Streaming media company Plex this morning announced it will begin to offer ad-supported video, including movies and TV, by way of a new content agreement with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. Though Plex has more recently expanded into new areas beyond organizing home media — including streaming TV and cloud DVRs, streaming music by way of a TIDAL partnership, podcasts, news and more — this new deal represents the first time that Plex has ever offered ad-supported content on its service that will benefit its bottom line.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, TechCrunch broke the news that Plex was preparing to move into the ad-supported movies market.

The company at the time said it was in discussions with various rights holders and content providers, including premium networks, to bring more streaming video to its platform. Its model would be similar to Roku’s The Roku Channel, in that it would start with free, ad-supported movies and TV, then add in more content, which may at some point include subscriptions, in the future.

Plex was unable to say how many movies and TV shows would be coming to Plex users, nor could it offer a sampling of titles due to the nature of its contracts with Warner Bros. But it will have more to share on this front as the offering gets closer to launch, later this year.

The company will use SpotX for programmatic ads, with more ad sales capabilities to roll out in the future. The revenue from the ad sales will be on top of what Plex already makes from its premium feature set, by way of its Plex Pass subscriptions.

Also still in the works is how, exactly, the free movies and TV will be surfaced in the Plex user interface. Today, Plex has a left-hand side menu navigation where “online content” can be found, like TIDAL, news, podcasts, and web shows. This would be a likely destination to add the new AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) collection, but Plex may instead decide to redesign parts of its interface.

The movies and TV shows will be available to the millions of Plex users in the U.S., not just subscribers. But its larger AVOD service, which will eventually be expanded, will be global in nature.

Today, Plex has grown to around 20 million users, but it doesn’t say how many are paying customers.

“Plex has always been about solving new media challenges, and our mission is to tame the growing chaos in the media landscape,” said Keith Valory, CEO of Plex, in a statement about the launch. “Licensing these movies from Warner Bros. enables us to offer more types of third-party content than any other platform and bring it all together in one beautiful solution. Premium ad-supported movies and shows deserve first-class treatment alongside other content that consumers enjoy daily, as opposed to being orphaned in yet another stand-alone app.”

Apple just announced a new program to make it easier to repair out-of-warranty iPhones. In addition to Apple Authorized Service Providers, independent third-party repair shops will be able to access official repair parts and tools.

There are currently three options when you break your screen or other parts of your iPhone. You can go to an Apple store and give your iPhone to Apple employees. You can go to an authorized store (such as Best Buy stores in the U.S.), which means your iPhone will be repaired by Apple-certified technicians. Or you can go to a normal repair shop.

Authorized Service Providers already have access to official parts and tools. If your iPhone is under warranty, you can get a free repair and Apple pays back the authorized repair shop directly.

But until today, if you were a non-authorized repair shop, you couldn’t get official parts. It could result in mixed experiences with parts that don’t perform as well as official parts.

Starting today, any repair shop in the U.S. can get a free online certification in order to access the new repair program. After that, you can buy genuine parts and tools. You can also access the same repair manuals and diagnostics as authorized repair shops.

Apple says that it’ll expand the new program to more countries in the future. The company is already testing the program with 20 shops in North America, Europe and Asia.

This is great news for customers as it should improve the overall quality of repairs. Apple is essentially lowering the entry barrier to qualify to official parts.

If you want to make sure that your device is repaired using genuine parts or if your device is still under warranty, you should still go to an authorized repair shop or an official Apple store. It’s going to be hard to tell if third-party repair shops are using genuine parts as nobody is forcing them to switch to the new program.

Kaszek Ventures, the investment firm that has been one of the primary architects of the recent boom in startup financing and growth in Latin America, has just raised $600 million across two new funds.

The new commitments (raised in roughly two months) put Kaszek’s total capital under management at roughly $1 billion, making the firm the first local early stage investor to hit that milestone.

In the eight years since Hernan Kazah and Nicolas Szekasy launched Kaszek Ventures in 2011 the startup ecosystem in Latin America has experienced a renaissance, with investments in the region surging to nearly $2 billion in 2018.

Much of that growth has come on the back of Kaszek portfolio companies like Gympass, the provider of corporate-sponsored gym memberships and perks; Konfio, the Mexican small business lending platform; Nubank, the Brazilian consumer credit company now worth roughly $10 billion; and Loggi, the Latin American logistics company with the billion-dollar valuation.

For Kazah and Szekasy, the growth of their nearly eponymous venture fund marks a successful reinvention of two of the most prominent executives of Latin America’s most highly valued tech startup, MercadoLibre.

