Apple this morning confirmed that the Vision Pro will be available in the U.S. starting February 2. Preorders for the $3,500 spatial computing device open Friday January 19 at 5 a.m. PT.
The company was appropriately dramatic in a release issued this morning. “The era of spatial computing has arrived,” said Tim Cook. “Apple Vision Pro is the most advanced consumer electronics device ever created. Its revolutionary and magical user interface will redefine how we connect, create, and explore.”
At launch, the new Vision Pro App Store will feature “more than 1 million” compatible iOS and iPadOS apps, along with experiences designed specifically for the pricey new headset. How many bespoke Vision Pro apps will be available when the device launches in little under a month, however, remains to be seen.
Image Credits: Apple
Apple notes, “Players can access games on the App Store, including more than 250 titles on Apple Arcade. Hit games like NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition and Sonic Dream Team can be played on a screen as large as they want with incredible audio and support for popular game controllers. New spatial games, including Game Room, What the Golf?, and Super Fruit Ninja, take advantage of the powerful capabilities of Apple Vision Pro to transform the space around players.”
Image Credits: Apple
As for proprietary software, the launch will also see the arrival of a FaceTime experience designed specifically for the new hardware. Apple again, “FaceTime on Apple Vision Pro takes advantage of the space around you so that everyone on a call appears life-size while Spatial Audio makes it sound like each person’s voice comes from the location of their tile.”
At launch, the company will also be offering ZEISS Optical Inserts. The lenses snap onto the headset magnetically. Prescription lenses run $149, while standard readers are $99.
The launch also marks the arrival of VisionOS, Apple’s latest operating system built specifically for the new hardware. Apple notes,
VisionOS delivers powerful spatial experiences, unlocking new opportunities at work and at home. Featuring a brand-new three-dimensional user interface and input system controlled entirely by a user’s eyes, hands, and voice, navigation feels magical. Intuitive gestures allow users to interact with apps by simply looking at them, tapping their fingers to select, flicking their wrist to scroll, or using a virtual keyboard or dictation to type. With Siri, users can quickly open or close apps, play media, and more.
DevOps startup Harness has shown itself to be an ambitious company, building a broad platform of services while also dabbling in M&A when it made sense to fill in functionality. On Wednesday, the company announced it was ready for a much bigger M&A bite, acquiring feature flag startup Split.io for an undisclosed amount of money.
Harness founder and CEO Jyoti Bansal admits Split is a bigger company than he has purchased in the past, without revealing the purchase price. It’s worth noting, however, that Split raised over $100 million before the sale was announced today.
“The feature flag is a way for developers to roll out a new feature and control who gets access to it, so you can reduce the risk of a new code change,” Bansal told TechCrunch.
So what does Split have to offer that Harness’ organically developed feature flag tool is missing? Well, quite a bit, according to Bansal.
“We launched our feature flag on our platform in 2021. But we’re very excited to bring Split in and combine it with the Harness platform. Split has been one of the most advanced and mature feature flagging capabilities,” he said. “Where Split does an excellent job is allowing developers to run experiments on it. For example, they can run experiments on 1% of the users to see what kind of impact it has on conversion rates on the app.”
Forrester analyst Christopher Condo says that’s a key sophisticated differentiator for Split. “It enables users to perform audience segmentation in combination with a feature flag, and, very importantly, Split has a statistical engine for running comparative experiments in production,” he said.
Brian Bell, CEO at Split, says the idea of combining with the Harness DevOps platform was attractive in a maturing market. “What’s happened in the market is that it’s continued to mature. I mean, it’s still a massive market. It’s still early in the evolution of that market. You have every developer waking up, if they haven’t already, to realize that you can’t really write code reliably, and you can’t do it quickly if you don’t have a really powerful feature management platform,” Bell said.
The company’s primary competitor in this space is LaunchDarkly, which has raised over $330 million.
How this is going to impact Split customers, especially those who are using a different DevOps platform, remains to be seen, says Condo. “For a customer that already has a DevOps tool chain in place, I think their biggest questions should be how this merger will impact Split’s pricing, quality and service,” Condo told TechCrunch.
“It will be interesting to see if Harness can sell additional modules to Split users, such as some of their capabilities related to FinOps. As for staying independent, the general trend is consolidation in the DevOps space, so no customer should be surprised if the best-of-breed tool they are using gets acquired by one of the big tool vendors.”
