• Geothermal energy can save homeowners money on their utility bills, but historically it's been really expensive to install. 
• Dandelion Energy, a startup that spun out of Alphabet's secretive research lab X, has set out to make the clean energy source cheaper, tapping into the enormous HVAC market. 
• The company has raised $35 million from investors including GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, and Comcast. 
• Dandelion's cofounder, Kathy Hannun, is one of Business Insider's 2020 rising stars of clean energy.
• For more stories like this, sign up here for our weekly energy newsletter, Power Line.

On a torrid summer day, basements are the place to be. They typically run several degrees colder than the rest of a building, largely because the temperature below the Earth's surface is cooler. 

In fact, no matter how hot or cold it is outside, the temperature 10 feet down remains roughly constant, at about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the geothermal company Dandelion Energy.

It's this very idea that gave rise to Dandelion, a startup that was conceived in Alphabet's secretive research and development lab, X, also known as the Moonshot Factory, before spinning out in 2017.

By heating and cooling homes using the temperature from deep underground, Dandelion promises customers savings of up to 50% on their heating and cooling costs, while also lowering their carbon emissions. Traditional systems use fossil fuels like natural gas and a lot of electricity. 

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Founded by Google alums Kathy Hannun and James Quazi, Dandelion has had no trouble convincing big investors of the potential of geothermal energyy, which has long been considered a niche product. The company's key innovation is bringing down the cost of a system, making it accessible to a much larger market. 

The New York-based startup has raised $35 million from investors including GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, and Comcast Ventures, including a $12 million raise in January. Dandelion is valued at $100 million, according to PitchBook. 

The simple promise of geothermal energy

Geothermal energy is actually a pretty simple idea.

It involves digging a hole as deep as 500 feet into the Earth outside a building, through which water circulates in a U-shaped pipe called a ground loop.

As the water descends into the Earth, it adjusts to the temperature of the ground, which is warmer than your house in the winter and cooler in the summer. The water then enters your home, where it's converted to hot or cold air. 

"It's just water circulating through a ground loop," said Hannun, Dandelion's president, who spent seven years at Google after graduating from Stanford with a degree in civil engineering. "It's a closed loop, so the water is just going through an infinite circle." 

Read more: Meet the 21 rising stars who are transforming the future of clean energy and taking on a $16 trillion opportunity

Importantly, Hannun says, customers can still adjust the temperature in their homes using a thermostat. It's not like it's always stuck at 55 degrees. 

Making geothermal accessible 

You probably don't know many people who heat or cool their homes with geothermal. That's because most systems aren't cheap to install, costing as much as $30,000, according to EnergySage. 

"In the past, geothermal has been a huge renovation project," Hannun, one of Business Insider's 2020 rising stars of clean energy, said. "A professional engineer comes to your home, does all of these calculations, and then coordinates a bunch of subcontractors to figure out how to put geo in, so you run up a very large bill." 

The innovation that Hannun came up while working as a product manager at X — where she had the coveted job of looking at all kinds of business opportunities — is around bringing down the cost. And it starts with turning geothermal into a more standardized consumer product, she said. 

"For one thing, there's no custom engineering needed for every home," she said of Dandelion's approach. "We just have a standard set of designs."

Dandelion developed software that automates the process for determining how big a system a particular home needs. It also invested in making a drill specifically for geothermal, instead of using water-well drills, which are common among other geothermal operations. Both of those innovations bring down cost, she said. 

Geothermal is still expensive upfront

A Dandelion system costs about $18,000 to $25,000 — so, still not cheap. The company also offers financing for $0 down, starting at $150 a month.

The big benefit is in lower monthly energy bills, the company says. New Yorkers with Dandelion save an average of about $2,250 a year on heating and cooling, Dandelion says.

"Geothermal is actually by far the least expensive way to provide heating and cooling energy in buildings," Hannun, said. "But it's been held back in the past."

There's also the environmental benefit. Buildings account for more than a third of carbon dioxide emissions in the US, and HVAC makes up the largest chunk of that. Because geothermal doesn't burn fuel or use much electricity, it's relatively clean. 

Dandelion is in almost 500 homes today, all of which are in New York state, Hannun said. The company will be in more states before the year's end, she adds. 

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• This week, Google announced it is acquiring North, the Canadian startup behind the Focals smart glasses.
• You might have missed it: Qualcomm also just announced a new chip that will power the next generation of Google's wearables.
• The pieces are in place for Google to get serious about wearable hardware – but it still needs to clinch the Fitbit deal.
• It's not guaranteed to succeed. Antitrust regulators are concerned that the Fitbit merger could harm the market. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

If you've been paying attention, you'll have noticed that it's been a big week for Google's hardware plans.

First, the company announced it is acquiring North, the Canadian startup behind the Focals smart glasses.

The deal, which is rumored to be to the tune of $180 million, was announced by Google's hardware chief Rick Osterloh. "North's technical expertise will help as we continue to invest in our hardware efforts and ambient computing future," he said in a statement.

But that wasn't all. On the same day, Qualcomm – which provides the silicon that powers a wide gamut of smartwatches made by Google's partners – announced a more powerful new chip that could give Google's watch efforts a shot in the arm.

Meanwhile, Google is still waiting and hoping that its acquisition of wearable company Fitbit will get the green light from regulators. Unlike North, the Fitbit deal represents a much bigger merger that involves copious amounts of user data.

It's set alarm bells ringing with antitrust regulators, and this week a team of consumer groups wrote to regulators asking them to put the brakes on the Fitbit deal.

So Fitbit is still a TBD, but if Google clinches the deal then it has all the pieces in place to take the fight to Apple and co.

The Google Watch, or Pixel Watch, is getting closer to reality

"Fitbit is a very good brand with good brand strength," Anshel Sag, a chip and wearables analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, told Business Insider. "Google may keep it alive. They might just brand everything wearable Fitbit."

But it's not just about the brand.

Google has struggled to make a splash with its smartwatches. The company has yet to build its own device (despite coming close), focusing instead on providing the software for watches built by other device makers.

With the latest developments, the stars may have finally aligned for Google to create its own smartwatch, similar to the way it has created its own line of Pixel smartphones.

On the hardware side, Qualcomm's new chip provides a foundation for Google to build something that can better compete with the Apple Watch. That's because Apple uses its own in-house processor in its Watch, and that chip is far more powerful than the off-the-shelf Qualcomm processor that Apple's smartwatch competitors have had to rely on.

Qualcomm latest chip may change that mismatch. "I think Qualcomm has basically fixed all the problems they had architecturally," said Sag.

And if Google's Fitbit acquisition successfully closes, Google will have new software that could let it build a better smartwatch platform — something that some observers believe is necessary if Google wants to be a contender. 

"I think Google has very poorly architected their wearable OS from the beginning, so they have to start over in my opinion," he said.

Fitbit's smartwatches run a proprietary operating system that's less battery-intensive than Google's and allows its devices to run for several days on a single charge. By getting its hands on this, Google could build a new smartwatch platform of its own. 

Google is setting itself up for a serious swing at Google Glass 2.0

As for North, Google will also be getting its hands on the technology behind North's next-gen glasses. North's first product was clunky, but the next-generation glasses – which the company said will no longer launch – had already generated buzz from demoes behind closed doors.

"It is mind blowingly good," said Sag, who tried the Focals 2.0 earlier this year.

Furthermore, Google is also getting its hands on the patents and technology that North acquired from Intel in 2018.

All of this could be pivotal for Google's plans to take on Apple, Facebook, and other tech giants in building the next generation of computing– all under the guiding hand of Rick Osteloh who is helping Google unify its hardware strategy.

Google previously failed to make its virtual reality efforts take off, eventually abandoning its biggest VR product, Google Daydream.

"The AR/VR group lost a lot of political capital," said Sag. But augmented reality continues to fascinate the company, and by bringing North's talent and IP under its hardware division, Google is setting itself up for a serious swing at Google Glass 2.0.

"They know Niantic is working on something, they know Apple is working on something, they know Facebook is working on something, and they cannot be left in the dust. I think North helps them get back into the race very quickly."

SEE ALSO: LEAKED MEMO: Alphabet's healthcare unit Verily suspended bonuses mid-pandemic to fund diversity programs instead, frustrating employees

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• Judi Dench, the 85-year-old British actress, has recently appeared in TikTok videos thanks to her grandson, Sam Williams.
• In a recent interview, Dench told the UK's Channel 4 News that taking part in sketches and dances on her grandson's TikTok has "saved [her] life" during the pandemic lockdown.
• "Everyday is so uncharted. You wake up and you wonder what day it is, and you wonder what date it is, and sometimes what month," Dench told Channel 4. "And then you think, 'What do I do today?'"
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

TikTok has become a dire saving grace for billions of people locking down during the pandemic, including 85-year-old actress Judi Dench.

Dench started appearing in TikTok skits and dances in March on her grandson Sam Williams' account. In a recent TV interview, the British actress credited TikTok with giving her a way to break up the monotony of the months inside on lockdown during the pandemic.

"Well, it saved my life," Dench told UK's Channel 4 News. "Everyday is so uncharted. You wake up and you wonder what day it is, and you wonder what date it is, and sometimes what month. And then you think, 'What do I do today?' ... I planned to learn every Shakespeare sonnet. Well, I've got to about 9, and there are 154."

Dench's selective cameo appearances on her grandson's TikTok videos have generated millions of views. In an interview in April, Williams told Insider about the TikTok audience's love of his famous grandma trying out viral TikTok dances and ruining his jokes' punch lines.

It's not surprising TikTok has even reached Dame Judi Dench. TikTok generated 315 million installs in the first three months of 2020 — just as millions went into lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic — and set a record for the most downloads an app has ever recorded in a single quarter. As many are turning en masse to TikTok for entertainment and information, the app reached 2 billion all-time downloads in late May.

You can watch Dench's full interview with Channel 4 News:

SEE ALSO: Facebook is dumping its failed TikTok clone Lasso to make way for its other TikTok clone on Instagram

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• Amazon's deal to buy self-driving car startup Zoox could foreshadow more deals to come.
• Autonomous vehicle technology is proving to be much harder to develop than early enthusiasts predicted.
• It could take a decade or more and tens of billions of dollars for the industry to develop commercially viable robo-taxi services that are built around fully autonomous vehicles, industry experts told Business Insider.
• The time and investment is likely beyond what most venture firms were prepared for, and pressure is likely growing on startups to find deep-pocketed suitors, the experts said.
• Among those companies likely to be looking to acquire self-driving technology startups are the big car makers; auto-parts manufacturers; and companies such as Wal-Mart and FedEx that either focus on shipping goods or for which shipping is a major expense, they said.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Just a few years ago, automakers around the world and technologists in Silicon Valley were confidently predicting that fully autonomous vehicles were just around the corner.

By 2020 more or less, they forecast that cars — some of them operated by so-called robo-taxi services — would be able to pick up passengers from just about any point on the map and deliver them to just about anywhere else.

It turns out that vision is going to be much harder to realize than many of the technology's backers admitted at the time. And it's going to cost a lot more time and money.

Those are some of the key lessons to be learned from Amazon's announcement last week that it plans to buy autonomous vehicle startup Zoox for a fraction of its previous valuation, industry experts told Business Insider. Another lesson: Because of that fact, there's likely to be a lot more consolidation to come.

"A lot of the business case assumptions and model assumptions, historically, have started to fall apart as people really started to realize just how challenging this robo-taxi problem really is," said Austin Russell, CEO of Luminar, which is developing a sensor system for use in partially and fully autonomous vehicles.

Zoox raised a lot of money, but it wasn't nearly enough

Amazon reportedly plans to buy Zoox for $1.2 billion. Although the e-commerce giant says it plans to allow the company to continue operating independently, the deal is something of a come-down for the startup.

Founded in 2014, Zoox was highly ambitious. It planned to create a fully integrated robo-taxi company — developing not just the software to power self-driving cars, but the cars themselves, and its own ride-hailing service. While it had experienced some management turmoil — investors forced out then-CEO Tim Kentley-Klay two years ago— its engineering team was highly regarded in the industry. Through October, the company had raised nearly $1 billion and was pegged with a valuation of $3.2 billion.