The former chief operating officer and chief financial officer of the region’s leading e-commerce marketplace, initially launched their firm to see if they could replicate their success as entrepreneurs from the other side of the table and bring the expertise and wisdom they’d amassed from their time running what is now a $29.2 billion dollar company (by market capitalization).

“We thought we could identify many more MercadoLibres and identify teams that were outstanding and would have a very ambitious vision in a very large market,” says Szekasy. “I thought I could have more impact if I moved and started working on the investing side.”

The first fund was a relatively modest $95 million investment vehicle, but one of its first investments would go on to show the potential for outsized returns that existed in the Latin American market. That company would be Nubank, and Kaszek was among the first money into the company (alongside Sequoia Capital) when it was little more than a pitch deck and an entrepreneur — David Velez.

“They had very relevant experience in scaling a tech company to multiple countries in the region,” says Velez of the decision to take cash from Kaszek. In the early days, the firms partners were involved in all stages of the company’s growth, helping recruit talent like country managers in different regions, to localizing the pitch for different countries. “They were very active also and continue to be very active around marketing and product. They helped us develop our first website and craft our pitch to consumers and eventually develop a lot of the digital marketing muscle,” Velez says. 

The local knowledge that Kaszek provided was a great compliment to the global perspective that Sequoia brought to the table, says Velez.

For Matias Muchnick, a co-founder and chief executive of NotCo, the experience of Kaszek’s founders and the breadth of their network provided incalculable help as the company expanded beyond Chile to Latin America more broadly — and as it was fundraising.

From a Kaszek-sponsored retreat at Stanford University, Muchnick was introduced to a professor who became an advisor to the company. The professor then put Muchnick in touch with Bezos Expeditions through a connection and the firm wound up investing.

Nubank may have been the firm’s first success story to come from its portfolio, but Kaszek would notch multiple other wins from its later funds.

Standouts from the firm’s $200 million third investment vehicle include the The Not Co, a new food company working on a range of products from vegetarian ice cream and mayonnaise to replacement meat patties. That company managed to attract the attention of Jeff Bezos and his Bezos Expeditions investment fund. Two other standouts in Mexico are Kavak, a car marketplace and Credijusto, an online lending company which raised $42 million from Goldman Sachs and other investors earlier today. 

Now the firm has added to its firepower with the close of a $375 million main fund and its first “Opportunity Fund” a $225 million investment vehicle that will enable the company to maintain its stakes in later stage companies as they raise increasingly large rounds.

Kazah expects that the firm will invest a bit larger amounts in roughly the same number of companies, with the fund making between 25 and 30 new investments, he said.

And increasingly large rounds are becoming the norm in Latin America just as they’ve done in other rapidly maturing technology ecosystems.

Chart courtesy of Crunchbase News

That rapid growth has been parlayed into returns that represent an 8x multiple on invested capital for the first Kaszek Ventures fund, a 5x multiple on the second fund, and a 2x return for the firm’s third fund — already, according to a person familiar with the firm. 

“We have been investors in Kaszek Ventures since 2011 and are thrilled to continue this partnership” said Du Chai, Managing Director at Horsley Bridge Partners, in a statement. “Kaszek has been a top performer while building a great platform with talented individuals.”

In part, Kaszek’s success is an extension of broader macroeconomic trends that were bound to transform the region, according to Szekasy.

“We were looking at Silicon Valley and looking at what was happening in China and saw that Latin America was a very large region with a large population and GDP and the right demographics and a fast pace of adoption of new technologies,” says Szekasy.

One of those new technologies that helped speed up the adoption of new technology services across Latin America was the rollout of 4G, says Kazah.

The mobile internet was always going to be the way that Latin Americans went online, thanks to the penetration of mobile phones across the continent. But high speed internet transformed the types of companies and services that could be on offer, Kazah says.

“In 2011 we had 10% 4G penetration… now more than 90% of the cell phones purchased have been cellphones with 4G access,” according to Kazah. “That really changed the entire ecosystem… companies can aspire to have more sophisticated products… in the last couple of years they started to accelerate their growth.. We finally got to a point where there’s critical mass.”

Not only has the technology improved, but increasing political stability and the rise of a middle class market in countries like Colombia and Mexico mean that there’s more opportunities for new businesses in countries across the continent.

Brazil has always been an economic powerhouse, but now Mexico, Colombia and even countries like Argentina and Chile are showing signs of increasingly vibrant startup ecosystems.

Attention from international investors is also helping to drive the region to new heights. Earlier this year Softbank announced that it would create a new Latin America fund with $5 billion to invest in startup companies. DST and Tiger Global are also active investors in the region.

“One of the reasons Latin America was lagging was that the region was not at a critical mass inflection point technologically, but it was also the lack of capital,” says Kazah. “Softbank on the one hand provides capital but  on the other hand it has opened the eyes of others as well.”

