $12 million.

The Series A investment came entirely from a single venture capital firm, Light Speed Venture Partners. Today’s funding comes on top of $4 million in seed capital the company raised previously from Boldstart Ventures, Comcast Ventures and Eniac Ventures.

Pankaj Chowdhry, founder & CEO of FortressIQ says that his company basically replaces high-cost consultants, who are paid to do time and motion studies and automates that process in a fairly creative way. It’s a bit like Robotics Process Automation (RPA), a space that is attracting a lot of investment right now, but instead of simply recording what’s happening on the desktop, and reproducing that digitally, it takes it a step further, a process called “imitation learning.”

“We want to be able to replicate human behavior through observation. We’re targeting this idea of how can we help people understand their processes. But imitation learning is I think the most interesting area of artificial intelligence because it focuses not on what AI can do, but how can AI learn and adapt,” he explained

They start by capturing a low-bandwidth movie of the process. “So we build virtual processors. And basically the idea is we have an agent that gets deployed by your enterprise IT group, and it integrates into the video card,” Chowdhry explained.

He points out that it’s not actually using a camera, but it captures everything going on, as a person interacts with a Windows desktop. In that regard it’s similar to RPA. “The next component is our AI models and computer vision. And we build these models that can literally watch the movie and transcribe the movie into what we call a series of software interactions,” he said.

Another key differentiator here is that they have built a data mining component on top of this, so if the person in the movie is doing something like booking an invoice, and stops to check email or Slack, FortressIQ can understand when an activity isn’t part of the process and filters that out automatically.

The product will be offered as a cloud service. Chowdhry’s previous company Third Pillar Systems was acquired by Genpact in 2013.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2rma4Yl

//

Fivetran, a startup that builds automated data pipelines between data repositories and cloud data warehouses and analytics tools, announced a $15 million Series A investment led by Matrix Partners.

Fivetran helps move data from source repositories like Salesforce and NetSuite to data warehouses like Snowflake or analytics tools like Looker. Company CEO and co-founder George Frasier says that the automation is the key differentiator here between his company and competitors like Informatica and SnapLogic.

“What makes Fivetran different is that it’s an automated data pipeline to basically connect all your sources. You can access your data warehouse, and all of the data just appears and gets kept updated automatically,” Frasier explained. While he acknowledges that there is a great deal of complexity behind the scenes to drive that automation, he stresses that his company is hiding that complexity from the customer.

The company launched out Y Combinator in 2012, and other than $4 million in seed funding along the way, it has relied solely on revenue up until now. That’s a rather refreshing approach to running an enterprise startup, which typically requires piles of cash to build out sales and marketing organizations to compete with the big guys they are trying to unseat.

One of the key reasons that they’ve been able to take this approach has been the company’s partner strategy. Having the ability to get data into another company’s solution with a minimum of fuss and expense has attracted data-hungry applications. In addition to the previously mentioned Snowflake and Looker, the company counts Google BigQuery, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Redshift, Tableau, Periscope Data, Salesforce, NetSuite and PostgreSQL as partners.

Ilya Sukhar, general partner at Matrix Partners, who will be joining the Fivetran board under the terms of deal sees a lot of potential here. “We’ve gone from companies talking about the move to the cloud to preparing to execute their plans, and the most sophisticated are making Fivetran, along with cloud data warehouses and modern analysis tools, the backbone of their analytical infrastructure,” Sukhar said in a statement.

They currently have 100 employees spread out across four offices in Oakland, Denver, Bangalore and Dublin. They boast 500 customers using their product including Square, WeWork, Vice Media and Lime Scooters, among others.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2SnAyUO

//

It’s been a whirlwind few months for Forethought, a startup with a new way of looking at enterprise search that relies on artificial intelligence. In September, the company took home the TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield trophy in San Francisco, and today it announced a $9 million Series A investment.

It’s pretty easy to connect to the dots between the two events. CEO and co-founder Deon Nicholas said they’ve seen a strong uptick in interest since the win. “Thanks to TechCrunch Disrupt, we have had a lot of things going on including a bunch of new customer interest, but the biggest news is that we’ve raised our $9 million Series A round,” he told TechCrunch.

The investment was led by NEA with K9 Ventures, Village Global and several Angel investors also participating. The Angel crew includes Front CEO Mathilde Collin, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and Learnvest CEO Alexa von Tobel.

Forethought aims to change conventional enterprise search by shifting from the old keyword kind of approach to using artificial intelligence underpinnings to retrieve the correct information from a corpus of documents.

“We don’t work on keywords. You can ask questions without keywords and using synonyms to help understand what you actually mean, we can actually pull out the correct answer [from the content] and deliver it to you,” Nicholas told TechCrunch in September.

He points out that it’s still early days for the company. It had been in stealth for a year before launching at TechCrunch Disrupt in September. Since the event, the three co-founders have brought on six additional employees and they will be looking to hire more in the next year, especially around machine learning and product and UX design.

At launch, they could be embedded in Salesforce and Zendesk, but are looking to expand beyond that.

The company is concentrating on customer service for starters, but with the new money in hand, it intends to begin looking at other areas in the enterprise that could benefit from a smart information retrieval system. “We believe that this can expand beyond customer support to general information retrieval in the enterprise,” Nicholas said.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2E9KspS

//

Changes are afoot at Techstars NYC. Over the summer, Alex Iskold announced that he would be leaving his role as the program’s managing director, and other staff members are departing as well. Now Techstars says Jenny Fielding is taking charge of the program.

