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A look inside Offline Ventures, cofounded by Brit and Dave Morin and backed in part by Apple

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Last year, entrepreneurs, investors and married couple Dave and Brit Morin teamed up with James Higa, who was a senior director at Apple for nearly a dozen years, and Tonal cofounder Nate Bosshard, to create a new venture firm called Offline Ventures that, very notably, counts Apple as an anchor investor. The idea, in part, is to use their collective interest in mental health and hardware to help inform Apple’s road map, though the team is looking at much, much more, and is even in the process of incubating some startups. We talked recently with the Morins — who each logged some time at Apple early in their careers — to find out more in a conversation that’s been excerpted below and edited lightly for length. (You can hear our longer conversation here .) TC: You just closed on $100 million for your debut fund. Why start a new fund during the pandemic and why with the four of you? BM: Dave had departed Slow Ventures and had been taking some time off after that, doing angel invest...
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Developers and designers can help businesses manage the semiconductor shortage

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Asa Forsell Contributor Share on Twitter Asa Forsell is a senior product manager for automotive at The Qt Company . Matt Murphy, the CEO of U.S. chipmaker Marvell Technology, predicted in October that the semiconductor shortage will extend into 2022 and beyond . The shortage is already having a huge impact across the world, with German carmaker Opel announcing the pause of some of its operations until the start of next year . And this is far from an isolated incident — the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders recently revealed that the number of new cars registered in the U.K. in September was the lowest since 1998 . Across the world, automotive manufacturers are struggling with the semiconductor shortage, unable to build and sell enough cars to meet demand. The impact, however, is even broader. Having seen a surge in demand through the pandemic, consumer electronics are also starting to be affected by the semiconductor shortage, with research suggesting that smart...
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The unbundling of professional learning and entrepreneurship education

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Rhys Spence Contributor Share on Twitter Rhys Spence is head of research at Brighteye Ventures, a European edtech-focused fund, where he works with portfolio companies to help address priorities, with a focus on internationalization and HR. More posts by this contributor What we can learn from edtech startups’ expansion efforts in Europe The 2021 edtech avalanche has just begun Launched in 2003, LinkedIn quickly became the first global professional social media network by offering an easy way to make and track professional connections. At roughly the same time, Y Combinator (YC) and other accelerators emerged as a largely analog means for entrepreneurs willing to commit three months of time and ~6% of their company to receive en masse training and connections to mentors, peers and funders. While both LinkedIn and Y Combinator are still going strong, a new crop of companies are looking to fill the gap between these two approaches via structured online experiences t...
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‘What does this have to do with selling books?’

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Adam Selipsky gave his first AWS re:Invent keynote this morning since taking over as CEO from Andy Jassy earlier this year. He had big shoes to fill, but it’s not as though Selipsky was a complete stranger to the AWS team. In fact, he had been at the division since its earliest days, helping Jassy to build it into a substantial business, before leaving in 2016 to become CEO at Tableau. He began the day with a history lesson, and he didn’t need to count on others to feed the background to him, given he had been there when they opened their doors in Seattle all those years ago, a pig-in-a-poke of an idea to sell web services. As Selipsky told it when he presented the cloud infrastructure concept to early potential customers, they didn’t quite get it. “What does this have to do with selling books?” he was continually asked. While he didn’t share the answer he gave, I would speculate that it had nothing to with it, and it had everything to with it. Years ago, at a presentation with A...
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Via raises $130M to expand on-demand shuttle software business

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On-demand shuttle and software company Via has raised another $130 million, capital that has pushed its valuation to about $3.3 billion as demand from cities to update its legacy transit systems rises. The round was led by Janus Henderson with participation from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, ION Crossover Partners, Koch Disruptive Technologies and existing investor Exor. To date, the company has raised $800 million. Via, which today employs about 950 people, has two sides to its business. The company operates consumer-facing shuttles in Washington, D.C. and New York. Its underlying software platform, which it sells to cities, transportation authorities, school districts and universities to deploy their own shuttles, is not only the core of its business; it has become the primary driver of growth. Co-founder and CEO Daniel Ramot previously told TechCrunch that there was was little interest from cities in the software-as-a-service platform when the company first launched i...
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Quest headset owners can capture VR gameplay using their phones

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Meta’s Reality Labs unit is rolling out one last major software update for the Quest and Quest 2 before the end of the year. And it’s one you’ll want to download as soon as you can because it adds some handy features. One of them allows you to record yourself while inside a game or app. If you own a VR headset, you’ve probably seen videos like the one above where you can see how a game physically plays. Before today, you needed special equipment to capture footage from that mixed reality perspective. With the new update, you can use your phone instead. Reality Labs Naturally, the final result isn’t as polished as the above video, but you can still get an idea of how games like Beat Saber play out in the real world. You’ll need an iPhone XS or above with iOS 11 or higher to use the new mobile mixed reality camera. With today’s release, about a dozen games support the feature, including Superhot VR , Pistol Whip and Synth Riders . The update also includes a number of feature...
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