Bell believes he’s done right by customers, investors and employees. He says that most employees hadn’t heard about it when we spoke last week because it wasn’t officially announced yet, but those that had were excited about the outcome.
“Is this the right thing for customers? I think it absolutely is. And investors too. I mean, investors are bullish on the market. I don’t think we’re disclosing the structure of the deal, but they’re excited about this, about us and they’re very happy with this outcome in this market,” he said.
Apple this morning confirmed that the Vision Pro will be available in the U.S. starting February 2. Preorders for the $3,500 spatial computing device open Friday January 19 at 5 a.m. PT.
The company was appropriately dramatic in a release issued this morning. “The era of spatial computing has arrived,” said Tim Cook. “Apple Vision Pro is the most advanced consumer electronics device ever created. Its revolutionary and magical user interface will redefine how we connect, create, and explore.”
At launch, the new Vision Pro App Store will feature “more than 1 million” compatible iOS and iPadOS apps, along with experiences designed specifically for the pricey new headset. How many bespoke Vision Pro apps will be available when the device launches in little under a month, however, remains to be seen.
Image Credits: Apple
Apple notes, “Players can access games on the App Store, including more than 250 titles on Apple Arcade. Hit games like NBA 2K24 Arcade Edition and Sonic Dream Team can be played on a screen as large as they want with incredible audio and support for popular game controllers. New spatial games, including Game Room, What the Golf?, and Super Fruit Ninja, take advantage of the powerful capabilities of Apple Vision Pro to transform the space around players.”
Image Credits: Apple
As for proprietary software, the launch will also see the arrival of a FaceTime experience designed specifically for the new hardware. Apple again, “FaceTime on Apple Vision Pro takes advantage of the space around you so that everyone on a call appears life-size while Spatial Audio makes it sound like each person’s voice comes from the location of their tile.”
At launch, the company will also be offering ZEISS Optical Inserts. The lenses snap onto the headset magnetically. Prescription lenses run $149, while standard readers are $99.
The launch also marks the arrival of VisionOS, Apple’s latest operating system built specifically for the new hardware. Apple notes,
VisionOS delivers powerful spatial experiences, unlocking new opportunities at work and at home. Featuring a brand-new three-dimensional user interface and input system controlled entirely by a user’s eyes, hands, and voice, navigation feels magical. Intuitive gestures allow users to interact with apps by simply looking at them, tapping their fingers to select, flicking their wrist to scroll, or using a virtual keyboard or dictation to type. With Siri, users can quickly open or close apps, play media, and more.
TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free.
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation.
This week, it was all about Rivian and its splashy reveal of not one, but three future EVs. I attended the event to see the vehicles up close. Perhaps, more importantly, I also went to talk to executives, investors and customers to get a better understanding of where Rivian is headed and how folks are feeling about this EV upstart that is still far from turning a profit. I even ran into former Waymo CEO and now Rivian board member John Krafcik who was in attendance and cast a positive tone about the company’s future.
I also interviewed founder and CEO RJ Scaringe after the event. Much of our conversation centered around the R2 and a big and hopefully fruitful bet to shift production to its existing factory in Normal, Illinois instead of a yet-to-be-built plant in Georgia. Stay tuned in the next day or so for a complete rundown of the interview. I will give you one teaser: relevancy was a theme.
Check out our coverage of the R2 reveal, the surprise R3 and R3x, how reservations are going and a fun cinematic feature found in one of the many R2 “adventure” accessories.
This week’s news also includes articles about GM resuming sales of Chevrolet Blazer, a financial update from Turo, another EV reveal that showed a little muscle and more!
One more thing … I’ll be in Austin for SXSW this coming week.
I am moderating two panels, and I hope to see your smiling faces in the audience. The first panel, at 4 p.m. March 12, is entitled How Sustainable Mobility is Transforming the Last-Mile of Delivery and will feature Shawn Xu of Lowercarbon Capital, Anjali Naik of Cartken and Abby Wheeler of Uber.
The following day, and also at 4 p.m., I will moderate a panel called Mobility at the Speed of Trust: AV Purpose, Policy, and Performance with Darran Anderson, who is director of strategy and innovation at Texas DOT, Jay Blazek Crossley of Farm&City and Katrin Lohmann, who is president of Volkswagen ADMT.