Vedantu, a Bangalore-based startup that operates an online tutoring service, today announced it has raised $42 million as it races to expand its reach in the nation where tens of millions of people enter formal education and prepare for under-graduate level competitive exams each year.

The Series C round for the five-year old startup was led by Tiger Global and WestBridge Capital, with existing investors Accel, Omidyar India and TAL Education and Vedantu co-founders also participating in the round. Vedantu has raised $58 million to date.

Vedantu offers a mix of recorded and live and interactive courses. Students who have enrolled for the interactive sessions are required to answer questions every few minutes by tapping on their smartphone screen. They can also raise their doubts at the end of the session.

Vedantu, which caters to students aged between 12 to 18 (serving students in grade 6 to 12), offers a large catalog of recorded sessions at no charge to users. It generates revenue from selling subscription to live and interactive sessions, Vamsi Krishna, co-founder and CEO of the startup, told TechCrunch in an interview.

These subscriptions can vary from Rs 100 ($1.4), for students looking for sessions around a particular topic, to Rs 50,000 ($700) for long-term courses that prepare students for under-graduate level courses, Krishna explained.

More than 1.5 million students watch educational videos on Vedantu each month, of which 30,000 are paying subscribers. The platform has amassed users from more than 30 nations, mostly those of Indian diaspora.

Before founding Vedantu, Krishna, who is a teacher himself, ran Lakshya Institute that helped students prepare for under-graduate level courses until early 2014, before selling majority stake to Mumbai-based K-12 tutoring and test preparation firm MT Educare.

He said he will use the fresh capital to broaden the startup’s engineering team and product offerings, and find more users. Because Vedantu does not rely on previously recorded footage, scaling Vedantu could be a challenge.

But the startup is not looking to aggressively expand its courses and its current live format has provided it with room to allocate more students in a session.

Vedantu competes with a number of local players including unicorn Byju’s, which is widely believed to be the largest edtech startup in the world with its valuation nearing $6 billion. Byju’s, which has more than 2.4 million paid subscribers (and over 30 million users), offers courses for students in kindergarten to year 12, in addition to those preparing for competitive under graduation level courses.

India has the largest population in the world in the age bracket of 5 to 24 years. The education space in the nation is estimated to grow to $35 billion in the next six years.

More to follow…

The X-59 supersonic research airplane developed by NASA, which aims to pioneer quiet supersonic flight for eventual use in commercial aviation, is one step closer to reality thanks to testing of a system it will use to provide the aircraft’s pilot with a fully virtual view of the skies. The eXternal Visibility System (or XVS because NASA loves ‘X’ in their acronyms) includes a front-facing camera and display combo that can provide a view for the pilot enhanced by augmented reality, which will include overlaying information like guidance to destination airports, warnings and alerts when other aircraft enter their airspace, and additional info and key cues upon landing approach and takeoff.

Sensors and a 4K camera feed combine to output the info on a 4K monitor that is inside the aircraft facing the pilot in the cockpit. There’s also an additional retractable camera located underneath the aircraft that can provide a key second view during lower speed flight, as in approaching an airport for landing.

The tests involved mounting the XVS on a Beechcraft King Air UC-12B test plane, and then flying with pilots on board and gauging their ability to spot other aircraft through the display, including in situations where it’s traditionally very difficult for pilots to spot the planes, as in when aircraft are coming at each other but with a slight offset in their relative paths vs. being truly head-on.

The reason the XVS is even necessary is that the X-59 will feature a totally new, unique design that emphasizes a much more contoured look vs. current commercial aircraft, which is how it aims to achieve its quiet flight and avoid loud sonic booms when it actually goes supersonic. This is a key development target because the whole point of the aircraft is to show that it’s possible to fly at supersonic speeds without loud booms at ground level, in order to show regulators that it’s possible to fly commercial supersonic aircraft over land and populated areas. The Concorde, which provided supersonic flight commercially from 1976 until 2003, couldn’t operate over land for this reason.

Despite not having a front-facing window, the X-59 will have a transparent canopy, and test pilots say that even if the XVS system were to somehow fail, they could still fly the aircraft using that external view and information from the aircraft’s sensor and avionics system alone.

The X-59 is currently under construction, being built by Lockheed Martin, and aims to take its first flight sometime in 2021.

A UK group of climate activists is planning to fly drones close to Heathrow Airport next month in a direct action they hope will shut down the country’s largest airport for days or even longer.

The planned action is in protest at the government’s decision to green-light a third runway at Heathrow.

They plan to use small, lightweight “toy” drones, flown at head high (6ft) within a 5km drone ‘no fly’ zone around the airport — but not within flight paths. The illegal drone flights will also be made in the early morning at a time when there would not be any scheduled flights in the air space to avoid any risk of posing a threat to aircraft.

