EHang, maker of autonomous flying shuttles, files for $100 million IPO

Chinese autonomous air mobility company EHang has filed with the SEC the paperwork required to go public in the U.S. on the NASDAQ exchange, with a $100 million initial public offering. The company, which has been flying demonstration flights with passengers on board for a while now, is gearing up to launch its first commercial service in Guangzhou after getting approval from local and national regulators to deploy its drones in the area.

At launch, EHang will be using its two-seater vertical take-off and landing craft (VTOL), which has room for two passengers on board. EHang doesn’t just build the aircraft, though – its goal is to build full, multi-aircraft (as many as ‘thousands,’ according to Forbes) autonomous transportation networks that it hopes will serve to alleviate and avoid congested ground traffic. Guangzhou, with an estimated population of over 13 million, suffers from considerable traffic.

EHang is also building out logistics and cargo transportation capabilities as well as passenger services. The company believes it can offers short designate cross-city transportation that can cut down on time by as much as 40 to 60 percent, and once it achieves scale, it also says that costs have the potential to be reduced by as much as 50 percent.

Founded in 2014, EHang last announced funding in 2015, when It raised $42 million in a Series B round led by GP Capital, with GGV Capital, ZhenFund, Lebox Capital, OFC and PreAngel also participating.

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Apple TV+ now live, with one year free for new iOS, Apple TV and Mac purchases

Apple has launched its streaming video subscription service, making available a varied and sizeable library of content immediately for subscribers. To access the service, you do need to sign up for a$4.99 per month subscription, but if you’ve purchased any new iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV or Mac since the beginning of September, and you’re signed in to the Apple ID associated with those devices on those devices, the subscribe button should show that you get one full year of free trial service applied automatically.

Apple TV+ content lives in the Apple TV app that’s available across macOS, Apple TV, iOS and iPadOS devices, and which should be pre-installed already unless you’ve deleted it form your device or you’re running an older version of the operating system. Shows from the new program will then show up in a dedicated AppleTV+ row in the app’s home screen, as well as throughout the interface in various places.

At launch, you’ll find ‘The Morning Show,’ ‘See,’ ‘For All Mankind,’ ‘Dickinson,’ ‘Snoopy in Space,’ ‘Ghostwriter,’ ‘Helpsters,’ as well as documentary feature ‘The Elephant Queen’ and talk show ‘Oprah’s Book Club.’ Some of these offer the first three episodes, with others to follow on a staged release schedule, while others include the full season all available to view at launch.

Of course, you can either stream or download these for offline viewing, and AppleTV+ will remember your progress so long as you have an internet connection and then pick up where you left off across your connected devices. All Apple TV+ content is in 4K, and most also offer Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support.

I literally just turned on ‘The Morning Show’ for a few seconds to make sure everything was working, so no opinions yet on the quality of the actual content. But if you’ve recently picked up any new Apple hardware, it’s definitely worth checking out for the free trial period, at least.

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Get student, nonprofit & govt discounts to Disrupt Berlin 2019

Calling all tech-minded students, nonprofit and government employees — this is your moment. Come and join us at Disrupt Berlin 2019 on 11-12 December at a price you can afford — because great ideas and innovation come from every sector.

Apply for our discounted Innovator passes for students and nonprofit or government employees and enjoy all the early-stage startup goodness of Disrupt Berlin.

Here’s what comes with your Innovator pass: access to the full conference agenda and all stages — including the Startup Battlefield competition. Interactive workshops, more than 400 startups and sponsors in Startup Alley, networking events, access to the full attendee list (via TechCrunch Events Mobile App) and CrunchMatch, the attendee networking platform. You’ll also have access to exclusive video content after the conference ends.

Here’s how the discounts work and what you need to know to qualify.

Discounts for students: You must be enrolled in a grade school, high school, college or university program or have graduated within the last six months. Coding schools don’t qualify for a discount, sorry.

Bring a valid student ID, proof of current enrollment or transcripts at registration, otherwise you’ll pay the full on-site price. Note: if you’re less than 21 years old, you may not have access to some venues. Your reduced Innovator pass costs €135 plus VAT. Tickets are non-refundable.

Discounts for nonprofit and government employees: You must be full-time employees of nonprofit organizations, federal, state or local government agencies, international government agencies or active military employees.

Nonprofit employees — you must provide your email address from your organization during the online registration process. Government and military employees — you must provide your valid .gov email address during the registration process.

At the Disrupt Berlin on-site registration check-in, you must show proof of current employment at your nonprofit (copy of 501c3 documentation) or government organization. Government contractors, including contractors working on government “Cost Reimbursable Contracts,” are not eligible for the government discount.

We accept the following forms of valid government ID:

• Government-issued Visa, Mastercard or American Express
• Government picture ID
• Military picture ID
• Federally Funded Research Development Corp (FFRDC) ID

If you don’t present valid nonprofit documentation or government ID at registration, you’ll have to pay the full on-site price. The discounted Innovator pass costs €295 + VAT, and tickets are non-refundable.