That the company is selling for little more than a third of that valuation — and only a bit more than what was invested in the company — says a lot about the state of the industry and how far away Zoox is to realizing its vision, industry experts said.

The $1 billion that was already invested in Zoox was essentially seed capital, Russell said. To see its vision through, it was likely going to need many times that amount of cash, he and other experts said.

"I know that it seems from the outside, to Silicon Valley software investors, that they ... raised a lot of money," said Reilly Brennan, a general partner with Trucks Venture Capital, which invests in autonomous vehicle technology and other transportation-related companies. "But I'll tell you, in the automotive industry, Zoox was far undercapitalized for what their aspirations were."

Preparing cars to drive by themselves in cities is a huge challenge

But that problem is not unique to Zoox, the experts said. Self-driving car technology is proving to be a much more complex and painstaking problem to solve that many originally expected. Autonomous car technology has progressed to the point where self-driving vehicles can operate safely in certain constrained environments, they said.

The technology has shown great promise already for use in agricultural, mining, or construction vehicles that operate in circumscribed areas off roads where they interact with few other vehicles or people and can go at slow speeds, the experts said. Autonomous systems that can take over for humans and drive long-haul trucks or even passenger cars on the highway may become commonplace in a few years.

But navigating ad hoc routes in urban environments — something that human drivers do every day and that fully autonomous robo-taxis would be expected to do — is immensely challenging. That's because there are vast numbers of so-called edge cases — improbable but still possible scenarios — that play out in such places, they said.

"That unconstrained environment, particularly in cities and urban centers — the amount of edge cases that are there are orders of magnitude greater than what we see, for example, on a highway," said Russell.

Even if cars have sensors to help prevent accidents, "you still have to train the vehicle on everything that can possibly happen," he continued. "That's very difficult when there are millions of possible scenarios."

Solving that problem and getting robo-taxi services to the point where they are generating significant revenue and are commercially viable, is likely to take at least another five years, if not a decade or more, the experts said. Industrywide, the effort is likely to require an additional investment billions — and potentially tens of billions — of dollars, they said.

That reality is far different than the initial hype and forecasts.

"Robo-taxis are coming to market at a slower pace than what many investors and technologists previously thought," said Quin Garcia, managing director at Autotech Ventures, which invests in transportation-related startups.

The industry is likely to see continued consolidation

That difference between expectations and reality is helping spur consolidation in the space, the experts said. In addition to Amazon's acquisition of Zoox, GM purchased rival self-driving car startup Cruise in 2016, and Uber bought Otto, which was working on autonomous technology for long-haul trucks that same year. The following year, Intel purchased MobileEye, which was developing computer vision technology for use in autonomous vehicles. Last year, Daimler Trucks purchased Torc Robotics, which, like Otto, was working on self-driving trucks.

The industry has also seen a raft of partnerships, as different players have teamed up to try to pool their resources and development efforts. SoftBank and Honda have both invested in Cruise, for example, and SoftBank and Toyota have backed Uber's autonomous vehicle development effort.

More consolidation will likely follow with other startups in the space being snapped up by bigger companies, the experts said. The winners in the self-driving car industry will likely see enormous returns on their investment. But the prospect of having to invest for a decade or more before seeing any kind of a payoff doesn't fit particularly well with the venture capital model, in which funds are typically structured to last only 10 years and are usually designed to see returns much sooner than that.

"There's going to be a lot significant pressure on these companies to drive toward consolidation," Russell said. "If you can't have a business case for the next 10 years that makes it viable as an independent company," he continued, "what [else] are you going to do?"

Among the companies that could become takeover targets, Brennan said, are Aurora, a Silicon Valley-based startup backed by Amazon that's working on self-driving car technology; May Mobility, which is developing autonomous shuttle buses; and Gatik, a company Trucks has backed, which is focusing on self-driving short-haul trucks that could deliver groceries, say, from a store to a house.

Potential acquirers will likely need to be big companies with deep pockets that can invest for the long term or see autonomous vehicles as meeting a core need, the experts said. That group likely includes vehicle manufacturers and automotive industry parts suppliers could be among the companies that make acquisitions, Garcia said.

But companies like Amazon that spend a lot of time and money moving goods from place to place — or helping customers do that — likely also will be interested, Brennan said. That could include retailers like Walmart, Target, Costco, and the big grocery chains; ecommerce companies such as eBay and Shopify, and shipping companies such as UPS and FedEx.

Amazon, as it has been in other areas of logistics, is likely years ahead of the game. Its rivals will likely follow, Brennan said.

"In three to five years, a lot of major companies that compete against Amazon will have a significant amount of autonomy in house, and the reality is they're going to have to acquire a lot of that stuff, because most of them don't have their own in-house autonomy groups," he said.

Got a tip about the autonomous vehicle industry? Contact Troy Wolverton via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

• Read more about the autonomous vehicle business:
• 5 key takeaways from Amazon's $1 billion acquisition of self-driving startup Zoox
• Amazon has agreed to buy Zoox for a reported $1.2 billion
• A 'reckoning' is coming for self driving car startups says an early backer of Lyft. Here's how the founder of Autotech Ventures is betting on the transportation shakeup.
• It's 'inevitable' that a self-driving car will kill someone. Here's why a VC thinks we should be investing in them anyway.

SEE ALSO: VC investor explains how he finds surprising startups by focusing on the founders' opinions instead of their initial product idea

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• TCL's 10 Pro costs $450 and comes with features that even the $1,000 iPhone 11 Pro lacks, like an in-screen fingerprint sensor, four rear cameras, a curved AMOLED screen, and a headphone jack.
• I've been using the TCL 10 Pro for a few days, and so far I've been impressed with its customization,  always-on display, and headphone jack.
• But there are a few ways in which the phone falls short. Its fingerprint sensor, for example, isn't always very responsive.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The smartphone industry has undergone a shift over the past year, as major device makers have moved away from focusing primarily on high-end, premium devices by launching more affordable phones with similar features.

Apple, Samsung, and Google have all released budget phones this year and last year that borrow some of the capabilities of their pricier counterparts.

The move comes as industry analysis has suggested there's been a growing demand for cheaper smartphones. In its figures from April, for example, The International Data Corporation cited Samsung's less expensive Galaxy A series as a key reason it was able to claim the top spot in terms of worldwide market share.

And TCL, best known for its line of televisions, is challenging mobile industry leaders with its own entrant: the TCL 10 Pro.

The $450 TCL 10 Pro, which launched in the US in May, comes with a range of features that even Apple's $1,100 iPhone 11 Pro Max lacks. Such capabilities include an in-screen fingerprint sensor, a curved AMOLED screen, a quadruple camera setup, and a headphone jack. 

While the TCL 10 Pro has several features I appreciate — like its always-on display and programmable side button for launching shortcuts — there are a few ways in which it falls behind the iPhone and other pricier phones. Although it has a fingerprint sensor, it doesn't seem to be all that accurate most of the time, for example.

After spending a couple of days with the phone, here's what stood out to me the most. Our full review, which is to come, will have more detail about these features as well as critical areas like the camera and battery life. 

SEE ALSO: Apple is expected to release a larger iPhone 12 Pro later this year — here's everything we know about Apple's next high-end iPhones so far

The TCL 10 Pro has a large screen with an always-on display, making it easy to see the time and other information at a glance.

The TCL 10 Pro has a 6.47-inch screen that's capable of showing some information like the time even when the display is turned off. It's a feature that's become common across Android smartphones like those made by Samsung, but it's still a welcome addition that's noticeable when switching from the iPhone. 

The always-on display on TCL's 10 Pro is optional and can be turned on by navigating to Settings, tapping the "Display" option, and pressing the "Always On Display" button.

When this feature is switched on, the phone will show the time, battery level, date, and app icons representing unchecked notifications even when the screen is asleep. 

It may not seem like a deal-breaker, considering it only takes a few seconds to pick up your phone and unlock it. But if you're anything like me, you enjoy using your phone as a bedside clock — and being able to just turn over and see the time without reaching for my phone definitely makes doing so much easier. 

There's also a programmable side button that you can customize to perform specific tasks.

It's not uncommon for Android phones to offer more customization and flexibility compared to the iPhone. OnePlus, for example, allows users to customize the navigation bar and offers many different accent and theme colors. Samsung makes it possible to program the side key to either launch an app, open the camera, or trigger its Bixby virtual assistant.

But the TCL 10 Pro offers more customization options for its side key than I've ever personally experienced on other Android phones. The options are so granular that you can program the side button to launch the camera into a specific mode (like Portrait mode or the selfie camera), or start a timer, take a note, turn the flashlight on and off, and a range of other choices.

I have the side button on my review unit set to launch split screen mode, which in my experience makes it faster and easier to run two apps at once on screen. 

The TCL 10 Pro is also one of the few smartphones that still comes with a headphone jack.

If you have a pair of wired headphones you're not willing to part with, I have some good news: the TCL 10 Pro comes with a headphone jack.

Although truly wireless Bluetooth headphones like Apple's AirPods, Google's Pixel Buds, and Samsung's Galaxy Buds have become increasingly popular in recent years, I appreciate that I don't have to scramble to find a pair of USB-C headphones to use when my wireless headphones run out of battery.

The TCL 10 Pro joins some older phones like the Google Pixel 3a and Samsung Galaxy S10 in being one of the few devices on the market with a headphone jack. 

Its performance is also decent for the price.

The TCL 10 Pro runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 675 processor from 2018, a chipset developed for less expensive smartphones. That chip offers enough performance to handle many of the tasks you probably use your smartphone for on a daily basis, like checking email, playing games, and taking photos.

During my brief time with the TCL 10 Pro, the device was able to handle powerful games like "Shadowgun Legends" and "Asphalt 9" with ease. It's not quite as snappy as the $400 iPhone SE, which runs on the same powerful chip in Apple's iPhone 11 lineup, but I haven't noticed any major shortcomings yet when it comes to performance. 

But the fingerprint sensor can be unreliable.

The TCL 10 Pro's in-screen fingerprint sensor has been inconsistent during my time with the phone so far. It would often take two or three attempts to unlock the phone using my fingerprint, which can be an annoyance. 

I had to erase my fingerprint data and re-enroll it to address the issue, which has noticeably improved the fingerprint sensor's performance, although it still feels glitchy sometimes. 

The screen can also sometimes feel too sensitive, making it prone to accidental taps.

On occasion when I lift the TCL 10 Pro or slip it into a pocket or purse, I'll notice that I've accidentally launched a menu or tapped into an app. You can imagine how jarring that can feel if you get a lot of work-related notifications throughout the day, and suddenly Slack is open on your screen when you're just trying to unwind in the evening.

The TCL 10 Pro has plenty of screen customization options that allow you to do things like optimize the display's performance in bright sunlight or make it more comfortable for reading. But there aren't any settings for toggling the display sensitivity. 

The TCL 10 Pro is also missing some of the features that have become standard on smartphones, like water resistance and wireless charging.

It's expected that smartphones priced at hundreds of dollars less than top-of-the-line phones from Samsung, Apple, and even OnePlus will have some compromises. For the TCL 10 Pro, those trade-offs include a lack of water resistance and no wireless charging.

That latter point, from my perspective, is less important. Unless you've already invested in a wireless charger for your last phone that you were hoping to keep for years to come, the omission of wireless charging probably isn't a deal breaker.

Water resistance, however, gives the more peace of mind of knowing your phone won't be destroyed if you accidentally drop it in the pool. 

All told, the TCL 10 Pro seems like a promising alternative for those on a budget. But it's facing more competition than ever.

If the TCL 10 Pro had entered the marketed about a year and a half ago, it would would be hard to believe that a phone this cheap exists. But now that major phone makers like Apple, Google, and Samsung are broadening their budget offerings, the some of which have comparable features or more powerful  performance — TCL will have to work harder to stand out. 

• This is a preview of The Rise of Cloud Gaming research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• Purchase this report.
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A disruptive competitive dynamic is poised to shake up the gaming industry, and it's centered on the cloud. Cloud-based streaming has generated significant buzz in the entertainment business throughout the last decade, rocking the media and music industries with the likes of Netflix and Spotify.