Please say hi if you’re in town!
A little bird
No little birds this week — at least ones that provided verifiable information I could share. Y’all have shared lots of spicy rumors though! Please keep reaching out; no tip is too small.
What I can share is an overview of the conversations I overheard at the Rivian R2 reveal, which was held March 7 at the South Coast Theater in Laguna Beach, California. (Rivian bought and restored the theater last year).
Among staff, from the lowly to the higher ups, there was a mix of excitement and relief once the event was over. The mood was positive, but some employees were clearly still processing the layoffs that occurred recently. I heard from a few folks that upper execs had underestimated the buzz around the R3 and R3X — the two surprise reveals. Importantly, the R3 and R3x vehicles don’t have a production date. (At least not a public one.)
The guests I spoke to or overheard talking — a combination of media, loyal customers and investors — were overwhelming positive about what they saw. There were a few grumbles about the location of the charging port and I heard more than a few wonder if Rivian could hold on financially through 2026, when the company is expected to begin production of the R2.
Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected] or Sean O’Kane[email protected].If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.
Deal of the week
Will Turo ever IPO? Fellow TechCrunch reporter Alex Wilhelm and I have a running joke about the company’s long-delayed IPO; the company first filed an S-1 to go public in early 2022, and continues to update the document quarterly in preparation for an eventual offering. Alas, the venture-backed, peer-to-peer car rental service updated the S-1 once again with its fourth-quarter and full-year financial performance.
That suggests, as Wilhelm notes, that a public offering is still a key priority for Turo. Why else bother with the added paperwork?
While this isn’t a deal, per se, I do think it’s worth highlighting how the company is faring, per its latest financial reporting.
Turo saw an 18% uptick in year-over-year revenue to $879.8 million. That seems like good news until you look at Turo’s growth rate, which has dramatically declined in the last two years. Revenue growth did perk up a bit in Q4 2023 compared to the same quarter the previous year, a data point that could help it argue to public-market investors that its deceleration is not necessarily irreversible, Wilhelm wrote.
Also, Turo is actually profitable, which is no small thing. Gross margins did devolve from 54.3% in 2022 to 51.4% in 2023 and the company posted its smallest operating profit since 2020 last year. However, Turo is still in the black and that has me betting that an IPO is coming in 2024.
Other deals that got my attention …
REE, an automotive technology company and makes full by-wire electric trucks and platforms, closed its public offering of 2.3 million Class A ordinary shares, raising about $14.95 million. Multiple investors participated in the round, led by M&G Investment Management, REE’s largest shareholder.
Serve Robotics, an autonomous sidewalk delivery company, qualified to trade on the OTCQB Venture Market operated by the OTC Markets Group Inc. The company’s common shares are now trading on the OTCQB under the ticker symbol “SBOT.”
Notable reads and other tidbits
Apps
Uber Eats has added a live location-sharing capability to help couriers find customers in difficult-to-find locations, including public places such as campus courtyards, parks and playgrounds.
Waze launched a few new features to help users navigate tricky roundabouts, get alerts when a speed limit is about to change and get warnings about speed bumps and sharp curves. Question for readers: Am I the only one surprised that Google hasn’t killed off Waze?
Autonomous vehicles
Baidu’s autonomous ride hailing platform Apollo Go is now offering 24/7 autonomous driving rides in selected areas of Wuhan, China. This is the third major operational expansion of Baidu’s robotaxi service in 2024. The company was recently approved for robotaxi pilot operation on highways to Beijing Daxing Airport.
Waymo said it will start letting its autonomous vehicles traverse Austin without a safety operator behind the wheel, a crucial step before the company opens the program up to the public. The announcement comes less than a week after the Alphabet-owned company received a critical permit that allows it to charge for robotaxi rides in Los Angeles, San Francisco highways and the greater SF Peninsula.
Electric vehicles, batteries & charging
Faraday Future hit a new not-so-desirable milestone. The troubled EV company issued its first recall that covers all 11 vehicles — yes less than a dozen — it built last year. The recall centers around a problem with the warning light for the airbags in the company’s FF91 SUV.