Students, nonprofits and government employees — Disrupt Berlin 2019 takes place on 11-12 December. Take advantage of these deep discounts and join us to learn, share and experience early-stage startup culture at its best. Apply for a discounted Innovator pass today.

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

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Accusonus raises $3.3M to use AI to help content creators repair the audio in their videos

Accusonus, the Greece and U.S.-based AI company helping content creators improve the audio in their videos, has raised $3.3 million in Series A funding.

The round is led by Athens-based Venture Friends, with participation from Big Pi, IQBility, PJ Tech, along with a syndicate of U.S.-based investors led by Michael Tzannes, who is actually the co-founder of Accusonus (and the former CEO of Aware Inc.).

Launched in 2014, Accusonus has been using AI for various audio and music applications longer than most. The company’s first product was Drumatom, which allows recording engineers to control microphone leakage (also known as bleed or spill) in drum recordings. In 2017, Accusonus followed up with the release of Regroover, an AI software instrument that un-mixes audio loops into stems so that new beat making workflows are possible.

Its products are said to have been used by engineers working with musicians such as Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Goo Goo Dolls, Super Furry Animals, Wilco, Jennifer Lopez, and many others.

However, more recently the company has developed a suite of simple-to-use tools aimed at video content and podcast producers that need to repair or “clean up” audio in their creations. With the amount of content being created growing exponentially — often recorded on smartphones and other consumer equipment or turned around quicker than ever — the market beyond music production is huge.

The company’s thinking, explained co-founder and CEO Alex Tsilfidis, is that Accusonus wants to democratise access to high quality audio via AI-driven tools that remove the learning curve required by traditional audio software.

He says that inventing new algorithms and “painstakingly” fine-tuning the UX of Accusonus’ products has enabled it to offer audio tools that provide ease-of-use to entry-level users while simultaneously speeding up the workflows of audio and video professionals.

Specifically, the Accusonus Enhancement and Repair of Audio (ERA) tools are able to clean up audio recordings via turning a single “virtual” knob within the software. The ERA tools work as plugins and are compatible with major video and audio platforms. These include entry level editors, such as Audacity and Garageband, and more high-end offerings, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut, Avid Pro Tools, Apple Logic Pro, and Da Vinci Resolve.

Meanwhile, Tsilfidis says there is some advantage to serving both customer groups, too. The company’s professional users often provide feedback which then helps improve its non-professional targeted products (even if there is likely some overlap between the two groups).

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Forecast raises $5.5M for its ‘AI-powered’ project management software

Forecast, a Denmark-based startup that has developed “AI-powered” project management software, has raised $5.5 million in new funding.

The round is led by Crane Venture Partners, with participation from existing backers SEED Capital and Heartcore. Forecast has raised $10 million in total funding to date.

Founded in late 2016, Forecast describes itself as an AI-powered project management solution that automates manual project management tasks, and brings extra visibility and predictive capabilities to to project management. The idea is to help increase collaboration across teams with a better workflow and to improve planning.

Forecast claims that by using its project management software, customers reduce their administrative tasks by 20-40% and gain much better insights into “project risk, resource management and more”.

“Work is going more project-based… leading to an increased need for project management skills and expertise,” Forecast co-founder and CEO Dennis Kayser tells TechCrunch. “Plus, projects are getting more complex. Project management depends on many manual, ongoing updates to stay on time, on budget and on track. That’s why 66% of all projects fail due to human error”.

In addition, as projects become more complex and the data associated with a project increases exponentially, Kayser says the problem is getting worse, which, of course, is where machine intelligence can help. “We don’t learn from our mistakes because no one can keep track of every influencing factor to make crucial adjustments,” he adds.

To tackle this, Forecast uses AI to help keep projects on track and make project management more efficient. The software integrates with existing tools — such as Trello, Slack, Gdrive, Githum and Salesforce — and uses these various external data-points as key indicators for how well a project is running.

“[It pulls in] data from disparate systems and synthesizes it into something human-readable with powerful AI,” explains Kayser. “Everyone on your team can continue to use the tool they prefer without sacrificing dead-simple scheduling, reporting and collaboration for project managers and senior executives. With better insights and tools, project managers can be more efficient and gain insights from increasingly complex projects”.

The use of AI is proactive, too. This includes matching the best person and role to the task, automation of time registration, forecasting the size and duration of tasks, and being alerted before a project is in trouble.

With regards to target customer, Kayser says that Forecast is focused on helping IT & services, marketing, and computer software development companies that “rely on capacity being predictable and project delivery being successful”.

Forecast currently has “hundreds of customers” in over 40 countries. The software has helped customers manage more than 40,000 projects with more than 1,000,000 tasks created.

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