The activists point out that the government recently declared a climate emergency — when it also pledged to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 — arguing there is no chance of meeting that target if the UK expands current airport capacity.

A press spokesman for the group, which is calling itself Heathrow Pause, told TechCrunch: “Over a thousand child are dying as a result of climate change and ecological collapse — already, every single day. That figure is set to significantly worsen. The government has committed to not just reducing carbon emissions but reducing them to net zero — that is clearly empirically impossible if they build another runway.”

The type of drones they plan to use for the protest are budget models which they say can be bought cheaply at UK retailer Argos — which, for example, sells the Sky Viper Stunt Drone for £30; the Revell GO! Stunt Quadcopter Drone for £40; and the Revell Spot 2.0 Quadcopter (which comes with a HD camera) for £50.

The aim for the protest is to exploit what the group dubs a loophole in Heathrow’s health and safety protocol around nearby drone flights to force it to close down runways and ground flights.

Late last year a spate of drone sightings near the UK’s second busiest airport, Gatwick, led to massive disruption for travellers just before Christmas after the airport responded by grounding flights.

At the time, the government was sharply criticized for having failed to foresee weaknesses in the regulatory framework around drone flights near sensitive sites like airports.

In the following months it responded by beefing up what was then a 1km airport exclusion zone to 5km — with that expanded ‘no fly’ zone coming into force in March. However a wider government plan to table a comprehensive drones bill has faced a number of delays.

It’s the larger 5km ‘no fly’ zone that the Heathrow Pause activists are targeting in a way they hope will safely trigger the airport’s health & safety protocol and shut down the airspace and business as usual.

Whether the strategy to use drones as a protest tool to force the closure of the UK’s largest airport will fly remains to be seen.

A spokeswoman for Heathrow airport told us it’s confident it has “robust plans” in place to ensure the group’s protest does not result in any disruption to flights. However she would not provide any details on the steps it will take to avoid having to close runways and ground flights, per its safety protocol.

When we put the airport’s claim of zero disruption from intended action back to Heathrow Pause, its spokesman told us: “Our understanding is that the airport’s own health and safety protocols dictate that they have to ground airplanes if there are any drones of any size flying at any height anywhere within 5km of the airport.

“Our position would be that it’s entirely up to them what they do. That the action that we’re taking does not pose a threat to anybody and that’s very deliberately the case. Having said that I’d be surprised to hear that they’re going to disregard their own protocols even if those are — in our view — excessive. It would still come as a surprise if they weren’t going to follow them.”

“We won’t be grounding any flights in any circumstances,” he added. “It’s not within our power to do so. All of the actions that have been planned have been meticulously planned so as not to pose any threat to anybody. We don’t actually see that there need to be flights grounded either. Having said that clearly it would be great if Heathrow decided to ground flights. Every flight that’s grounded is that much less greenhouse gas pumped into the atmosphere. And it directly saves lives.

“The fewer flights there are the better. But if there are no flights cancelled we’d still consider the action to be an enormous success — purely upon the basis of people being arrested.”

The current plan for the protest is to start illegally flying drones near Heathrow on September 13 — and continue for what the spokesman said could be as long as “weeks”, depending on how many volunteer pilots it can sign up. He says they “anticipate” having between 50 to 200 people willing to risk arrest by breaching drone flight law.

The intention is to keep flying drones for as long as people are willing to join the protest. “We are hoping to go for over a week,” he told us.

Given the plan has been directly communicated to police the spokesman conceded there is a possibility that the activists could face arrest before they are able to carry out the protest — which he suggested might be what Heathrow is banking on.

Anyone who flies a drone in an airport’s ‘no fly’ zone is risking arrest and prosecution under UK law. Penalties for the offence range from fines to life imprisonment if a drone is intentionally used to cause violence. But the group is clearly taking pains to avoid accusations the protest poses a safety risk or threatens violence — including by publishing extensive details of their plan online, as well as communicating it to police and airport authorities.

A detailed protocol on their website sets out the various safety measures and conditions the activists are attaching to the drone action — “to ensure no living being is harmed”. Such as only using drones lighter than 7kg, and giving the airport an hour’s advance notice ahead of each drone flight.

They also say they have a protocol to shut down the protest in the event of an emergency — and will have a dedicated line of communication open to Heathrow for this purposes.

Some of the activists are scheduled to meet with police and airport authorities  tomorrow, face to face, at a London police station to discuss the planned action.

The group says it will only call off the action if the Heathrow third runway expansion is cancelled.