General Motors resumed sales of the Chevrolet Blazer EV — and at a cheaper price — more than two months after the automaker pulled the vehicle over software problems.
Rad Power Bikes launched four new e-bikes and a newly engineered battery equipped with thermal resistant technology to prevent overheating or fires. The new batteries are potted with a heat-absorbing resin that protects against corrosion and overheating, according to the company. It encapsulates each battery cell, and if overheating occurs, the resin is supposed to stop the thermal event from spreading.
Stellantis introduced two all-electric versions of the Dodge Charger packed with the kind of features muscle car fans have come to expect — right down to a system that tries to mimic the rumble of a Hemi V-8 engine. Will the performance benefits in the all-electric Dodge Charger be enough to woo customers who are emotionally attached to the grumbling gas-powered version? I’m not so sure.
Tesla’s factory outside Berlin, Germany was forced to shut down after a suspected arson attack on the local power grid. The shutdown, which was expected to last at least a week, could cost the company an estimated $100 million.
This week’s wheels
Image Credits: Kirsten Korosec
What better way to get to the Rivian R2 event than to drive a Rivian R1S SUV? The company offered up one of the vehicles from its press fleet and I jumped at the opportunity. Why? I haven’t driven a Rivian in more than a year, I wanted to test the Rivian EV charging network and see how recent software updates have changed the vehicle experience. Plus, I wanted to spend time in the third-row R1S ahead of the company’s reveal of the R2, which is a smaller, more affordable SUV.
Quick thoughts:
I applaud a recent software update that added a new vehicle icon on the upper-left corner of the infotainment screen, and gives users quick access to some controls like opening the charge port or front truck as well as other shortcuts for car wash and pet mode.I still and will always loathe the lack of a physical toggle to move the HVAC vents. This is my hill to die on.The advanced driver assistance system is better, but still needs improvement. The vehicle still slightly ping pongs within the lane when the lane keeping feature is on and the torque sensor on the steering wheel is far too sensitive to my liking. I accidentally disengaged the ADAS several times. I did appreciate that the lane keeping and adaptive cruise control stayed on and did not disengage when I put my indicator on and moved into another lane. Neat!The Rivian EV charger, or “adventure network” as it is branded, was easy to use and went smoothly. It was not the fastest charge; I pulled up to 120 kw. However, I was able to park and plug without the hassle of using a credit card or app. I am curious to test what the experience is like for non-Rivian owners. Unsurprisingly, I had some issues at my next stop, where I powered up the vehicle using an Electrify America charger. Two of the charging ports were not working, the app wouldn’t communicate with the charger and I ended up just using my credit card instead.
Image Credits: Orlando Sentinel (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday.
Helloooo, startup nerds! I spent much of this week in San Jose hanging out in the world of AI startups and tech giants at GTC, and I have a ton of fun stories in the pipeline from there, so stay tuned for all of that. In the meantime … let’s look at the exciting goodness that has been the past week of TechCrunch startup coverage!
Most interesting startup stories from the week
Let’s talk about microbiomes… Image Credits: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In a dramatic turn of events, Microsoft has effectively absorbed Inflection, a once-promising AI startup that raised a staggering $1.3 billion just nine months ago. The acquisition sees Inflection’s co-founders, Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan, along with a significant portion of their team, transitioning to Microsoft to spearhead the newly formed Microsoft AI division. This move leaves Inflection, under the guidance of Reid Hoffman and new CEO Sean White, in a precarious position as it attempts to salvage what remains of its co-founders’ ambitious project. Microsoft’s role in this saga raises eyebrows, as it positions itself as both a savior and an opportunist, capitalizing on the struggles of its investments to consolidate its dominance in the AI space.
Meanwhile, over in the land of biotech, the sector’s latest fascination, the microbiome, has been hailed as a frontier for personalized health solutions, promising to tackle everything from digestive issues to skin conditions. However, a recent report in Science casts a shadow over the burgeoning industry, suggesting that many microbiome companies may be operating with more enthusiasm than scientific rigor. These startups, riding the wave of affordable genome sequencing and venture capital, offer services that profile the unique microbial communities in our bodies to identify health problems and solutions. Yet, the report raises concerns about the lack of meaningful regulation and scientific consensus in this complex field, likening some practices to modern-day snake oil salesmanship. Despite the criticism, companies like Parallel Health, Tiny Health, and Daye defend their approaches, emphasizing their commitment to achieving scientific legitimacy.