Now it's gaming's turn in the spotlight, with a number of cloud service providers and telecommunications companies revealing plans to enter the cloud gaming fray by launching their own services. These companies, each with unique advantages to disrupt the video gaming space, are largely driving the hype in the cloud gaming market.

Cloud gaming, by nature, is also enough to turn heads: It expands the audience for premium games beyond the current console and PC audience by making them accessible anywhere, at any time, and on any device. That huge addressable market is creating a lucrative and growing opportunity for companies gearing up to enter the space, providing a long runway for growth. 

A convergence of technological and consumer behavioral forces is pushing cloud gaming to move the needle in the gaming industry, something it's failed to do in the past decade. Cloud gaming depends heavily on the cloud and connectivity — areas of strength for cloud service providers and telecoms that are launching their own services.

And advancements in connectivity standards and hardware functionality, new benefits to the end user over traditional gaming experiences, and the ability to meet gamers' evolving tastes are playing — and will continue to play — a significant role in helping cloud gaming reach its full potential.

In The Rise of Cloud Gaming, Business Insider Intelligence takes a deep dive into the evolving cloud gaming market. The report sizes the cloud gaming opportunity and examines the various drivers and barriers, identifies the most noteworthy big tech companies and telecoms poised to dominate the space, and discusses the distinct strategies they're undertaking to capture a piece of the multibillion-dollar market. 

The companies mentioned in this report are: Amazon, Google, LG Uplus, Microsoft, Nintendo, Nvidia, Sony, Tencent, and Verizon. 

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report: 

• Several significant changes in the decade-plus since cloud gaming's emergence have led the gaming format to move from a futuristic what-if to a massive opportunity for companies outside the traditional gaming space.
• Cloud service providers and telecoms are investing in cloud gaming because their technological strengths are well suited to the new format and can help them corner off the immediately massive addressable market.
• But nontraditional gaming companies will have to consider several factors — like identifying target audiences and building and maintaining appealing content libraries — before and after launching their cloud gaming offerings.

In full, the report: 

• Examines how recent technological and consumer behavioral developments are playing — and will continue to play — a significant role in helping cloud gaming reach its potential.
• Explores the disruptive class of companies whose unique advantages position them to capture a large share of the burgeoning market. 
• Identifies several factors that may be most inhibitive to consumer adoption of cloud gaming, and how new entrants to the space can work to overcome them. 

Interested in getting the full report? Here's how to get access:

1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
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• Productivity and collaboration apps that enable remote work are seeing huge demand right now and while Microsoft still largely dominates the workplace, there are many newer apps trying to reinvent pieces of the productivity suite. 
• Companies like Notion are rethinking how document sharing and collaboration should work, Airtable is rethinking what spreadsheets are used for, and Front is reimagining how coworkers should use email. 
• Business Insider spoke to venture capitalists and analysts to compile the following list of productivity and collaboration startups that are reinventing the traditional office suite and taking on Microsoft.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Productivity and collaboration apps that enable remote work are seeing huge demand right now, as companies look for ways to keep employees connected and effective while working from home. Tools that were already popular before the pandemic — like Microsoft, Slack, and Zoom— have seen user numbers skyrocket even more dramatically. 

Microsoft in particular has reaped the benefits via its chat and collaboration app Teams, which is bundled in its Office 365 suite along with Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and more. Microsoft Teams' number of daily active users jumped to 75 million in April, with analysts speculating that Teams saw such a large jump in usage because it was the most convenient collaboration platform for many businesses to adopt since they were already paying for Microsoft's suite to use its other tools. 

While Microsoft still largely dominates the workplace, startups are chipping away at different parts of its suite by inventing new types of workplace collaboration and productivity apps to reinvent specific tools that office workers typically use. For example, Notion is rethinking how document sharing and collaboration should work, Airtable is rethinking spreadsheets, and Front is reimagining how coworkers should use email. 

Tools like that are creating new categories "around or adjacent to the traditional office productivity suite," said Rich Wong, a partner at Accel. "These are different forms of collaboration tools that, over time, will change the nature of how people work." 

As the shift to remote work increases the need for better work tools, many of these new productivity and collaboration startups are poised to grow. Business Insider spoke to five venture capitalists and analysts to compile the following list of productivity and collaboration startups that are reinventing the traditional office suite.

Here are the 14 companies that they recommended that are reinventing work (all funding and valuations taken from PitchBook unless otherwise noted): 

SEE ALSO: Zoom just hired a new security chief. Meet Zoom's 12 power players helping CEO Eric Yuan navigate the product's skyrocketing growth

Airtable

Funding: $170 million

Valuation: $1.1 billion

Major Investors: Thrive Capital, Benchmark, Caffeinated Capital, CRV

What it does: Airtable is a cloud-based spreadsheet tool that lets users build their own custom apps without having to code.

Why it's on the list: Airtable is used for everything from project management to spreadsheets, and is taking on legacy tools like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. The company has widespread popularity and has grown rapidly. It's planning to build two new offices this year, focused on engineering, sales, and marketing, to support its growth. 

In March, CEO Howie Liu told Business Insider that company's revenues have quadrupled in the two years or so since Airtable raised its Series C round of $100 million in 2018. The company is said to be in talks to raise another $50 million in funding, according to a report from The Information in April. 

Vertex Ventures partner Sandeep Bhadra isn't an investor in Airtable, but says its "phenomenal execution" impresses him, and that few companies can compete against it. 

Notion

Funding: $70.9 million

Valuation: $2 billion

Major Investors: Index Ventures, First Round Capital, Chasella and A.Capital Ventures

What it does: Notion wants to be an "all-in-one workplace," so teams have one place to write notes, track projects, build spreadsheets and databases, and get organized.

Why it's on the list: Notion is pioneering an entirely new way of working and collaborating and it's booming in popularity. Sonali de Rycker, a partner at Accel, said in March that it's "no surprise that they hit 1 million users in less than three years" because it just proves how useful its product is. De Rycker is not an investor in Notion.

Unlike most other startups, Notion has not raised a lot of venture funding, but has plenty of inbound interest from VCs. In March the company raised $50 million in new funding in a round led by Index Ventures that valued it at $2 billion. CEO Ivan Zhao told Business Insider that Notion was profitable and thriving amid the boom in remote work, and only raised to give customers reassurance that Notion will be sticking around. 

Chris Marsh, an analyst at 451 Research, said he sees Notion as a "flexible digital canvas" that brings documents, data collaboration, and workflow together, and is pioneering a new type of productivity tool to replace legacy word processing and file sharing.

Canva

Funding: $316.5 million

Valuation: $6 billion

Major Investors: Blackbird Ventures and Sequoia Capital China, Felicis Ventures, General Catalyst, and Bond Capital 

What it does: Canva is an easy-to-use graphic design app that provides free and paid templates for freelance, professional, and aspiring designers.

Why it's on the list:  Canva is taking on tools like Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft PowerPoint, and catching on as a powerful-but-simple tool, even for non-artistic users in sales and marketing departments. It's also growing incredibly fast: It just raised a $60 million funding round that shot the company's valuation to $6 billion. Legendary tech investor Mary Meeker has participated in previous rounds. 

Canva has seen skyrocketing growth due to increased remote work, the company said when it announced its funding. The company is looking to continue adding more features, and make acquisitions in the media and editing space. 

Superhuman

Funding: $56 million

Valuation: $260 million

Major Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Shrug Capital, First Round Capital, Day One Ventures, Chapter One Ventures, and Boldstart

What it does: Superhuman is reimagining email with the goal of making it a faster and more efficient way to communicate. Users get keyboard shortcuts, additional features, and reminders to get though their inboxes in less time. 

Why it's on the list: Superhuman, which gives users keyboard shortcuts and reminders that help breeze through an inbox, has a huge fan-base in Silicon Valley. The email app, which is currently invite-only and costs $30/month, promises to help users become inbox-zero masters by using AI and other features to help them stay on top of their messages. 

Its goal is to displace older workplace email apps like Microsoft Outlook and Gmail and make email something that truly makes people more productive at work. Investor Jeff Morris, Jr. at Chapter One Ventures said Superhuman will come a "must have" product for all companies eventually.

Coda.io

Funding: $60 million

Valuation: Unknown

Major Investors: Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Soma Capital, New Enterprise Associates

What it does: Coda has created a new type of document that combines the flexibility of a Word document with the power of a spreadsheet and the functions of an app.

Why it's on the list: Coda is in a similar space as Notion, and wants to be a new type of workspace. It allows users to collaborate on documents and customizable tables, then add functionality, too, like emailing a time sheet or nudging a coworker on Slack. Investor John Lily at Greylock previously told Business Insider that Coda allows teams to build a doc that's as powerful as an app. 

The idea is to "empower non-technical people with the ability to customize how they create and manage their own work," said Chris Marsh at 451 research.

Figma

Funding: $132.9 million

Valuation: $2.1 billion

Major Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund

What it does: Figma brings the same kind of collaboration available in Google Docs to design. Its cloud-based software helps web design teams create, test, and ship designs.

Why it's on the list: Figma is opening up the design process to more than just designers and allowing teams to easily collaborate on projects. It has a strong fan-base of front-end designers, marketing teams, and social media creatives. 

The company just raised $50 million in funding that brought its valuation to a little over $2 billion. In the remote work era, more teams have been using Figma's white-boarding, note taking, slide deck creating, and diagramming tools, according to TechCrunch.

"We're beginning to see creative teams and non-creative teams come together and tools like Figma are looking to design for that," Chris Marsh at 451 Research said. 

Loom

Funding: $68.5 million

Valuation: $350 million, according to Forbes

Major Investors: Sequoia Capital, Coatue, Kleiner Perkins, Jay Simons, Kevin Systrom, Ashton Kutcher

What it does: The video messaging app lets users record short videos — instead of typing long emails or spending time in meetings — to get their ideas across.

Why it's on the list: Loom solves the problem of communicating complex ideas in a new form factor. The app lets people record short videos to share via messaging or email, and it's seeing increased interest during the remote work era. Investors are using it to give feedback on startup pitches, CEOs are using it to communicate with employees, and teachers are using it for online lessons.

Sandeep Bhadra at Vertex Ventures is not an investor in the company but said that Loom tackles "asynchronous video communications" well because "people love the personal touch." He likens it to "Cameo for enterprises," referring to the short-form video app for celebrities.  

Bhadra isn't the only fan. Loom's investors include high profile individuals like Ashton Kutcher, Instagram's Kevin Systrom, Atlassian's Jay Simons and Figma's Dylan Field, all of whom participated in its recent $28.75 million funding round, according to Forbes. 

Beautiful.ai

Funding: $16.3 million

Valuation: $36 million

Major Investors: Trinity Ventures, Shasta Ventures, and First Round Capital

What it does: Beautiful.AI uses artificial intelligence to make effective and well-designed presentations.

Why it's on the list: Beautiful.AI is taking on apps like Microsoft's PowerPoint and Google Sheets by trying to make a better presentation software. The software lets users choose templates based on the subject of their presentation, and then modify each slide depending on the content. 

Karan Mehandru, a partner at Trinity Ventures and an investor in the company, calls it a "PowerPoint killer." 

Front

Funding: $138.4 million

Valuation: $859 million

Major Investors: Initialized Capital Management, Sequoia Capital, Anthos Capital and Tribe Capital, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan, Atlassian's Mike Cannon-Brookes

What it does: Front takes a team-based approach to email. It combines a company's social media, email, texts, and other messages into a shared inbox to which the entire team has access.

Why it's on the list: Front is taking on one of the most-used tools in the modern workplace: email. Corporate email is currently dominated by Microsoft Outlook and to a lesser degree Google's Gmail, and hasn't really been reinvented since it was first introduced in the 1990s. Front believes that a shared inbox can make people more efficient and productive at their jobs. 

It just raised a $59 million funding round in January, and although the company declined to share a specific number at the time, it said its valuation has grown four-fold from its last round 2 years ago.