In an emailed statement in response to the protest, Heathrow Airport told us:

We agree with the need to act on climate change. This is a global issue that requires constructive engagement and action. Committing criminal offences and disrupting passengers is counterproductive.

Flying of any form of drone near Heathrow is illegal and any persons found doing so will be subject to the full force of the law. We are working closely with the Met Police and will use our own drone detection capability to mitigate the operational impact of any illegal use of drones near the airport.

Asked why the environmental activists have selected drones as their tool of choice for this protest, rather than deploying more traditional peaceful direct action strategies, such as trespassing on airport grounds or chaining themselves to fixed infrastructure, the Heathrow Pause spokesman told us: “Those kind of actions have been done in the past and they tend to result in very short duration of time during which very few flights are cancelled. What we are seeking to do is unprecedented in terms of the duration and the extent of the disruption that we would hope to cause.

“The reason for drones is in order to exploit this loophole in the health and safety protocols that have been presented to us — that it’s possible for a person with a toy drone that you can purchase for a couple of quid, miles away from any planes, to cause an entire airport to stop having flights. It is quite an amazing situation — and once it became apparent that that was really a possibility it almost seemed criminal not to do it.”

He added that drone technology, and the current law in the UK around how drones can be legally used, present an opportunity for activists to level up their environmental protest — “to cause so much disruption with so few people and so little effort” — that it’s simply “a no brainer”.

During last year’s Gatwick drone debacle the spokesman said he received many enquiries from journalists asking if the group was responsible for that. They weren’t — but the mass chaos caused by the spectre of a few drones being flown near Gatwick provided inspiration for using drone technology for an environmental protest.

The group’s website is hosting video interviews with some of the volunteer drone pilots who are willing to risk arrest to protest against the expansion of Heathrow Airport on environmental grounds.

In a statement there, one of them, a 64-year-old writer called Valerie Milner-Brown, said: “We are in the middle of a climate and ecological emergency. I am a law-abiding citizen — a mother and a grandmother too. I don’t want to break the law, I don’t want to go to prison, but right now we, as a species, are walking off the edge of a cliff. Life on Earth is dying. Fires are ravaging the Amazon. Our planet’s lungs are quite literally on fire. Hundreds of species are going extinct every day. We are experiencing hottest day after hottest day, and the Arctic is melting faster than scientists’ worst predictions.

“All of this means that we have to cut emissions right now, or face widespread catastrophe on an increasingly uninhabitable planet. Heathrow Airport emits 18 million tons of CO2 a year. That’s more than most countries. A third runway will produce a further 7.3 million tons of CO2. For all Life — now and in the future — we have to take action. I’m terrified but if this is what it will take to make politicians, business leaders and the media wake up, then I’m prepared to take this action and to face the consequences.”

Brilliant ideas, founders, entrepreneurs and early-stage startups know no borders — they come from every corner of the world. Consider this your invitation to showcase the amazing early-stage startups in your country at Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December.

How? Secure a Country Pavilion located within Startup Alley, the exhibition floor and the very heart of any Disrupt event. We’re searching for delegations of international startup groups, government innovation centers, incubators and accelerators. We’re talking people who want to promote their emerging startups and establish their reputations as world-class leaders in tech innovation.

Thousands of attendees make a beeline for Startup Alley to explore and meet the hundreds of early-stage startups displaying their latest in products, platforms and services. Among those attendees you’ll find investors eager to add to their portfolios, 200 media outlets hunting for great stories and potential customers and collaborators. Hello, opportunity!

How do you qualify for a Country Pavilion? The early-stage startups in your delegation must be less than two years old and have secured less than $2.5 million in funding. If you can leap that low bar, send our event team an email at startupalley@techcrunch.com. Tell us about your delegation and where you’re from, and we’ll provide more information about the application process.

Startup Alley is a networking dream come true, and we’ve got just the tool to help you find, connect and schedule meetings with the people (like investors) who can help move your business forward. We’re taking CrunchMatch of course. Our free business match-making platform cuts through the noise and helps you find the right people.

How does it work? When the platform goes live (don’t worry, we’ll notify you), simply create a profile with your specific criteria, goals and interests. The CrunchMatch (powered by Brella) algorithm shifts into high gear to find like-minded startuppers. The platform suggests matches and, subject to your approval, proposes meeting times and sends meeting requests. That was easy.

Oh, and in case you were wondering — you can exhibit in Startup Alley even you’re not part of a country delegation. Simply purchase a Startup Alley Exhibitor Package for €745 + VAT. And that price includes three Founder passes. Sweet!

Bring your international delegation to Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December, claim your Country Pavilion in Startup Alley and show the world the brilliant, emerging startups in your country. Email our events team today — we can’t wait to see you in Berlin.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt Berlin 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Porsche is expanding two on-demand subscription programs to several more U.S. cities and into Canada.