Investors are hungry for AI: Astera Labs’ IPO pops 72% on the first day, showing that investor demand for tech with an AI twist is high.Apple adds AI to its shopping basket: Apple, the tech behemoth known for its sleek devices and tight-lipped announcements, has quietly added another gem to its crown by acquiring DarwinAI, a Canadian startup that’s all about making manufacturing smarter with its vision-based AI technology.Tradin’ up: TipTop is expanding its ecosystem. Its new platform offers a seamless experience for purchasing new, open-box, and refurbished devices with cash and through trade-ins, according to the startup’s founder, Bastian Lehmann, who previously founded Postmates.
Most interesting fundraises this week
Sneaking in some healthcare through the side door. Image Credits: Getty Images
Telegram, the messaging app giant with a user base north of 900 million, just flexed its financial muscles by securing a whopping $330 million through bond sales, as announced by its founder and CEO, Pavel Durov. The bond bonanza was a hit, attracting more cash than they had room for, with Durov boasting about snagging “global funds of the highest caliber” under terms that made this the sweetest deal in Telegram’s history. While Durov played coy on who exactly threw their money into the ring, he was clear that these investors are betting big on Telegram’s growth trajectory. The company is aiming for profitability next year, and last raised $220 million worth of funding through bonds about a year ago.
Would you like a side of healthcare with that?: Insurance Tech has had some false starts, but a new hero emerges: “embedded insurance.” This genius idea of sneaking insurance into your shopping cart like an extra pair of socks you didn’t know you needed has given the sector a much-needed face-lift. Not to be outdone, “embedded health” has strutted onto the scene, with The CareVoice leading the charge from Shanghai, bagging $10 million in Series B funding amid a venture capital famine in the sector.I see a red door and I want it painted green: In the grand corporate quest to paint everything green, from their logos to their carbon footprints, the big guns have been flaunting their net-zero emissions targets like the latest fashion trend. But what about the little guys? Enter Greenly, the Parisian knight in shining armor, armed with carbon accounting software that promises to make sense of the carbon chaos without needing an army of analysts.The PC is dead — long live the browser: The Browser Company, creators of the Arc browser, is riding high on a fresh $50 million investment wave, led by Pace Capital, valuing the startup at a cool $550 million. With a total of $128 million in funding under its belt, this outfit is on a mission to redefine your digital life, starting with the browser.
Trend of the week: The higher they soar, the harder they fall
Fisker had a great run but has now paused production. Image Credits: Fisker
It’s been a week of highs and lows. Where some startups are meeting their demise, others are rising from the ashes, while others again are filling the void left by their falling brethren. All very dramatic.
One example of this drama is between Google and the EU. The search giant finds itself in hot water once again with France’s Autorité de la Concurrence, which has slapped the tech giant with a €250 million fine (around $270 million) for misusing news publishers’ content to train its AI model, Bard/Gemini, without proper notification. This latest fine is part of a longstanding feud over copyright protections, with Google previously attempting to sidestep EU digital copyright reforms by limiting access to its news services in France. The Autorité‘s investigation revealed that Google not only failed to inform publishers about the use of their content for AI training but also lacked a mechanism for publishers to opt out without affecting their visibility on Google’s other services until late September 2023. Meanwhile, Midjourney thinks it has a plan to beat the copyright cops.
From the ashes they rise: As Mint bids adieu to the budgeting app world, Copilot is celebrating, heralding the end of Mint as a win for its own finance app. With over 100,000 subscribers, Copilot is on a mission to prove that personal finance management can be less about nagging notifications on “big purchases” (looking at you, Mint) and more about actually understanding where your money is going.<screeeeeeeeech>: Fisker once zoomed into the public eye with its electric Ocean SUV but is now hitting the brakes hard, announcing a six-week production pause as it desperately searches the couch cushions for a cash infusion. With the clock ticking and the cash burning, Fisker’s story is starting to read more like a cautionary tale than a success story.Maybe if we change our name they won’t remember what we did: Lordstown Motors, now rebranded as Nu Ride, has risen from the ashes of bankruptcy with a vendetta against tech giant Foxconn, accusing it of playing the villain in the downfall of an American dream.
