IPO

What Do $U Mean?

On Friday, Unity Software IPO’d on the New York Stock Exchange (with the ticker "U"). True to form, the company held a virtual bell-ringing experience with 3,300+ employees tuning in. 

From basement to Pokémon Go 

Unity started in a Copenhagen basement back in 2004. Now, 50% of all mobile, PC, and console games are created in Unity. In its S-1 filing, Unity said it provides game-making tools to 53% of the top 1,000 mobile companies and 94% of the largest game studios by revenue. 

• Pokémon Go and Call of Duty: Mobile were built in Unity. 
• Unity isn’t profitable yet.

Beyond gaming

Unity is more than a game engine proprietor, CMO Clive Downie told the Brew. The company also powers interactive 3D, VR, and AR content creation. It has over 60% market share in AR and VR content. 

Many Fortune 500 companies “are very aware of the value of real-time 3D and [are] using it in the mainstream workplace,” he said. Unity’s customers hail from the automotive, architecture, engineering, manufacturing, and film/TV industries. 

• One example: Downie said architects designing the tallest building in Brooklyn are using Unity Reflect to gather 3D data and make project adjustments in VR. 

On the future of digital twins—i.e. recreating our physical world virtually—Downie said “The future is already here.” The Hong Kong International Airport is building a major extension. “Unity powers a digital twin for that, and it does it today.” 

Who’s the competition?

I’d tell you Unreal Engine from Epic Games, which is duking it out in court with Apple right now, or Roblox. But Downie said Unity’s biggest competitor is “first-party technologies”—companies building in-house tools—as the company moves more into the AAA space.  

The endgame: “We believe all the digital creators around the world will at some point need our real-time 3D technology,” Downie said. Unity plans for that to be platform- and media-agnostic,  because as long as creators use its tools, the company will grow. 

VC

Fundraising During Covid-19, Ed. 11

Decacorns. Four of ‘em raised some new coin last month: 

• SpaceX raised $1.9 billion (now valued at $46 billion) 
• Epic Games raised $1.8 billion (now valued at $17 billion) 
• Robinhood raised $200 million (now valued at $11 billion) 
• Edtech company BYJU raised $122 million (now valued at $10 billion) 

Electric vehicles: ChargePoint, the EV charging network giant, raised $127 million in an extension of its Series H. Besides charging stations, the firm develops EV hardware and software. 

Robotics: Sarcos Robotics, a firm specializing in exoskeletons to augment human strength and safety, raised a $40 million Series C. (Sarcos announced a partnership with Delta Air Lines in January.) 

Drones: Volansi Inc., a San Francisco-based drone delivery company with industrial and military clients, raised $50 million in its Series B round. 

One more for the road (er, bike lane): Dutch e-bike startup VanMoof raised $40 million in its Series B round. The company told TechCrunch it sold more bikes in January through April 2020 than in the previous two years combined. 

SPONSORED BY MAINSTREET

Founders: You’re Owed $50,000

Sometimes a headline just writes itself. 

Every year, the government sets aside billions in tax credits for startups. Standing between you and the cash you’re owed: paperwork. Lots of paperwork.

Enter: MainStreet. They do all the work for you—90% of startups get cash in less than thirty minutes, and MainStreet only gets paid when you save. Startups get an average of $51,030. 

And because you’re part of the Brew Crew, here’s a VIP onboarding link. 

If you sign up now instead of adding this to your ever-growing to-do list, you’ll be $50,000 better off before the next issue of Emerging Tech hits your inbox. 

Get started today.

AI

Hot-Button Bias

Algorithmic bias didn’t make Twitter’s Trending list this weekend, but it was a hot-button topic in tech circles.

It began with a viral tweet about Zoom’s failure to register a Black man’s face with a virtual background, then shifted to whether Twitter’s image cropping algorithm prioritizes white people. 

To the test 

Users—including academics, and software engineers—DIY’d tests, uploading an image featuring both a white and Black man to see which was highlighted in the preview window. The white man seemed to get the spotlight more often. 

One machine learning scientist ran an independent test with 92 images—but in his test, the algo featured Black men in 52 cases. 

Digging in: Twitter applies saliency—using contrast to determine the “most interesting” part of an image—to auto-crop photos. 

• Dantley Davis, Twitter’s chief design officer, named background brightness and facial hair as contributing factors but still called it “100% our fault.” 

Bottom line: The algo did pass one scientist’s test, and the Twitter team “did not find evidence of racial or gender bias” in tests before shipping the model, a spokesperson told us. “But it’s clear from these examples that [Twitter has] more analysis to do.” 

BITS & BYTES

Stat: In 2020, 32% of U.S. adults reported feeling distrustful of the tech sector—compared to 18% last year, according to a new study on techlash. (The level of distrust among Gen Zers specifically is 46%, up from 26% last year.) 

Quote: “There is a feeling from end users of these platforms that they are too big to care.… [Under] certain conditions we may also have the power to impose structural separation.”—EU commissioner Thierry Breton, telling the FT about the possibility of the Continent forcing Big Tech companies to break up or sell their European operations. 

Read: Lucid beat Tesla’s race track record at Laguna Seca.

SPONSORED BY TYPEFORM

How Swag Up scaled up. It’s possible to build and grow a really beautiful experience for your brand—even with no tech knowledge. How? Do what Swag Up did, and let Typeform handle all the 1s and 0s so you can focus on creating your product. Their forms helped Swag Up close big deals and earn $10 million of revenue in less than three years. Learn more here.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Nikola founder, chairman, and board member Trevor Milton is out. 
• Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange, is launching a bank in Wyoming. 
• ByteDance won’t be transferring its TikTok algorithm to Oracle. President Trump gave his blessing to a deal where Oracle and Walmart would each take a minority stake in the app, which would also create a “TikTok Global” office in the U.S. 
• A federal judge issued an injunction against the U.S.’ WeChat ban. 
• Daimler unveiled a Mercedes-Benz fuel cell truck concept.
• YouTube has strengthened human moderation efforts after leaning more heavily on AI, the FT reports.

WHAT'S BREWING THIS WEEK

Monday: PagerDuty Summit runs through Wednesday.

Tuesday: National Voter Registration Day (register here); Tesla’s Battery Day; Microsoft Ignite runs through Thursday.

Wednesday: Huawei Connect conference runs through Saturday in Shanghai; How AI Can Help People Back to Work, from the Center for Data Innovation. 

Thursday: Amazon Alexa hardware media event. 

Friday: To quote the Daily Brew: “chillen.”

TECH THINGAMABOBS

For “Huang’s Law”: The WSJ coins a new term to describe how performance gains in AI chips are outpacing Moore’s Law.  

For stronger cities: Lyft shares its vision for the future of cities, which involve less cars.

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• Snowflake freezes out its competition 
• VR and AR Updates from Facebook
• The new Apple Watch