Fielding is already a Techstars veteran, having run a number of its industry-focused corporate accelerators, such as Techstars IoT, the Barclays Accelerator and the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator. She’s also one of the cofounders at The Fund, an early-stage fund that backs New York City founders.

Techstars, meanwhile, has become increasingly focused on corporate partnerships, but it still operates a handful of independent, industry-agnostic programs based in cities like Boulder, Boston and New York.

In a blog post, Fielding said that by taking on her new role, she’s “doubling down on my commitment to the NYC tech community.” She continued:

My goal is to build even deeper ties with local organizations that foster community and promote inclusivity … New York is one of the most diverse cities in the world, and Techstars is committed to having founders, mentors, partners, and program staff who reflect this mix of people and cultures. Further supporting this mission of inclusion, Techstars continues to deepen relationships with the many universities and civic initiatives that foster innovation.

The next Techstars NYC class will begin in July of 2019. Applications open on January 7.

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2AMcbc0

//

One of Europe’s most popular fitness applications is poised to flourish in the U.S. market with the help of several Los Angeles-based investors.

Freeletics, headquartered in Munich, Germany, is today announcing its first round of private capital after bootstrapping since 2013. The $45 million Series A was co-led by FitLab, Causeway Media Partners and JAZZ Venture Partners, with participation from Courtside Ventures, Elysian Park Ventures and ward.ventures. Sports teams including the San Francisco 49ers and the Boston Celtics also invested, though Freeletics founder and chief executive officer Daniel Sobhani declined to comment on any partnerships that may be in the works between the startup and the athletes.

As you might expect from the name, Freeletics operates its mobile fitness coaching app on a freemium model, with tiered pricing beginning at $11.99 for one month or $74.99 for a year-long membership. The app, which offers fitness content and AI-powered training plans tailored to individual users, initially focused on Germany but has since grown in popularity across Europe and in the U.S.

“We want to be there for people who want a long-term athletic lifestyle,” Sobhani told TechCrunch. “There are hundreds of millions of people who would love to make a change to their health and fitness but only a fraction of those actually make it. Helping people at scale to solve such a common problem is a tremendous benefit for the person but also for society.”

Freeletics chief executive officer Daniel Sobhani.

Sobhani says Freeletics now has 31 million users in over 160 countries and will use its first bit of VC backing to grow its American user base — where it’s been growing 100 percent month-over-month. The company also plans to add a Netflix-style training platform, where “unlimited relevant training plans” will be available to paying users, as well as nutritional guidance to help people stay fit. The startup, however, has no plans to expand into hardware.

“Most of the people out there that want to become fitter or healthier are reverting to choices that have been there for decades, like going to the gym or running but without broader context or understanding,” Sobhani said. “Or they are turning to books or very restrictive diets. Tech solutions are so much better because they can adjust to you; they can make sure what you’re doing is effective.”

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2BRcvbl

//

​Mixcloud​, the audio streaming platform that is popular for long-form content, such as radio shows and DJ sets, has launched a “fan-to-creator” subscription service in a bid to find new ways of monetizing and ensuring both artists and curators get paid.

Dubbed “​Mixcloud Select,” the new feature lets listeners subscribe to a Select creator’s channel so they can directly support them, and contribute to the licensing cost of the music played in the shows. Subscribers get an enhanced listening experience that includes the ability to download shows to listen offline and view upfront track lists, making it feel a lot more like on-demand and less tied to the legacy of over-the-air radio.

Nico Perez, co-founder of Mixcloud, frames Mixcloud Select as a pioneering move toward building a “fair and sustainable ecosystem” that works for audio creators, artists and listeners. “We want to enable fans to get closer to the culture and communities they care about, while ensuring that everyone involved in the creative process is recognized and rewarded accordingly,” he says in a statement.

That’s very much inline with the conversation Perez and I had back in April when TechCrunch reported on Mixcloud’s first ever funding round (despite being founded ten years ago). At the time the Mixcloud founder hinted at a consumer-facing subscription service, as well as discussing the licensing groundwork the company had laid. It comes as no surprise therefore to see Select launch.

Mixcloud has previously announced direct licensing deals with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, Merlin, Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, ICE (a joint initiative between PRS, GEMA, and STIM) and many others. Related to this, the company has a proprietary content ID system that claims to identify individual tracks and underlying rights holders.

Mixcloud Select initially goes live with 47 creators who have already used the Mixcloud platform to build listener communities, and covers a wide range of genres and scenes. Creators range from international DJs including Afrojack, Nicole Moudaber, Lefto and John Digweed to homegrown Mixcloud stars such as DJ Blighty and Low Light Mixes; independent radio stations Brooklyn Radio, Soho Radio and Red Light Radio; record labels Defected Records and Axtone Records; and curators Clash Magazine and Stamp the Wax.

Channel subscriptions start at ($/£/€) 2.99 per month, with the ability for creators to set a higher price. Subscriptions renew monthly and can be cancelled anytime.

Mixcloud also says it will collaborate with creators to roll out additional new features, such as offering exclusive content and direct messaging with subscribers. All creators can now register their interest in joining Select in the near future.“

from Startups – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2EfgvVm