Other unmissable TechCrunch stories …
Every week, there’s always a few stories I want to share with you that somehow don’t fit into the categories above. It’d be a shame if you missed ’em, so here’s a random grab bag of goodies for ya:
I’ll buy your shares for $0: SpaceX has devised a cunning plan to keep its employees in check with some eyebrow-raising stock award conditions. Imagine leaving the company only to find SpaceX can buy back your hard-earned shares at a bargain bin price, or worse, ban you from cashing out altogether if they’ve deemed you’ve been naughty.Pull up yer pants: Gumroad, the once go-to e-commerce haven for creators of all stripes, has decided to tighten the leash on NSFW content, leaving creators of the more risqué variety scrambling for their digital lives. The culprit behind this sudden prudishness? The ever-watchful eyes of payment processors like Stripe and PayPal.So about that artificial general intelligence thing: When the sensationalist press asks for a timeframe, it is often baiting AI professionals into putting a timeline on the end of humanity — or at least the current status quo. Needless to say, AI CEOs aren’t always eager to tackle the subject, but Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang shared some thoughts this week.Robo-spam takes a new dimension: OpenAI’s GPT Store, a marketplace bustling with custom chatbots designed to tackle a myriad of tasks, seems to have turned into the Wild West of AI, where moderation takes a backseat and copyright lines blur.Walk this way, talk this way: Pilot season has officially begun for the world of humanoid robotics. Last year, Amazon began testing Agility’s Digit robots in select fulfillment centers, while this January, Figure announced a deal with BMW. Now Apptronik is getting in on the action, courtesy of a partnership with Mercedes-Benz.
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Eight months after acquiring credit card startup X1 for $95 million, Robinhood announced today the launch of its new Gold Card, with a list of features that could even give Apple Card users envy.
Robinhood, better known for its brokerage app aimed at the everyday investor, is touting all sorts of benefits with its new card in an attempt to attract users. The card has no annual or foreign transaction fees. However, it will only be available for Robinhood Gold members, which costs $5 a month, or $50 annually. (Gold is a program that offers other benefits like 5% APY on an account’s uninvested brokerage cash.)
Gold Card users can earn 3% cash back on all categories, including restaurants and groceries, and 5% cash bank when booking travel at Robinhood’s new travel portal. That cash back can be transferred to brokerage accounts, which can go toward making investments like stock purchases, the company says. The ability to invest using cash back is the big innovation that X1 developed prior to getting acquired.
Another interesting feature of the Gold Card includes the ability to provide cards for family members. This is the first time that Robinhood has introduced a family-oriented financial product, Robinhood Money General Manager Deepak Rao told TechCrunch. Rao was the founder and CEO of X1 before joining Robinhood in the acquisition.
Users will have the ability to add up to five family members as cardholders to their account with every cardholder receiving their own card. Additional cardholders can be any age, giving parents a way to help teens build credit and monitor spending. The ability to provide cards to family members will extend even to those visiting from other countries.
“A user can provide cards to parents, children or caregivers and set the right kind of controls and protection, while also helping them build their credit,” Rao said. “They don’t have to provide any other information than their name and date of birth and Social Security number if they have one. If you’re worried about spending limits, you can put a dollar amount limit and also a child-safe mode for kids.”
The Card also allows users to create and delete virtual cards for one-time purchases and will have an APR of 20.24% – 29.99%, which Robinhood said will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate.
Robinhood is also making its physical cards numberless so if they are lost or stolen, users won’t have to swap out all their card information. The company is also launching a new app to go along with the new Gold Card that will be completely separate from its investment app, Rao said.
Generally, the Gold account offers up to $2.25 million FDIC insurance from a network of partner banks.
Cash back
Robinhood’s entrance into the credit card market is clearly taking a cue from the likes of Apple, which has seen great success with its own card (despite hiccups with its partnership with Goldman Sachs). By forgoing hidden fees like annual or late fees, and by applying its cash back daily, Apple Card topped more than 12 million users as of January.
Many cards offer cash back but often restrict it to certain categories. This card is generous in its cash-back offer. Apple, for instance, offers 3% cash back on all purchases made at Apple, and on purchases made at select merchants when using the Apple Card with Apple Pay. In general, purchases made on Apple Card with Apple Pay earn users 2% back. But Apple also offers a Family Sharing feature, and a high-yield savings account offering 4.5% interest.