The German automaker announced Thursday it will expand its monthly subscription program Porsche Passport and its shorter-term Porsche Drive plan to Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego and Toronto. Both programs will continue to be offered in Atlanta through local dealers.

The expansion suggests that Porsche’s experimentation with subscriptions has attracted enough new customers to warrant taking it on the road.

Porsche created the programs because consumers increasingly want more flexibility, more individual choice, and to have this on their mobile devices, Porsche North America President and CEO Klaus Zellmer said in the announcement.

The goal is to build a new customer base of Porsche owners. Zellmer’s comments suggest that the programs are having the desired effect.

“This innovative approach to the Porsche experience has already opened the door to an entirely new clientele,” Zellmer said. “In our first year and a half, more than 80% of Passport members in the Atlanta pilot were not previous Porsche owners.”

Both plans give customers access to up 20 current model variants in its portfolio. Porsche Passport is a monthly plan that gives its members unlimited swaps between models.

The cheapest version of the plan, which is a flat monthly fee of $2,100, gives members access to eight model variants. A more expensive $3,100 plan includes another 12 higher performing variants. Passport requires an activation fee of $595, and membership approval is dependent on a background and credit check.

Porsche Drive, which spun out of the Passport program, is designed for those who want occasional access — perhaps for a date or a weekend getaway — to its luxury SUVs and sports cars. Members can rent a Porsche for a minimum of four hours under Porsche Drive. Prices for Porsche Drive range from $269 for four hours in a Macan, 718 Cayman or Boxster all the way to $2,909 for weekly usage of a 911. The Porsche Drive prices do not include taxes or other fees.

Under both plans, the vehicles are ordered through the Passport app and then delivered and picked up by a concierge at the customer’s preferred location.

The Passport program was first launched in 2017 in Atlanta. During the pilot, the average subscription has been about four months. The most common reason customers suspended their membership was due extended travel plans, according to the company. This indicates that the month-to-month model provides the flexibility customers desire.

Passport users swap models on average 2.5 times per month, according to Porsche. The company also said that more than 50% of members flip their vehicles at home, close to 30% swap their vehicle at work, and the remaining exchanges occur in other locations, such as a coffee shop or restaurant.

The technology platform for the program will be managed by Clutch Technologies, a company that has been part of the pilot from the start. The expansion of Passport and Drive includes a new role for Porsche dealer partners in all five cities. Dealers will now oversee the customer experience and the fleet, including its concierge vehicle delivery and maintenance.

Indulge us as we paraphrase the song, Anything You Can Do from the movie, “Annie Get Your Gun.” Anything you can code, I can code better. I can code anything better than you.

If that describes your skills and attitude, it’s time — as we say in the States — to put up or shut up. We’re calling all code slingers to take part in the TC Hackathon at Disrupt Berlin 2019. We’re limiting participation to 500 people, so don’t wait. Apply here today.

Oh, and it doesn’t cost anything to apply or to participate. In fact, we give you a free Innovator pass to attend the show.

What’s at stake? Along with your reputation, you have a shot at winning a $5,000 prize from TechCrunch for the best overall hack. Plus, you and your team (either the one you bring or the one you find onsite) will choose one of several sponsored challenges — each one offering its own cash and prizes.

We’ll make an official announcement about specific sponsors and contests, but last year’s sponsored contests, prizes and winners will give you a sense of the kind of projects to expect.

Teams have just 36 hours to design, create and code a working solution to a real-world problem. It’s not easy — you’ll be tired, stressed out and probably a tad cranky. But we’ll keep you fed, watered and hopped up on caffeine for the duration.

The first round of judging will no doubt remind you of your high school science fair…only with bigger stakes. Judges will select just 10 teams to move into the finals, which take place on day two. Those teams will have just two sleep-deprived minutes to present and pitch their project on the Extra Crunch Stage.

After the judges confer, the individual sponsors will announce their winners and award their prizes. Then TechCrunch will select its choice for best overall hack — and award that team one of those oversized checks for $5,000.

TC Hackathon takes place during Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December. Don’t miss your chance to strut your stuff, build something amazing and take home some serious ka-ching. Apply to the Hackathon today.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt Berlin 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Koru Kids, the London-based startup that helps you find and manage childcare, has raised £10 million in new funding to scale its platform.

The Series A round is led by Atomico, with Atomico Partner Niall Wass joining the company’s board. Also participating are previous investors AlbionVC, Forward Partners, Samos, JamJar, Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital, and 7Percent. It brings the total amount raised by Koru Kids to £14.1 million.