Process.st

Funding: $29.6 million

Valuation: $38.2 million

Major Investors: Accel, Salesforce Ventures, Atlassian, Blackbird Ventures, AngelPad

What it does: Process Street created a "super-powered checklist" that can automate work processes and be integrated into other tools that employees use in the workplace.

Why it's on the list: Process Street is pioneering a new type of workplace productivity tool that takes the idea of a to-do list and makes it collaborative and actionable. The company raised a $12 million funding round led by Accel earlier this year, and plan to use the funds to keep growing the product. 

"I guess arguably you could use a Google Sheet as a way of keeping track of a list of things and sort of ticking down it," said Accel's Rich Wong. "But to actually make it a collaborative process as opposed to just being sort of a flat document — that had never been done before for a lot of these processes," 

While Process Street doesn't compete directly with any of Microsoft's products, a new app called Microsoft Lists is attempting to make a similar type of automation and integration. 

Almanac

Funding: $9 million

Valuation: Unknown 

Major Investors: Floodgate Fund, CoFound Partners, General Catalyst, Inspired Capital, Abstract Ventures

What it does: It's an open-source platform for document sharing. 

Why it's on the list: Almanac wants to be the GitHub of document sharing, said Shruti Gandhi of Array Ventures, an investor in the company. The platform lets users create, share and collaborate on open-source work documents, on topics ranging from HR best practices to legal templates.

The company just raised a $9 million seed round of funding to keep growing the platform for its 10,000 current users, according to blog TechStartups.

"They've seen contributions increase 800% since Covid started and people submit everything from [diversity, equity, and inclusion] docs around racial justice, to work samples used in job searches," Gandhi said. "GitHub is a mission critical tool for engineers—Almanac is going to be the same for every business person."

Miro

Funding: $76.3 million

Valuation: $725 million

Major Investors: Iconiq Capital, Accel

What it does: It helps teams build and develop ideas from anywhere using virtual white-boarding software.

Why its on the list: Miro is in the right place at the right time as companies move to more remote and distributed ways of working. It helps companies work in real-time or at different times by sharing a canvas for product development, user experience and design, strategy, and mind mapping.

"As teams are increasingly distributed across small and large organizations, companies lack the tools to collaborate in a remote context, which made us really excited about Miro's proposition," said Sonali de Rycker, a partner at Accel and an investor in Miro. While Miro doesn't directly compete with Microsoft's productivity tools, it represents a new category that could replace or complement older tools. 

Miro can be used in tandem with video conferencing software because people can document ideas in real-time and share them with others later, said Chris Marsh at 451 Research. 

Hopin

Funding: $46.8 million

Valuation: $350 million, according to Business Insider

Major investors: IVP, Slack Fund, Salesforce Ventures, Accel, Northzone Ventures, and Seedcamp

What it does: Hopin creates software for an all-in-one online events platform that can mimic an in-person event or conference. 

Why it's on the list: Hopin has exploded in popularity in the remote work boom, as everyone seeks to replace in-person conferences and events with online replacements. The company raised two funding rounds this year, $6.5 million in February and a larger $40 million round in June. 

While Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom can be used for online events, Hopin takes the experience a step further. Chris Marsh at 451 Research wrote in a recent report that after an event is created on Hopin, "attendees can visit receptions, event stages, networking rooms, special event sessions and booths." The platform can also handle thousands of attendees. 

Workflowy

Funding: Unknown 

Valuation: Unknown 

Major Investors: Bloomberg Beta, New Ground Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Array Ventures

What it does: Workflowy is a cloud-based list-making tool that companies can use to share tasks and information. 

Why its on the list: The company takes a unique approach to organizing information, which investor Shruti Gandhi of Array Ventures calls a "a shared brain for your company and a good way to collaborate for a remote workforce." 

She adds that it lets companies and individuals "break big ideas down into small pieces, focus on one thing at a time, and stay on the same page." 

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he doesn't know Ghislaine Maxwell, the alleged madam for disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested Thursday.
• The pair were photographed at an Oscars afterparty hosted by then-Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter on March 2, 2014.
• "Don't know Ghislaine at all. She photobombed me once at a Vanity Fair party several years ago," Musk tweeted early Friday.
• A spokesperson for Musk had denied to Business Insider any connection between the two last August, saying Maxwell "inserted herself behind him ... without his knowledge."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has once again denied knowing Ghislaine Maxwell, saying that a photo of them together in 2014 was a result of her photobombing him.

Maxwell, who allegedly groomed young girls for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested by the FBI at her home in New Hampshire on Thursday.

"Don't know Ghislaine at all. She photobombed me once at a Vanity Fair party several years ago," Musk tweeted early Friday. "Real question is why VF invited her in the first place."

The tweet echoed remarks made by a spokesperson for Musk in August 2019.

"Ghislaine simply inserted herself behind him in a photo he was posing for without his knowledge," they told Business Insider.

The photo — taken at an Oscars afterparty hosted by then-Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter on March 2, 2014, in West Hollywood — caused many to question Musk's link to the British socialite.

Epstein — who killed himself in jail in August 2019 — claimed in 2018 to a New York Times reporter that he had given advice to Musk while he debated taking Tesla provider.

Musk's spokesperson denied the claim.

• Read more:
• Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested at a $1 million luxury four-bedroom New Hampshire house that was bought last year in cash
• Here's the indictment against Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime girlfriend accused of sexually abusing young girls
• Prosecutors say the timing of charges against Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is 'not at all' related to Trump firing Geoffrey Berman
• Ghislaine Maxwell is an 'extreme flight risk' with 3 passports and millions in the bank, prosecutors say

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Inside London during COVID-19 lockdown

• Offices, hotels, and malls were emptied by the coronavirus. While some are reopening, the disruption has created a new normal. 
• Big firms are rethinking office needs — and some commercial real-estate deals are being put on ice.
• A surge in e-commerce, meanwhile, is fueling demand for warehouse space from companies like Amazon. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The coronavirus threw the real-estate world into disarray, as people empty out of offices, hotels, and malls and work from their homes. The spread of the virus and the economic disruptions that followed are transforming how people and companies finance, operate, and occupy real estate. 

Big firms are rethinking office needs — and some commercial real-estate deals are being put on ice. A surge in e-commerce, meanwhile, is fueling demand for warehouse space at companies look for new ways to reach customers.

We've also been tracking a slew of layoffs in the venture-backed real estate world, as empty short-term rentals and coworking spaces have hit once-buzzy industries hard.

Here's the latest news on how commercial and residential real estate is being upended, and how experts think these markets will play out in the long run. 

Have a tip about layoffs or major changes in this space? Contact this reporter through the secure messaging app Signal at +1 (646) 768-4772 using a non-work phone, email at anicoll@businessinsider.com, or Twitter DM at @AlexONicoll. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Here's everything we know right now: 

Latest news

• Commercial real-estate hiring is heating back up. From strategy-focused exec jobs to the red-hot industrial space, 4 recruiters lay out roles they're trying to fill.
• Billions of dollars of Las Vegas development hang in the balance right now, but the owner of Caesars Palace sees the city's crisis as an opportunity to imagine its next mega-project.
• Vacancy rates are soaring above 15% in Washington DC's normally recession-proof office market. Here's how industry players think this downturn will shape up — and why some are still optimistic.
• WeWork is ditching a major Manhattan office it hasn't even moved into yet — and it's the first big step in a turnaround that's put its entire real-estate portfolio under review

Warehouse space is heating up

• Amazon just signed its largest-ever warehouse lease in NYC. Here's how it's been making deals left and right to grow its massive storage and distribution network.
• Amazon just signed a lease on a huge NYC warehouse used by one-time rival Jet.com. The e-commerce giant has been gobbling up industrial space as demand for deliveries surges.
• Warehouses are the new darling of commercial real-estate thanks to a surge in e-commerce, with firms like Macy's and Boeing selling while Amazon snaps space up
• A surge in grocery deliveries is creating a huge opportunity for industrial real-estate developers. Here's how the coronavirus is transforming retail and warehousing.

Office sublease deals adding supply to the market

• Companies from banks to tech giants are looking to shed huge chunks of office space. Here's a look at 8 key sublease offers — and what they mean for rents in big-city markets.
• Macy's is slashing the size of its brand-new global headquarters by nearly 40% in another drastic step to cut costs

Retail and commercial real estate

• Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt lays out how retail and office space can still thrive and why private infrastructure is the next big opportunity
• Bankrupt Neiman Marcus's $80 million flagship store in the glitzy Hudson Yards mega-mall is now being marketed as office space. It's another black eye for the city's retail market.
• Burning through cash and nothing coming in: We talked to 7 VC investors about what's keeping them up at night in their proptech portfolios
• Inside a 'big short' bet against malls: Investors are claiming wins, and a research analyst who said the wagers were misguided is out
• Lease obligations are 'suffocating' retailers — and a potential court fight over a Victoria's Secret flagship NYC store highlights a wider battle between tenants and landlords

State of the commercial real estate market

• Big investors poured billions into student housing — thinking it was a recession-proof bet. Then the pandemic emptied campuses and turned that thesis on its head.
• Facebook is eyeing offices in cities like Dallas, Atlanta, and Denver to act as 'hubs' to support 50% of its workers staying remote — and it's a move that could upend Silicon Valley and NYC real estate
• Global firms are cutting down on their real-estate footprint as CEOs across industries are considering a permanent switch to remote work
• Meet the 4 dealmakers driving Blackstone's $325 billion commercial real estate portfolio. They walked us through how they're thinking about opportunities in the downturn.
• A blockbuster Facebook office deal is a make-or-break moment for the future of commercial real estate. 3 leasing experts lay out the stakes.
• Neiman Marcus just filed for bankruptcy, and it could mark a major blow to NYC's glitzy Hudson Yards — one of the most expensive mega-malls in US history. Here's why.
• Inside the drama over control of the iconic Chrysler Building: A real-estate tycoon and a prestigious college are renegotiating a critical $150 million deal
• The CEO of real estate heavy-hitter Eastdil explains the types of deals that are must-do right now — and warns that a 'de-retailing' trend is set to accelerate
• The lender to a trendy Brooklyn hotel is looking to offload an $80 million mortgage as the hospitality sector craters — and it's the type of deal distressed-debt investors have been waiting for
• Real-estate tycoon Aby Rosen is abandoning $600 million worth of acquisitions as the coronavirus slams New York City's multibillion-dollar sales market
• Major tenants are delaying big leases in NYC as they re-think their office space needs for the post-coronavirus world
• Blackstone bet big on 4 huge Las Vegas casinos. Then the coronavirus brought Sin City to a halt, right as the PE giant was trying to unload one of its multi-billion-dollar jewels.
• 7 charts show how the coronavirus could clobber real estate, from retail vacancies of nearly 15% to plunging office rents in Texas cities

Coworking and short-term rentals

• Leaked financials from WeWork rival Knotel show huge pre-pandemic losses and a shrinking cash pile. It's a grim sign for the flex-office space.
• After 2 layoff rounds, a valuation nosedive, and chaotic landlord negotiations, Airbnb-backed Zeus Living is shifting its business model. Here's how the corporate-housing startup is moving forward.
• WeWork's US head of real estate is leaving the coworking giant as the firm works through a major turnaround attempt
• IBM is ditching a big WeWork office it has been renting in NYC — showing risks for the flex-space model as the pandemic prompts big companies to rethink real-estate needs
• Knotel and insurance startup Rhino didn't disclose its CEOs were brothers when it struck a complex financial deal. Now a key partner could be on the hook as Knotel scrambles to pay bills, slashes staff, and plans to shed portions of its portfolio.
• WeWork's revenue growth rate was cut in half in Q1, as the company burned through nearly $500 million in 'free cash outflow'
• As WeWork and flex-space rivals stumble, 18 million square feet of space in NYC is at risk. Here's what that means for the real-estate market.
• Airbnb and RXR Realty are scrapping a partnership at Rockefeller Center that the home-sharing giant had touted as a '21st-century hospitality model'
• Airbnb-backed corporate housing startup Zeus Living is asking landlords to renegotiate their leases and withholding April and May rent until they sign
• Knotel is scrambling to pay millions in bills that started stacking up before the coronavirus hit, and hasn't paid April rent at some locations
• Leaked documents from Knotel show the WeWork competitor struggled to hit financial targets well before the coronavirus hit
• 'This is the day of reckoning' for companies like WeWork. 10 real-estate insiders lay out the future of flex-offices, and how employers are preparing now.
• Hospitality startup Sonder is pushing ahead with plans to open its largest NYC apartment hotel yet as coronavirus cripples the travel industry