Obviously, Robinhood will earn interchange revenue from the credit cards, standard transaction fees paid by the merchants. It has earned interchange revenue off of its debit cards, which launched in 2018. Coastal Community Bank is Robinhood’s banking partner on the new Gold Card.
The new credit card is part of Robinhood’s evolving business model and offerings over the years. In December of 2022, the company announced Robinhood Retirement, which it described as the “first and only” individual retirement account (IRA) with a 1% match on every eligible dollar contributed. Gold Membership, a requirement to get the Gold Card, increases the eligible match to up to 3% match.
“There’s always been special perks and opportunities reserved for the wealthy that make them even richer. It’s why we started Robinhood…” Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev said in a written statement. “Today’s announcements…bring us one step closer to the goal of giving everyone better access to the financial system.”
Robinhood Gold Card, explained:
What are the requirements to apply for a Robinhood Gold Card?
You must be a Robinhood Gold card member.
You must first meet the following credentials in order to apply for a card:
Must have a Robinhood Gold account.Be 18 years or olderHave a valid social security number (not a taxpayer identification number)Have a legal U.S. residential address within the 50 states (exceptions may apply for active U.S. military personnel stationed abroad)Be a U.S. citizen, U.S. permanent resident, or have a valid U.S. visa
Are there monthly fees associated with a Robinhood Gold Card?
You must be a Robinhood Gold member to apply for the card. It costs $5 a month, or $50 a year, to become a Robinhood Gold member.
Are there foreign transaction fees associated with a Robinhood Gold Card?
No, there are no foreign transaction fees.
Will my credit be pulled when applying for a Robinhood Gold Card?
Robinhood doesn’t do a hard pull on your credit until you accept the card offer.
What are the cash back perks and benefits of this card?
Users can earn 3% cash back on all categories. That cash back can be transferred to brokerage accounts, which can go toward making investments like stock purchases.Users will have the ability to add up to five family members as cardholders to their account with every cardholder receiving their own card. Cardholders can create and delete virtual cards for one-time purchases.The physical cards will be numberless so if they are lost or stolen, users won’t have to swap out all their card information.
Is Robinhood Gold FDIC insured?
Robinhood offers up to $2.25 million in FDIC insurance through a network of partner banks.
You can check out the full archive of Robinhood’s event announcing the Gold Card below.
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This post was originally published March 26 at 4 p.m. PT, and has been updated to include Robinhood’s stream and additional remarks.
At its Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas, Google on Tuesday extended its Chrome Enterprise product suite with the launch of Chrome Enterprise Premium.
Google has long offered an enterprise-centric version of its Chrome browser. With Chrome Enterprise, IT departments get the ability to manage employees’ browser settings, the extensions they install and web apps they use, for example. More importantly, though, they also get a number of new security controls around data loss prevention, malware protection, phishing prevention and the Zero Trust access to SaaS apps.
Chrome Enterprise Premium, which will cost $6/user/month, mostly extends the security capabilities of the existing service, based on the insight that browsers are now the endpoints where most of the high-value work inside a company is done.
“Authentication, access, communication and collaboration, administration, and even coding are all browser-based activities in the modern enterprise,” Parisa Tabriz, Google’s VP for Chrome, wrote in Tuesday’s announcement. “Endpoint security is growing more challenging due to remote work, reliance on an extended workforce, and the proliferation of new devices that aren’t part of an organization’s managed fleet. As these trends continue to accelerate and converge, it’s clear that the browser is a natural enforcement point for endpoint security in the modern enterprise.”
These new features include additional enterprise controls to enforce policies and manage software updates and extensions, as well as new security reporting features and forensic capabilities that can be integrated with third-party security tools. Chrome Enterprise Premium takes Zero Trust a step further with context-aware access controls that can also mitigate the risk of data leaks. This includes approved applications and those that were not sanctioned by the IT department.
“With Chrome Enterprise Premium, we have confidence in Google’s security expertise, including Project Zero’s cutting-edge security research and fast security patches. We set up data loss prevention restrictions and warnings for sharing sensitive information in applications like generative AI platforms and noticed a noteworthy 50% reduction in content transfers,” said Nick Reva, head of corporate security engineering at Snap.