“Childcare is exhausting and difficult to arrange: for many families it’s hard to find the right thing at all, and for nearly everyone it’s excruciatingly expensive,” says Koru Kids founder and CEO Rachel Carrell (who has a doctorate from Oxford and previously worked at McKinsey!).

“Parents need affordable, flexible childcare to allow us to carry on in our careers but it’s very hard to find. Nurseries close early, childminders are in short supply and neither option copes well with parents finishing at 5pm one day and 10pm the next. Once I realised that there were so many people struggling with the same issues it gave me the impetus to quit my job and to create Koru Kids”.

The resulting childcare platform is described by Carrell as a “full stack” product that sees Koru Kids recruit, train, match, and provide on-going support and training to its nannies. At its core it aims to simplify the lives of working parents.

“Our platform takes care of taxes, payroll, pension, holiday, nanny communications, activity ideas, and a dozen other things that can come up when you’re dealing with nannies,” she tells me. “We also help parents share nannies, so one nanny takes care of children from two different families at once. That brings down the cost for families, the nanny gets paid more, and the children have a friend to play with”.

More broadly, Carrell says society should think of childcare as essential infrastructure for modern living. “If a third of London didn’t have water or roads, we’d consider that a major failing of essential infrastructure,” she argues. “As it turns out, one third of London schools don’t have an after-school club. We need to start respecting childcare as the essential infrastructure that it is”.

Typical Koru Kids customers are described as working parents with children aged 4-10 years old who may not have access to a suitable after-school club or want to provide a broader range of after school activities for their kids.

“Before Koru Kids, the only option for these people was a full time nanny — which is incredibly expensive — or an au pair, which many people don’t have an extra bedroom for or don’t want in their house,” says Carrell.

Exact competitors are hard to pin down as Koru Kids incorporates several different services, each with specific competitors. They include payroll agencies, training businesses, nanny agencies, after-school clubs, Gumtree and other listings sites.

“The key difference is that none of them provide a seamless service as we do,” claims the Koru Kids founder. “We train our nannies ourselves which is completely unique in the market; we do all the payroll, pension and other paperwork as well as the recruitment of nannies, and we are tech-led, using our own software which means we can be more efficient”.

Meanwhile, Koru Kids revenue model sees the company take commission per hour. Rather than the large upfront fees a nanny agency typically charges, Carrell says she has deliberately tried to align the startup’s interests with that of parents using the platform.

“If a match doesn’t last very long, Koru Kids is out of pocket; I think that’s as it should be,” she tells me. “We should only win when the parents win. That incentive structure means that every day our team comes to work and thinks about how to make the best possible matches, and what product to build to help our nannies get better and better each day”.

Residently, the U.K.-based ‘proptech’ startup that is building a rental platform to improve the rental experience, has picked up £7 million in seed funding. Backing comes from Felix Capital, LocalGlobe, and A/O PropTech, along with a number of the startup’s existing angel investors.

The new funding will be used to grow the startup’s engineering and product teams, and to continue building out Residently’s rental portfolio in London and New York. On the product side, a number of extra services will also be added to the company’s “Living” platform, which offers things like cleaning and ironing, storage, contents insurance, and furniture rental.

“Residently is building the world’s rental brand with a platform for rental properties designed around the needs of the renter,” says co-founder and CEO Tom Allason, who previously founded and exited Shutl to eBay.

“Residents enjoy a seamless digital rental experience, can choose their move in date, a furniture package, cleaning service and move seamlessly from property to property within the network. Property owners benefit from reduced void periods and lower fees than traditional agents”.

At the heart of Residently is a mission to “digitise” the rental experience through clever use of technology, coupled with a consumer-friendly mindset, in order to upgrade the experience of renting.

The platform lets renters search for properties, arrange viewings, take virtual tours, fill in forms and submit references, and pay deposits via a mobile app. Broadband and other utilities are set up in advance and the startup promises flexible move in dates. Residently’s add-on services include help with moving, storage, furniture rental, cleaning and digital locks — again, all managed via the app.

For landlords, Residently offers a property management service for viewings, paperwork, property maintenance and renewals. As part of its marketing package, Residently will individually style and furnish a property to help potential renters visualise “exactly how their home could look,” says the company.

“We compete for supply with estate agents (e.g. Foxtons, Savills, Countrywide) as well as to a lesser extent serviced apartment providers who are taking residential properties off market,” says Allason. “We look at the renter as our customer rather and seek to develop that relationship over multiple tenancies and properties which we can monetise with services”.

After Hong Kong’s leader suggested she may invoke emergency powers that could potentially include limiting Internet access, one of city’s biggest industry groups warned that “any such restrictions, however slight originally, would start the end of the open Internet of Hong Kong.”