The future of real estate

• WeWork is bringing corporate staff back to New York offices in 3 waves as the city enters the next stage of reopening. Here are the details the coworking giant just gave workers.
• Home-financing startup EasyKnock just raised $20 million. Its CEO lays out plans for new launches including a marketplace to match investors with homeowners looking for equity.
• Construction firms that get tech right could see Silicon Valley-like valuations. Here's how an old-school industry can transform itself.
• Silver Lake just added to a string of recent travel bets by leading a $108 million investment in vacation property startup Vacasa
• Companies need to add contactless-entry tech to safely reopen offices. Here are 7 firms ranging from startups to huge conglomerates that are set for a surge in business.
• Robots, remote hires, and insourcing: A top UBS exec lays out how the Swiss bank is tackling the future of work and thinking about real-estate needs
• A smart home startup that raised $41 million from Amazon and Bain just launched an app that lets landlords and residents give remote access for deliveries, guests, and self-guided tours
• Zillow tapped a former US surgeon general for advice as it restarts its iBuyer business. She laid out how the company will get home-flipping up and running safely.
• Here's which real-estate tech startups will soar and which will flop in the new normal of how we occupy space, according to 7 top proptech VCs
• 10 CEOs from Coldwell Banker, JLL, Cushman Wakefield, and more lay out a post-pandemic future of how we'll buy, build, and use real estate
• The office as we knew it is dead
• Mandatory temperature-taking is largely seen as a critical way to return workers to offices. But some big NYC landlords are worried about its effectiveness.
• The future of real estate could be virtual open houses on Facebook. Coldwell Banker's CEO explains why the in-person industry needs to embrace going digital.
• 'We should be prepared for a new normal': 3 real estate experts on how the coronavirus is transforming offices and accelerating the rise of industrial property
• What to expect when you're back in the office: 7 real-estate experts break down what the transition will look like, and why the workplace may never be the same
• Virtual tours are being hyped as a way for commercial real estate giants like CBRE and JLL to keep deals flowing. Here's a look at how they work — and what factors they can't replace.
• Real-estate services giant JLL explains how the coronavirus could usher in a permanent 'paradigm shift' towards more remote work

Layoffs, pay cuts, and furloughs

• Airbnb-backed Zeus Living slashes almost half of its remaining staff less than two months after a round of layoffs
• Leaked WeWork document reveals a huge reorg under way for people who manage its buildings. Here's how the new structure works — and the complex process for staff to save their jobs.
• WeWork is rolling out global layoffs over Zoom and has kicked off talks to slash jobs in the UK as the coworking giant struggles to cope with coronavirus fallout
• Flatiron School slashed at least 100 jobs and is permanently shuttering some campuses as part of bigger WeWork cuts. Here's everything we know about the layoffs WeWork is quietly rolling out.
• Read the full memo Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky just sent to staff announcing 1,900 job cuts. It lays out severance details and which teams are getting hit the hardest.
• SoftBank-backed Compass is cutting pay and offering equity in exchange — a month after it slashed 15% of staff
• Some of WeWork's outsourced cleaners just lost their jobs — even as the coworking giant keeps offices open and charges members for space they can't use
• SoftBank-backed iBuyer Opendoor just slashed 35% of staff after the coronavirus forced the startup to halt its home-flipping operations
• Real-estate brokerage Redfin is furloughing agents and laying off 7% of staff as housing demand plunges
• Peter Thiel-backed insurance startup Jetty lays off 40% of staff days after pausing the sale of all new policies
• Flex-space unicorn Knotel just laid off 30% of workers and furloughed another 20% as the coronavirus cripples a once buzzy industry
• Days after laying off 20% of its workforce, Brookfield-backed Convene furloughs more than half of remaining employees due to coronavirus closures
• Brookfield-backed Convene just laid off 20% of its workforce as the coronavirus upends the flex-space and events industries
• Airbnb-backed Zeus Living just laid off 30% of staff as the coronavirus upends travel and hospitality startups
• The coronavirus is slamming iBuyers, and firms like Zillow and SoftBank-backed Opendoor are halting their capital-intensive home-flipping businesses
• SoftBank-backed real estate brokerage Compass just slashed 15% of staff and is pausing marketing as coronavirus slams the housing market

SEE ALSO: The ultimate guide to Wall Street's summer internships: Here's how they'll go virtual, and how to impress remotely

SEE ALSO: POWER PLAYERS: Meet the bankers, traders, investors, and lawyers seeing huge opportunities in a wave of corporate distress and bankruptcies

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why electric planes haven't taken off yet

• Material Bank is a marketplace for design materials that promises to ship design samples overnight from its Memphis, Tennessee, warehouse.
• The company raised $28 million in April in a round led by Bain Capital Venture that also included funding from Starwood's Barry Sternlicht.
• CEO Adam Sandow said its customers are of Fortune 1000 companies, from cruise lines to tech companies to fast-food chains. 
• The company's secret is its warehouse, operated by robots, and directly next to FedEx's global shipping hub, enabling last-minute overnight orders.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Amazon's famous two-day shipping guarantee for all of its Prime members is in the process of becoming a one day guarantee, prompting the company to spend billions on the goal. It has taken Amazon more than 20 years to get to that point.

But Material Bank, a marketplace for design and construction materials that launched in 2019, is able to promise deliveries for packages ordered as late as midnight by 10:30 am the next day. 

While Amazon's delivery empire has grown out of the company's extensive investments in industrial real estate and army of logistics and warehouse workers, Material Bank instead partnered with FedEx and planted its warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee right next to FedEx's global sorting hub to provide speedy delivery. 

The company, founded by design media magnate Adam Sandow, secured $28 million Series B funding in April in a round led by Bain Capital Venture's Merritt Hummer, and includes previous investors Raine Ventures and Starwood Capital CEO and cofounder Barry Sternlicht. Material Bank has raised a total of $55 million in funding to date. 

These investors are betting that the design and construction material industry is waiting for the sort of e-commerce revolution that has changed the face of consumer retail. According to Material Bank, the bet is paying off, Sandow said that the company already has customers at almost 20% of Fortune 1000 companies, from cruise lines to tech companies to fast-food chains. 

Business Insider spoke with Sandow about why he switched from media to logistics, how the company is able to deliver so quickly, and why the pandemic has been good for business, even as some construction projects have stalled. 

" I want to set the bar for our industry in the same way that Amazon set the bar for e-commerce," Sandow told Business Insider. "Amazon forced the entire world to either adopt it or be roadkill."

Read more: A Bain Capital Ventures partner says construction tech is hot and short-term-rental startups are overhyped

The move from media to logistics

Sandow founded his parent company SANDOW in 2003. The company has now grown to include a design consulting firm, the NYCxDESIGN conference and multiple magazines, like Interior Design.

Sandow, always looking to expand, said that Material Bank was formed out of a range of conversations with both design firms and the manufacturers of design materials. His animating question was simple.

"How do we build next generation services, tools, and services that the industry will live on, and how do we leverage our media to grow that?" Sandow told Business Insider.

Sandow decided to focus on the design materials industry. Designers searching for materials for samples to show their clients, and then order in bulk, would either need to reach out directly to multiple manufacturers or go to a physical location to see samples. Materials could take weeks to arrive, substantially lengthening the design and building process.

Sandow's idea was to create a marketplace that could bring together all of these disparate manufacturers and send materials directly to designers much more quickly than the status quo. Sandow told Business Insider that this would have been almost impossible to pull off if it wasn't for the connections his media company had made. 

"Anytime you start a marketplace, you have a chicken or the egg problem," Sandow said. 

The manufacturers will only join a marketplace if they know that there are potential customers already using the site, while potential customers will only use the site if there is a wide range of materials to purchase. 

Sandow said that the company's contacts helped convince manufacturers to join the marketplace before it even launched. 

How to ship tile overnight

While the company has attracted clients with an unprecedented aggregation of design materials, it is making its biggest bounds in logistics. 

The company's operations are based out of a warehouse that borders FedEx's central sorting hub at the Memphis International Airport. FedEx flies almost all of its planes through the hub, sending packages around the country.

For a company looking for next-level shipping speeds without an Amazon-sized shipping empire, there's no better spot. Sandow said that the company formed a partnership with FedEx early on by explaining that it was working to "build a game-changing business on your logistics backbone." 

Read more: Bond, which has raised $15 million from investors including Lightspeed, wants to become the Shopify of logistics by turning vacant retail space into warehouses

The factory itself is largely operated by robots, from Boston-based Locus Robotics, who do the majority of sorting and packing, which Sandow said has prevented the errors that can plague a logistics operation and made its super-fast delivery possible. Sandow said this has allowed the company to pay its warehouse staff $17.50 an hour in a state where the minimum wage is a mere $7.25.

The company ships samples in proprietary packaging that designers can use to return any unused samples for free.

The company receives orders up until midnight for delivery at 10:30 am the next day. Once the last order comes in at midnight, the company has 2 hours to fully pack up all orders and load them into a truck. Around 2:00 am, the truck drives a few minutes directly to the FedEx hub, where the packages are then loaded onto planes making overnight deliveries. FedEx then delivers the product later that morning.

Funding during a pandemic

Sandow said that the company began to search for more funding in January, when the full reality of the pandemic's impact was not yet realized. At the time, Sandow said that the company received a lot of inbound interest from VC firms who wanted a piece, but they chose Bain because of their clarity of vision for the product. 

Part of that clarity was seeing how Material Bank could "carry the industry through the pandemic and beyond." 

Material Bank was useful for both manufacturers and designers affected by the pandemic. For manufacturers, they could cut back on their fixed logistics and shipping costs by working with Material Bank, who instead makes money per each item sold. It also prevented them from having to deal with the headache of shipping materials during a global pandemic. 

For designers working from home, the company made it possible to continue designing and sampling materials from the kitchen table, instead of their corporate office. These designers could access Material Bank's full catalogue remotely, and by the next day, they could hold the tile or carpet in their hands, while retail showrooms remained closed. 

Sandow said that as a result, the company has seen record revenues each month since February. 

Read more: 

• Here's which real-estate tech startups will soar and which will flop in the new normal of how we occupy space, according to 7 top proptech VCs
• Construction firms that get tech right could see Silicon Valley-like valuations. Here's how an old-school industry can transform itself.

SEE ALSO: Bond, which has raised $15 million from investors including Lightspeed, wants to become the Shopify of logistics by turning vacant retail space into warehouses

SEE ALSO: Construction's digital transformation is speeding up. Here are 10 contech startups to watch.

SEE ALSO: A Bain Capital Ventures partner says construction tech is hot and short-term-rental startups are overhyped

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tested a machine that brews beer at the push of a button

• AI transport logistics firm CitySwift has raised more than $2 million in a funding round backed by Irelandia Investments and Ace Venture Capital. 
• The Irish firm's transport simulation software is already used by some of the UK's biggest transport firms to deal with COVID-19 restrictions. 
• The AI transportation market is projected to be worth more than $3 billion globally by 2023, according to PS Market Research. 
• We got an exclusive look at the pitch deck CitySwift used to bring investors on board. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

CitySwift, the AI data firm that runs simulations of transport networks, has raised more than $2 million in a funding round backed by Irelandia Investments and Ace Venture Capital. 

CitySwift's software is already used by some of the UK's biggest public transport companies, including National Express and Go Ahead Group. It uses mobility data to simulate transport schedules on a mass scale. 

In recent months, the Galway-based firm's tech has let companies assess social distancing measures and helped bus companies alter their routes. 

The AI transportation market is projected to be worth more than $3 billion globally by 2023, according to figures compiled by analysts at PS Market Research. 

Brian O'Rourke, CitySwift cofounder and CEO, said the COVID-19 pandemic had shown how important data was for companies, governments, and the public.

"This has been even more evident for public transport companies as they monitored the effects of lockdown restrictions on their networks and model and plan for future scenarios as restrictions have begun to ease.

"The CitySwift platform has been leveraged to enable our clients and their passengers to make informed, data-driven decisions as they navigate the road to recovery in these ever-changing times."

The firm said the newly raised €2 million ($2.25 million) will be used to speed up product development and hire 25 new employees. 

Check out the pitch deck CitySwift used to bring investors on board below: 

• The market is booming for firms that can help companies safely return employees back to the office. 
• The pandemic is forcing software and automation providers like Salesforce and Siemens to partner in order to provide tools to help companies track daily health statistics, and enable touchless entry, elevator access, and more. 
• Salesforce and Siemens' tool can also help increase worker efficiency and productivity, according to Siemens Smart Infrastructure USA CEO Dave Hopping.  
• "It's great to talk about safety all the time and all the technology, but there still needs to be a business case associated with it," he told Business Insider.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A massive new market is emerging aimed at getting people back to the physical workplace safely.  

Outside of mitigating the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic by resuming somewhat normal operations, a small segment of workers actually want to return to the office (though the majority prefers to remain remote). But the negative consequences are potentially catastrophic. Texas, for example, opened some office buildings back up in May only to quickly backtrack after coronavirus cases spiked. 

All of that is creating a billion-dollar opportunity for helping firms virus-proof their workplaces, through everything from new products that encourage social distancing to facial scanners that alleviate the need for physical touchpoints. 

The push is resulting in new partnerships between software giants and leading automation providers. SAP and Honeywell, for example, teamed up to help real estate managers oversee activity in their buildings remotely. Siemens and Salesforce are also joining forces to provide companies a host of tools designed to enable a safe return to the physical office. 

The pairing is yet another example of how effective it can be to combine data from sources like building check-ins or conference room reservation systems with back-end software to create a holistic view of the workplace and those in it at any given time. And it can even help increase worker productivity, according to Siemens Smart Infrastructure USA CEO Dave Hopping. 

"It's great to talk about safety all the time and all the technology, but there still needs to be a business case associated with it," he told Business Insider. "If I'm going to put in this technology and these platforms … how is it going to make my employees better utilized and more efficient in the job?" 

Among the suite of offerings from Salesforce and Siemens is a central dashboard to give management updates on important information like when the office was last cleaned and how many active COVID-19 cases there are among the workforce. A shift management tool also makes it easier for customers to stagger employees to reduce the number of people in an office at once, while mobile "boarding passes" allow for touchless entry to the builder and elevator access. 

The firms intend to roll-out the tools in their own offices first to see if they address enough of the concerns they're hearing from both employees and employers. Salesforce will deploy the platform in its San Francisco headquarters, while Siemens will implement it in its Zurich office.     

"It paves the way for a new experience for physical workspaces, not just during COVID but even beyond," said Salesforce Chief Innovation Officer Simon Mulcahy. "It's also then building a smarter, connected workplace for the future." 

'We need more technology in our buildings' 

The partnership came about organically. 

Siemens was an existing Salesforce customer and it had also been outfitting the company's offices with new automation features. Its Comfy application, for example, utilizes so-called "Internet of Things" sensors to enable office managers to remotely control lighting or temperature.   

And once Salesforce launched Work.com in May, the pairing made sense. The suite of tools, which is designed to help companies bring people back to the physical workspace, includes contact tracing and employee health self-assessments. That, combined with Siemens automation tools, created an ideal offering that can cover many of the concerns the two companies were hearing from customers.  

"Many of our building owners are saying … We need more technology in our buildings. We need more technology to ensure that people are safe and efficient," said Hopping. "We wanted a platform that would connect not only with the leadership … but the individuals that are working in our buildings." 

Mulcahy declined to say whether the partnership with Siemens would expand beyond this initiative, or whether Salesforce planned to invest more heavily in these "return to work" offerings. And Hopping said it was not yet clear whether the automation surge would continue in the long-term. 

"Our customers are definitely asking about more technology today. Without a doubt," he added. "They see less square footage, but a higher density of technology and interface between the people in the building with the building."  

But the immediate focus shows just how much the coronavirus has upended business for top corporations. 

Salesforce, for example, is synonymous with its software that helps sales teams better manage customer relationships. But as the outbreak forces organizations to make potentially sweeping cuts to the budget, some clients are pushing for discounts or delayed payments— though analysts and CEO Marc Benioff still expect Salesforce to emerge largely unscathed. 

For now, Benioff is shifting the firm's near-term focus and making Work.com a priority. He previously told CNBC that the pandemic is a time when "every company needs to reassess its relevance to maintain its market share and innovation." 

As of late last month, 35 states used Work.com to help track individuals stricken with the coronavirus.  

SEE ALSO: How Fidelity spurred a 147% productivity increase during the coronavirus pandemic, setting it up to hire thousands more workers

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NOW WATCH: How waste is dealt with on the world's largest cruise ship

• A filmed version of "Hamilton," the wildly popular Broadway musical written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is now streaming on Disney Plus.
• The movie adaptation, which seeks to emulate the in-person theatrical experience of "Hamilton," is arriving on Disney Plus more than a year before its intended October 2021 release date.
• You can purchase a Disney Plus subscription for $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, or in a bundle with ESPN+ and Hulu for $12.99 per month.
• For detailed impressions on Disney Plus, be sure to check out our full review of Disney Plus here. 

Although Broadway may be dark at the moment, the smash-hit musical "Hamilton" is now available to watch on Disney Plus. The movie version of the musical, which explores the life of Alexander Hamilton during and beyond the American Revolution, has arrived on Disney's streaming service far earlier than its anticipated October 2021 release date.

The official trailer shows the Broadway production's original cast from 2015 returning to the stage for the movie performance.

The film adaptation intends to provide viewers with a cinematic glimpse into the live theater experience. Disney Plus is already home to similar musical adaptations, including the filmed stage version of "Newsies."

Also now streaming on Disney Plus is "Hamilton In-Depth with Kelley Carter," a companion program that features interviews with director Thomas Kail, composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, and members of the cast. The program is available to stream on TheUndefeated.com as well.

The cinematic rendition of "Hamilton" follows the titular historical figure (played by composer Lin-Manuel Miranda) as he grapples with the impact of the American Revolution, the legacy we leave behind, and those who shaped his life leading up to the infamous duel with Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.). Filmed at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in 2016, the "Hamilton" film features the original cast of the musical. 

Updated on 07/3/2020 by Kevin Webb and Steven Cohen: We've revised this article to inform you that "Hamilton" is now available to stream on Disney Plus. Added details about Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support for "Hamilton." Also added premiere details for "Hamilton In-Depth with Kelley Carter," along with a link to our full review of Disney Plus.

How do I watch 'Hamilton' on Disney Plus?

"Hamilton" is now available to stream on Disney Plus for all subscribers. To watch the film on Disney Plus, you will need to sign up for a monthly or annual plan. The movie debuted on the streaming service on July 3, 2020. This is the premiere release of the movie; it has yet to be released in theaters or on Blu-ray, DVD, or as a digital download. 

The Disney Plus stream of "Hamilton" includes support for Dolby Vision HDR video and Dolby Atmos audio through compatible devices. Dolby Vision enables enhanced colors and contrast, while Dolby Atmos creates an immersive soundstage with audio effects from all directions  — even from above your head.

Disney Plus is available to stream on Apple, PC, iOS, and Android devices, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and streaming devices from Amazon, Roku, and Chromecast. Disney Plus is also supported on smart TVs, including those from Samsung, LG, Sony, and Vizio. An internet connection is necessary to stream, but Disney Plus also provides an option to download movies and shows to mobile devices for offline viewing. 

What is Disney Plus and how much does it cost?

Disney Plus is a subscription streaming platform with on-demand access to a variety of movies and TV shows.

An annual subscription costs $69.99 per year while a monthly subscription costs $6.99 per month. If you do the math, this means that you can save about $14 a year if you pay for an annual membership rather than a month-to-month subscription.

Those looking for additional streaming content can sign up for a bundle with Disney Plus, ESPN+ and Hulu. The bundle costs $12.99 per month, which is about $5 less per month than it would cost to subscribe to each service separately. 

All Disney Plus subscriptions include ad-free streaming and unlimited downloads for a growing library of films and TV series. Here is a full breakdown of all the Disney Plus pricing options and features.

What else can I watch on Disney Plus?

Disney Plus is home to many musical-movies like "Hamilton."

The stage-to-screen adaptation of "Newsies" follows a similar "live capture" format to "Hamilton," bringing the popular musical to any Disney Plus-enabled device.

The streaming service also features many other movie-musicals, although not on-stage adaptations. This includes the 1999 edition of "Annie," as well as animated classics like "Aladdin," "The Little Mermaid," and "Beauty and the Beast." "Moana," which also features music penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is available to stream as well. 

Beyond musicals, Disney Plus is chock-full of additional titles stemming from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and 20th Century Fox.

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Devoted Health wants to change the way the U.S. takes care of its senior citizens, and it has big plans in its first five years to do just that.

The startup, which has been gathering lots of buzz in the last year, was founded to sell private health insurance plans to U.S. seniors, a market that is growing rapidly as Baby Boomers age.

Using one pitch deck, Devoted Health managed to secure $300 million from investors in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz late last year, with a valuation of $1.8 billion – all before it signed up a single customer.

But the deck also outlined the company's aggressive plans for its first five years. Devoted Health planned to sign up 5,000 members for 2019 and grow that to 103,722 by 2023. It expects to make about $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023 while generating a small net loss.

Here's what else Devoted Health laid out in the pitch deck:

• How the company, in part, plans to make money by owning its own medical group in addition to the insurance operation
• Its plan to take on the healthcare giants in Medicare Advantage
• Why it thinks it can generate better margins than other Medicare Advantage health insurers
• How the company can eclipse 100,000 members
• And more about the company's aggressive five-year plan

BI Prime is publishing dozens of stories like this each and every day. Want to get started by reading the full pitch deck?

>> Download it now FREE

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. This report is exclusively available to enterprise subscribers. To learn more about getting access to this report, email Senior Account Executive Jeff Jordan at jjordan@businessinsider.com, or check to see if your company already has access.

Although competition in the US wireless carrier market remains fierce, the price war among the Big Four US carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint — began to cool over the past year.

In an attempt to avoid further competition on price, carriers began shifting their focus to adding value to their mobile plans with new offerings to differentiate from the competition. This helped average revenue per user (ARPU) start to stabilize across all carriers in Q1 2018, after declining over the last two years.

The Big Four have now begun reshuffling their unlimited plans to lure subscribers by providing more options. This strategy has been unrolling in two flavors: introducing new, expensive unlimited plan tiers loaded with an array of features and choices, while also catering to price-sensitive customers with more affordable plans that strip away extra perks like free digital content and international coverage. As a result, a new battleground is emerging, with differentiation now coming down to the value loaded in their mobile plans.

Looking forward, the US carrier market will see competitive pressure pick up due to a number of trends: 

• The US smartphone market is creeping toward saturation. Penetration in the US hit 85% in 2018, up from 82% in 2017 and 77% in 2016.
• eSIM technology is making it easier for consumers to switch carriers. eSIM technology is a nonphysical SIM card slot that pairs with the physical SIM card to enable dual-SIM functionality — allowing customers to switch carriers without changing to a different SIM card or device.
• And cable mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) are edging in on US carriers' share of wireless adds. Cable MVNOs, such as Comcast's Xfinity Mobile and Charter's Spectrum Mobile, are expected to snag roughly 50% of total wireless customer net adds, or about 2.2 million subscribers, by 2020.

All of this means fostering loyalty and winning over new subscribers is more important than ever for the Big Four, making it crucial for these mobile carriers to understand consumer sentiment around their services.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence uses consumer survey data from our proprietary panel, collected during 2017 and 2018, to evaluate which features are most important to consumers when selecting a mobile provider, as well as to determine which features would convince them to switch to the competition. It contains insights that can help telecoms guide strategic investment and marketing decisions to win and retain customers in this increasingly competitive space.