While talking to reporters on Tuesday, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam suggested the government may use the Emergency Regulations Ordinance in response to ongoing anti-government demonstrations. The law, which has not been used in more than half a century, would give the government a sweeping array of powers, including the ability to restrict or censor publications and communications. In contrast to China’s “Great Firewall” and routine government censorship of internet services, Hong Kong’s internet is currently open and mostly unrestricted, with the exception of laws to prevent online crime, copyright infringements and the spread of obscene material like child pornography.

In an “urgent statement” addressed to Hong Kong’s Executive Council, the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association (HKISPA) said that because of technology like VPNs, the cloud and cryptographies, the only way to “effectively and meaningfully block any services” would entail putting all of Hong Kong’s internet behind a large-scale surveillance firewall. The association added that this would have huge economic and social consequences and deter international organizations from doing business in Hong Kong.

Furthermore, restricting the internet in Hong Kong would also have implications in the rest of the region, including in mainland China, the HKISPA added. There are currently 18 international cable systems that land, or will land, in Hong Kong, making it a major telecommunications hub. Blocking one application means users will move onto another application, creating a cascading effect that will continue until all of Hong Kong is behind a firewall, the association warned.

In its statement, the HKISPA wrote that “the lifeline of Hong Kong’s Internet industry relies in large part on the open network,” adding “Hong Kong is the largest core node of Asia’s optical fiber network and hosts the biggest Internet exchange in the region, and it is now home to 100+ data centers operated by local and international companies, and it transits 80%+ of traffic for mainland China.”

“All these successes rely on the openness of Hong Kong’s network,” the HKISPA continued. “Such restrictions imposed by executive orders would completely ruin the uniqueness and value of Hong Kong as a telecommunications hub, a pillar of success as an international financial centre.”

The HKISPA urged the government to consult the industry and “society at large” before placing any restrictions in place. “The HKISPA strongly opposes selective blocking of Internet Services without consensus of the community,” it said.

If internet access is restricted in Hong Kong, a major financial hub, it would be a major hit to global internet freedom, which Freedom House says has been declining over the last eight consecutive years as more countries “mov[e] toward digital authoritarianism by embracing the Chinese model of extensive censorship and automated surveillance systems.” Many governments, including those of Tanzania and Uganda, have enacted new restrictions or laws in an attempt to curb political dissent, modeling their censorship measures on countries like China and Russia.

As part of its efforts against health misinformation, Pinterest is now displaying information from public health organizations for keywords like “measles” or “vaccine safety.” The social media platform had previously blocked vaccination-related search terms, but a new announcement says the company wants to close the “data void” that results from false information being spread more widely than accurate information.

“What we and others have observed is an enthusiasm gap between those creating and disseminating harmful health misinformation and those creating resources rooted in settled science,” wrote Ifeoma Ozoma, Pinterest’s public policy and social impact manager. “Generally, there’s more accessible and visually compelling health misinformation than science-based journal articles on the virtues of vaccinations. In addition, we’ve found that some purveyors of health misinformation have a financial incentive.”

Pinterest search results for health-related keywords will now display information from the World Health Organization, the Vaccine Safety Net (created by WHO to provide vaccine information in different languages), the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers of Disease Control.

In addition, an information card on top of the results notifies users that “pins about this topic often violate our Community Guidelines, which prohibit harmful medical misinformation. Because of this, we’ve limited search results to Pins from internationally-recognized health organizations. If you’re looking for medical advice, please contact a healthcare provider.”

Users also won’t see recommendations or comments on Pins in these search results. “We’re taking this approach because we believe that showing vaccine misinformation alongside resources from public health experts isn’t responsible,” said Ozoma.

The new search feature is currently available in English on Pinterest’s website and iPhone and Android apps and will be expanded into other languages. Ozoma wrote that Pinterest will focus on vaccine-related searches first but “keep evolving our list of terms for which we block medical misinformation and provide expert advice as people try to get around our safeguards. We’ll also continue to remove this content and accounts that spread it from our service.”

Importantly for a visually-based platform, Pinterest, which has more than 300 million visitors a month, is also developing resources that health organizations can use to create eye-catching pins for text-based information.

Once filled with anti-vaccine pins (in 2016, researchers found that most vaccine-related posts on Pinterest contained anti-vaccine sentiment), Pinterest has become one of the most active social media platforms in terms of stemming the spread of misinformation about vaccines. In 2017, it began banning pins with “anti-vaccination advice,” which have always been prohibited by its advertising policies.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have also begun taking measures to stop the proliferation of anti-vaccine content, which has contributed to the return of diseases like measles around the world. In the U.S., the Centers of Disease Control said that between January 1 and August 22, 1,215 cases of measles were confirmed, the greatest number of cases reported in the country since 1992, and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.