The companies mentioned in the report are: AT&T, Amazon, Apple, Charter, Comcast, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Sprint, T-Mobile, Tidal, and Verizon.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• T-Mobile came out on top again, outpacing the rest of the Big Four US carriers on value, loyalty, and satisfaction. T-Mobile customers want to see coverage improvements, though. 
• Verizon customers don't see much more value in its offerings than a year ago.
• AT&T was the only carrier to show declines in all capacities. 
• Sprint is still a good deal, but it doesn't offer much else.
• When it comes to features, subscribers still value the basics most. However, demand for international coverage is growing.
• 5G is the next major battleground for the Big Four, and the winner of the 5G race has the potential to leap ahead in customer volumes. 

 In full, the report:

• Determines the features that are most important to consumers when selecting a mobile provider.  
• Identifies which features are nice to have or essential in consumers' willingness to switch carriers. 
• Examines consumers' feelings on emerging technologies and trends in the mobile industry, such as 5G, new network-connected devices, and the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.

SEE ALSO: 5G in the IoT: How the next generation of wireless technology will transform the IoT

Join the conversation about this story »

• A former Deliveroo exec has launched a market food hall startup in the middle of COVID-19.
• Dan Warne was managing director of the unicorn startup until 2019, but has now launched Sessions Market as a community food hall concept to rejuvenate UK towns after the pandemic.
• Warne says he hopes to bring his experience from Deliveroo, particularly about customer behavior, to the analogue world of food halls.
• The first venue, Shelter Hall on Brighton seafront, launches July 4.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

On Saturday, the UK's bars, restaurants, and cinemas will fling their doors open to customers for the first time since a strict lockdown commenced in late March.

Given continued public health concerns around the coronavirus pandemic, it might be unwise to open a new food business right now.

But Dan Warne, a former high-level executive at British unicorn startup Deliveroo, has launched Sessions Market, a series of community-orientated food halls that will try to regenerate the UK's town centers. 

Warne joined delivery startup Deliveroo in 2014 as its twelfth employee, and he left in 2019. His job was to help scale the company, which was then only operating in the central part of London.

Over the five years Warne spent as Deliveroo's managing director, he helped to grow the startup into a tech unicorn worth billions. Deliveroo in 2019 raised $575 million in a funding round led by Amazon, and one source close to the food delivery startup estimates its valuation at more than $3 billion.

"From the moment I joined Deliveroo, I saw that as a stepping stone so ultimately being able to launch my own thing and that's this," said Warne. "There are lots of parallels to Deliveroo ... It's a platform, albeit a physical one, but it's a platform that has to choose the very best restaurants and manage those restaurants in the right way."

Sessions Market's first venue, Brighton's Shelter Hall, is opening on July 4 and will bring together local restaurants to provide an upmarket dining experience.

Sessions will provide all the digital and capital infrastructure in exchange for a commission, so that the restaurants don't have to invest anything upfront. To comply with social distancing measures, customers will be able to order takeaway food from outside via an app, or served at the tables inside by staff. 

Having launched Deliveroo's Editions business — a network of delivery-only kitchens — in 2017, Warne understood the restaurant market and was well-versed in the capital infrastructure investments needed to build venues like Shelter Hall. But, launching a food hall has been a new experience.

"There is an incredible amount to learn in a short period of time ... so we've had to bring in the right experience and the right staff in those areas," said Warne. "On the flip side of that, [coming from a different area], you bring perhaps a different perspective to the industry and you can apply some of the learnings that you get from working in the technology business to a bricks-and-mortar style business."

He hopes to leverage his experience of customer data at Deliveroo, bring a digital twist to the otherwise still-analogue food industry.

"We obsessed about customer data at Deliveroo," said Warne. In the restaurant industry, "of course they're obsessed by the customer, but they don't have the data to really model that customer behavior in quite the same way".

Warne wants to change that.

He hopes to track customers on the platform — from how they were acquired to what, where, and how they consume.

Over time, he believes this will help the startup evolve to reflect what customers want. That's why Warne tells investors he doesn't need to know what a food hall will look like in five years' time — often a question put to founders about their sector by venture capitalists.

"I don't need to know that because I'm going to enable this business with technology that affords me a deep understanding of consumer trends," he said. "I will flex it and move it with those trends in the same way that Netflix will serve the content before you really know that you want it."

He also hopes his experience helping to grow Deliveroo into a unicorn tech platform will help him to scale his new startup. 

"It's harder to figure out precisely how to scale it in the tech kind of way, where you don't need to be finding property," said Warne.

Warne plans to lease the Sessions brand out to third-party venues, in a similar way to successful pop-up gig startup Sofar Sounds. He likened this to Deliveroo, Uber Eats, and restaurants creating virtual restaurant brands that only serve delivery apps.

He said: "If you come up with brands that you want to run virtually across multiple different kitchens across the country, it helps if you can test them in front of a consumer in a live environment, which is something that we have." 

At a time when a lot of the hospitality industry is struggling, Warne hopes a venue that provides the necessary digital infrastructure to comply with social distancing measures and allows restaurants to avoid long-term lease arrangement will have a clear appeal.

"It's a model that's very well conditioned to this environment: it is highly supportive and conducive to helping some of these businesses get back on their feet," said Warne. "If you are concerned about keeping a distance from others, well you can order through our technology outside and just have it come to a window and pick it up and eat it on the beach a long way from anyone else."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

• Japan delayed its Nippon Professional Baseball season because of the coronavirus.
• After the state of emergency was lifted in the country, games began again on June 19.
• Without fans in the stadium, one team put Pepper robots in the stands instead. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus has put most public events, including sports and concerts, on hold around the world. As many countries see declining cases and hospitalizations, public life is slowly starting to reopen. In Japan, which has had a low number of cases,  the Nippon Professional Baseball league was allowed to start its delayed season in June. 

Fans aren't allowed to watch games in person until at least July 10, so teams have been putting different symbols in the stands instead. For the SoftBank Hawks, owned by Japanese tech giant SoftBank, Pepper robot seems like the obvious choice. The robots wore team jerseys and looked like cheering fans.

Here's what it looked like. 

SEE ALSO: The maker of this 3D-printed smart tiny home claims its 'zombie-proof' and able to eliminate 99.9% of bacteria and viruses — see inside

As the coronavirus spread in February, Japanese teams started holding closed spring training sessions.

The season was planned for a March 20 start, which was then postponed, along with all team activities for the SoftBank Hawks.

SoftBank, the Japanese tech giant with billions invested in companies including WeWork, Boston Dynamics, Slack, and others, bought the Hawks in 2005.

See more SoftBank-backed companies here.

On opening day, the SoftBank Hawks' home field at PayPay Dome was closed to spectators.

Photos of empty stadiums looked almost eerie.

The stadium in Fukuoka, Japan, can hold over 40,000 fans.

Instead, Pepper humanoid robots were the only faces in the stands.

Pepper is one of SoftBank's most recognizable creations.

The robot has been used in efforts to fight the coronavirus around Japan, reducing staff and potential infections at hotels housing coronavirus patients.

At the game, Pepper robots were dressed the part, with SoftBank Hawks jerseys.

They even appeared to be cheering for the home team throughout the game.

Though they weren't allowed to attend the game, fans could leave messages on boards around the stadium.

Some fans of the Rakuten Eagles, the opposing team, watched the game on a big screen while socially distancing outdoors.

Some stadiums are allowing fans in on a trial basis, along with mandatory masks and temperature checks, before fans are officially allowed back July 10.

Other teams, like the Orix Buffaloes in Osaka, are experimenting with filling seats with stuffed animals.

• Every week, Parrot Analytics provides Business Insider with a list of the nine most in-demand original TV shows on streaming services in the US.
• This week includes Netflix's "Dark" and DC Universe's "Harley Quinn."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Netflix's hit sci-fi series "Dark" recently returned with its third and final season and it has shot up through the audience demand ranking this week. 

Every week, Parrot Analytics provides Business Insider with a list of the nine most in-demand TV shows on streaming services in the US.

The data is based on "demand expressions," Parrot Analytics' globally standardized TV-demand measurement unit. Audience demand reflects the desire, engagement, and viewership weighted by importance. The list is ranked by how much more in demand the top series are than the average TV show in the US.

DC Universe's adult animated "Harley Quinn" also saw an impressive rise up the list this week.

SEE ALSO: 'Extraction' is one of Netflix's most popular movies right now, but it's not the hit Netflix original starring Chris Hemsworth

9. "The Witcher" (Netflix)

Times more in demand than average show: 34.1

Description: "Geralt of Rivia, a mutated monster-hunter for hire, journeys toward his destiny in a turbulent world where people often prove more wicked than beasts."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 1): 67%

What critics said: "Although 'The Witcher' is more fantasy balderdash, it's also somewhat addictive fantasy balderdash. Bring on the blood-spilling, the orgies, the haunted forests and wizards: It seems we can't get enough." — Detroit News (Season 1)

Season 1 premiered on Netflix on December 20. See more insights for "The Witcher."

8. "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" (Disney Plus)

Times more in demand than average show: 37.6

Description: "From Dave Filoni, director and executive producer of 'The Mandalorian,' the new 'Clone Wars' episodes will continue the storylines introduced in the original series, exploring the events leading up to 'Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.'"

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 7): 100%

What critics said: "In the endgame, the show is better than ever." — Memphis Flyer (season 7)

Season 7 premiered on February 21 on Disney Plus. See more insights for "Star Wars: The Clone Wars."

7. "Titans" (DC Universe)

Times more in demand than average show: 39.8

Description: "'Titans' follows young heroes from across the DC Universe as they come of age and find belonging in a gritty take on the classic Teen Titans franchise. Dick Grayson and Rachel Roth, a special young girl possessed by a strange darkness, get embroiled in a conspiracy that could bring Hell on Earth. Joining them along the way are the hot-headed Starfire and lovable Beast Boy. Together they become a surrogate family and team of heroes."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 2): 81%

What critics said: "Superheroes, mysteries and brawls, Titans has it all." — Cinemablend(Season 2)

Season 2 premiered on DC Universe on September 6. See more insights for "Titans."

6. "Doom Patrol" (DC Universe/HBO Max)

Times more in demand than the average show: 40.0

Description: "Doom Patrol is a team of traumatized and downtrodden superheroes, each of whom has suffered a horrible accident that gave them superhuman abilities but also left them scarred and disfigured. The members of the team have found their purpose through The Chief and have come together to investigate some of the world's weirdest phenomena. After The Chief mysteriously disappears, though, the reluctant heroes find themselves called to action by Cyborg, who comes to them with a mission that they cannot refuse. Doom Patrol, part support group, part superhero team, is a band of super-powered freaks fighting for a world that wants nothing to do with them."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (season 2): 95%

What critics said: "Doom Patrol leans into the drama while still acknowledging that it exists in a quite bizarre and off-kilter comic book world." — Vulture (season 2)

Season 2 premiered on DC Universe and HBO Max on June 25. See more insights for "Doom Patrol."

5. "13 Reasons Why" (Netflix)

Times more in demand than average show: 44.4

Description: "High school student Clay Jensen lands in the center of a series of heartbreaking mysteries set in motion by a friend's tragic suicide."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 4): 18%

What critics said: "13 Reasons Why was frustrating and difficult, but it's over, and there will be no looking back." — Mashable(Season 4)

4. "The Mandalorian" (Disney Plus)

Times more in demand than average show: 45.9

Description: "After the fall of the Empire, a lone gunfighter makes his way through the lawless galaxy."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 1): 93%

What critics said: "A show which cheerfully raids its own iconography while adding successfully to the whole." — Screen Daily (Season 1)

Season 1 premiered on Disney Plus on November 12. See more insights for "The Mandalorian."

3. "Dark" (Netflix)

Times more in demand than average show: 49.8

Description: "A missing child sets four families on a frantic hunt for answers as they unearth a mind-bending mystery that spans three generations."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 3): 91%

What critics said: "'Dark' has maintained that highwire act for three of the most thrilling sci-fi TV seasons ever made. To see it make it across the chasm with its ambitions and technique intact is certainly something worth remembering." — Indiewire  (Season 3)

Season 3 premiered on Netflix on June 27. See more insights for "Dark."

2. "Harley Quinn" (DC Universe)

Times more in demand than average show: 50.0

Description: "Harley Quinn has taken down the Joker and Gotham City is finally hers for the taking…whatever's left of it that is. Gotham has become a desolate wasteland, left in ruins, following the huge earthquake caused by the collapse of Joker's tower. Harley's celebration in this newly created chaos is cut short when Penguin, Bane, Mr. Freeze, The Riddler, and Two-Face join forces to restore order in the criminal underworld. Calling themselves the Injustice League, this group now stands in the way of Harley and her crew from taking sole control of Gotham as the top villains of the city."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 2): 100%

What critics said: "Although this reviewer would love to see another season of Harley Quinn, this would be an ending that I am thoroughly satisfied with." — Den of Geek (season 2)

Season 2 premiered April 3 on DC Universe. See more insights for "Harley Quinn."

1. "Stranger Things" (Netflix)

Times more in demand than average show: 66.4

Description: "When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 3): 89%

What critics said: "Even while some things go a bit too predictably, the last two episodes tie everything and everyone together in spectacular, emotional fashion." — Dallas Morning News (Season 3)

• In March, a startup called Ameelio launched an app that helps people communicate with incarcerated loved ones for free.
• Usually, phone calls or text messages to incarcerated people can be expensive, and it can be difficult to find the correct address for mailing a letter. Ameelio allows people to locate an address, upload a letter, and send it for free.
• Ameelio has over 5,200 users and has sent over 21,000 letters so far.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It can be expensive and difficult for family members to maintain contact with incarcerated loved one: About one in three families go into debt to pay for phone calls and visits, research shows. 

Phone calls in prison are often curtailed and can be costly, and while some facilities allow text messaging, the length of messages can be limited and pricey, too. Family members may want to mail a letter, instead, but struggle to find the correct address. 

And now, during the coronavirus pandemic, many prisons have paused visitation.

To make it easier and cheaper for family and friends to connect with their loved ones in prison, two Yale students teamed up to launch an app called Ameelio in March that makes it dead-simple to send physical letters to incarcerated people for free. 

"We wanted to touch on the urgency of the moment," Ameelio co-founder and Yale Law School student Uzoma Orchingwa told Business Insider.

Ameelio allows users to type an incarcerated person's name into its database to automatically pull up the correct address information. Users don't need to worry about getting envelopes and stamps, either: Instead, they can just take a picture of their handwritten letter. Ameelio then works with mail company Lob to convert the picture to a PDF that Lob prints out and sends. The user can then track the letter until it arrives at its destination. The key feature: It's absolutely free for people to use Ameelio to send letters. 

This is especially useful as people may be stuck at home or unable to afford stamps or envelopes during the pandemic, says Emma Gray, head of partnerships and outreach for Ameelio.

"The quarantine is affecting incarcerated men and women themselves," Gray told Business Insider. "They might be solitary. They can't call or contact their loved ones. Their loved ones start worrying."

Ameelio has over 5,200 users and has sent more than 21,000 letters so far. 

How Ameelio began

Orchingwa says that while conducting research on mass incarceration at the University of Cambridge, he found that many people cannot afford to stay in contact with their loved ones who are in prison. 

"I realized that the policy prescriptions we need to change the size of our prison system will take a long time to happen," Orchingwa said. "I was looking for ways to make an impact in the long-term." 

While studying at Yale, Orchingwa cold-emailed his fellow student Gabriel Saruhashi saying that he was looking for a technical cofounder. Saruhashi had spent a summer interning at Facebook as a software engineer where he felt alienated and like his work was not as meaningful as he wanted it to be. The two decided to meet up at a cafe and they "hit it off" right away. They decided to start working together on a nonprofit technology company and chose the name Ameelio because it comes from the word "amelioration," which means, 'to make things better.'

Orchingwa says this cause was meaningful to him both because he has close friends who have been incarcerated and because Black people make up one-third of the prison population in the US. 

Likewise, Saruhashi, who is originally from Brazil, says he was shocked to learn more about the American incarceration system.

"Just talking to Zo, I was outraged by the current status system," Saruhashi told Business Insider.

Ameelio partners with criminal justice organizations to spread the word and make the service free 

To spread the word about the app, the founders joined Facebook groups for people with family members who are incarcerated. Over half of its users come from recommendations from their own friends and families, or even incarcerated people themselves. Other users learned about the app through these Facebook groups.

Right now, the team of about 45 volunteers, including three formerly incarcerated people, are working on building relationships with lawyers and advocacy organizations to spread the word and also raise funds. Lob lowered its fees for the company and Ameelio has received some funding from Mozilla and a Kickstarter campaign, but it's still looking for other organizations to pitch in so that it can continue to provide the service to users for free. 

So far, Ameelio has signed on eight philanthropic partner organizations. Criminal justice organizations have also been reaching out to Ameelio to send out newsletters and introductory letters to incarcerated people. 

In addition, it plans to speak with Connecticut lawmakers who are pushing a bill in Connecticut to make prison phone calls free. 

Read more: Read the letter that more than 1,600 Google employees sent to CEO Sundar Pichai asking the company to stop selling technology to police forces: 'We want Google to take real steps to help dismantle racism.'

While Ameelio started with letters and photos, Orchingwa hopes it can expand to video calling and messaging as well. It plans to run a six-month pilot of its video-conferencing service and has already been talking with five possible partner facilities to provide Ameelio's service free of charge during this pilot.

"We think states are going to be more interested in rolling out virtual communication in prison," Orchingwa said. "We'd love to be able to offer that in the future."

Right now, the main goal is to grow the user base.

"Our users have been reaching out to us and really appreciating the service," Orchingwa said, "Because it allows a different communication tool that is incredibly impactful now that things are incredibly difficult."

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request.

SEE ALSO: Students say that Holberton School, a coding bootcamp where students don't pay until they get a job, is more like 'Lord of the Flies' than the inclusive educational experience they were promised

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• Rahul Narang runs one of the best-performing tech funds over the last five years, the Columbia Global Technology Growth Fund.
• His strategy has been to focus on the two ends of the tech market — the most and least expensive stocks; over time, both have performed better than those in the middle, he told Business Insider.
• Narang's fund is built around three big components: companies with so-called moats; underappreciated, value stocks; and those that are capitalizing on the big themes in tech.
• In the value area, he likes several semiconductor stocks, in part because they're likely going to benefit from some of the emerging trends.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In tech investing, many fund managers stay well clear of value stocks.

Rahul Narang likes to buy them up.

Like many tech investors, Narang, who runs the Columbia Global Technology Growth Fund, spends a good deal of time — and dedicates a big portion of his fund's portfolio — to the in-demand stocks, whether the technology giants or the up-and-comers. But unlike many of his peers, Narang also reserves a sizable portion of his fund for some of the cheapest stocks in the technology world.

His reasons are simple. Over the last 40 years, according to Narang's research, the most and least expensive tech stocks have outperformed the vast majority of companies priced in the middle. What's more, the value stocks tend to balance things out during the periods when the market sours on the fastest growers and priciest companies.

Owning those companies "keeps us in the game during those periods of sell-off," Narang told Business Insider in an interview last week.

That strategy is paying off.

The Global Technology Growth fund ranked in the top 20 tech funds for its performance over the last five years, including through the coronavirus dip, according to Morningstar Direct. The fund has also won the Lipper award for its category for the last two years for having the best risk-adjusted returns over the last five years.

Narang looks for companies with moats

Narang's fund has three key components, although one of those pieces kind of blurs into the other two.

The fund invests more than half of its fund's assets — and sometimes as much as 60% or 65% — in companies that have significant so-called moats. These are firms that dominate their sectors, have few competitors, and have the ability to raise prices as needed or desired.

For Narang and this fund, this group includes many of the usual suspects among the big tech companies. The Global Technology Fund's biggest holdings, by far, are its stakes in Microsoft and Apple. It also has sizeable positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, Adobe, Nvidia, and Visa.

When the fund finds moat companies — or those with the potential to develop into them — it holds on to them, Narang said.

The fund's "best ideas" are "our biggest positions, and we've stayed with them over time," he said.

The second big component of the fund's holdings are the value stocks. These are companies that for various reasons trade at low multiples of their earnings or sales. Value stocks tend to get a bad name in tech investing because often the companies with low valuations are those whose best days are past them, firms whose businesses have been disrupted, or whose products have been replaced by a new generation of technology.

He likes value stocks, but not just because they're cheap

Narang is certainly aware and wary of that dynamic. He and his team try to avoid those whose businesses are in decline.

"You don't want to buy stocks just because they're cheap," he said. "That is a fool's errand. You will lose money consistently."

But he still think investors can find gold in the value pile. He and his team look for companies whose potential is being underestimated by the market. Often in such cases the market is missing or undervaluing a fundamental change taking place either at a particular company or a broader industry.

Take Apple.

For years, it was basically a value stock, because investors saw it a hardware maker whose primary industry — smartphones — was starting to decline, Narang said. But the company had some huge and underappreciated strengths — a standout balance sheet with huge amounts of cash, a strong management team, and a moat in the form of large numbers of customers that were essentially locked into its ecosystem of phones, computers, and software.

And, he said, many investors didn't recognize that it was starting to capitalize on that moat to sell a raft of subscription-based services to those same customers to generate something the market highly values — recurring revenue.

When the market finally recognized what Apple was doing, its stock started to grow again, rapidly.

Narang and his team saw similar potential in the makers of computer memory, including Micron and Samsung. Those companies tend to trade at low multiples, in part because instead of offering consistent earnings growth, they go through boom-and-bust cycles.

But a few years ago, Narang and his team recognized the industry was changing, Narang said.

The memory business had consolidated down to three main players and excess capacity — which led to lower prices and profit margins — was been taken out of the system.

They bet that this would allow the remaining players to become much more profitable in the near future and their stocks would grow as a result. Although the memory companies had a rocky year last year, over the longer term that's been a good bet.

With Apple and the memory market, "Our opinion was that the market wasn't giving enough credit for [the] scenarios that were playing out over time," he said.

Narang looks for companies that are capitalizing on themes

The final piece of Narang's strategy is to focus on the big themes in the technology industry and to find the companies that are best at taking advantage of them.

Some of the themes he and his team are focused on are well-established ones, such as the growth of cloud computing, e-commerce, and mobile gaming. Others are emergent, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and 5G wireless networking.

The theme area, though, gets a little squishy, because it blends into the other two parts of the Global Technology Growth Fund's portfolio. Narang and his team look for moat and value stocks that are capitalizing on the important themes. On the moat side, Apple and Amazon are taking advantage of numerous themes.

On the value side of the portfolio, the memory chip makers are poised to capitalize on trends such autonomous vehicles and 5G phones, which will up the demand for memory, Narang said.

The upcoming boom in such devices is going to drive demand for chips, and another of the fund's value plays, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, should benefit, he said. So too should Broadcom, which makes chips that are used in cloud computing data centers and in wireless devices.

"Semiconductors are one way to get thematic exposure at a cheaper valuation," Narang said.

Got a tip about the tech industry or tech investing? Contact Troy Wolverton via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

• Read more about tech investing:
• Top-ranked Putnam fund manager Di Yao has outperformed by picking unknown stocks or big names the market doesn't understand. Here are 3 of his favorite bets.
• Denny Fish's tech fund has trounced competitors for years using a combination of proven winners and up-and-comers. He outlines 10 high-upside stocks he's banking on for the future.
• Ali Khan has dominated his tech-investing peers for 5 years running. He breaks down why he steers clear of hyper-growth companies — and explains why Salesforce and Adobe possess his ideal qualities.
• The "FAANG'' tech giants recovered fast from the share price plunge due to COVID-19, but that rebound for Apple, Alphabet, and Facebook defies logic, a longtime tech investor says

SEE ALSO: Here's why tech IPOs are starting to see a surprising, and sudden, snapback

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