Author : zebethcontrol

Blnk, a fintech that provides instant consumer credit in Egypt, raises $32M in debt and equity • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Blnk, Egypt, Fintech, StartupsNo Comments

Credit card penetration in Egypt is low, with just over 4 million cards used in a population of more than 100 million people. As such, people in the country have little or no access to credit, given the other few options that exist in the market. One of these options, consumer loans, is being explored by Blnk, a fintech launched last October. The digital lending platform partners with Egyptian merchants, allowing them to underwrite customers at the point of sale and provide them with finance to purchase items such as electronics, furniture and automotive services via 6-36 month installments. Blnk said it has raised $32 million, money split across different stages and funding types: $12.5 million pre-seed and seed equity rounds (led by Abu Dhabi’s Emirates International Investment Company [EIIC], Sawari Ventures and other investors), $11.2 million debt financing and $8.3 million securitized bond issuance. It plans to “accelerate financial inclusion within underserved communities across the country” and support its “AI-powered” lending infrastructure. Customers who use Blnk at the point of sale need a National ID for starters, after which they can get financing in three minutes, according to the company. “It’s a very fast service,” said Amr Sultan, co-founder and CEO, in an interview with ZebethMedia. “And by being there at the point of sale, we help increase conversion rates and provide affordability products to significantly underserved populations. We’re heavily focused on financial inclusion, especially on how to underwrite people who don’t have a credit history.” Sultan, who started the company with Tarek Elsheikh, said Blnk does this via its proprietary credit underwriting system and risk-scoring model that assesses the customers’ riskiness and ability to service their debts. So far, Blnk claims to have disbursed over $20 million in loans via a network of more than 300 merchants (half of which are active) to over 60,000 customers who pay an average of 2.6% monthly interest. Joseph Iskander, the head of investment at lead investor EIIC, speaking on the investment: “We are convinced that the Egyptian market and its startup ecosystem present a compelling opportunity for regional and international investors, and we are committed to identifying and investing in value accretive businesses. We are pleased to partner with Blnk to drive financial inclusion and economic development in Egypt, and we look forward to working with the team to achieve their goals.” Other fintechs that offer loans and other financial services in Egypt include MNT-Halan, MoneyFellows and Khazna.

Airly fights air pollution with a network of affordable sensors • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Climate, StartupsNo Comments

Cleantech startup Airly wants to help communities around the world improve air quality with affordable sensors and software that provides actionable insights. Based in London and Krakow, the startup announced today it has raised $5.5 million. The round was led by firstminute capital and Pi Labs, with participation from returning investors like the Sir Richard Branson Family Office, AENU and Untitled. New investors include Cal Henderson, one of Slack’s co-founders, Snowflake co-founder Marcin Zukowki and institutional investors Semapa Next and TO Ventures. This brings Airly’s total raised to $8.8 million since March 2021. Airly is currently used by more than 500 local authorities in over 40 countries, with 5,000 of its sensors covering a total of 40,000 active measurement points. Cities include Warsaw, where Airly has installed 165 sensors, which the company says is the largest air quality monitoring network in Europe. It also has networks of sensors in United Kingdom and Indonesia cities. So far, Airly has struck trategic partnerships with JCDecaux, NHS, NILU (Norwegian Institute for Air Research). It is also partnered with the DivAirCity project, which is funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020. Airly plans to build a dashboard that will allow users to monitor more data and get insights on how air quality is affecting health, and how to improve it. It will include a report generator, insights, impact tracker and city ranking. An online map and mobile apps already lets people in a community check the air quality around them based on Airly’s data. Airly started after co-founder and CEO Wiktor Warchalowski and two of his friends at AGH Technical University of Krakow were training for a marathon. “During the course of our training, we found it hard to cope with the intensity and realized it was down to air pollution,” he told ZebethMedia. “So we devised a system using our own air quality sensors to tell us where the cleanest air was and we used those spaces for our training.” Airly founders Michał Misiek, Wiktor Warchałowski and Aleksander Konior After realizing that other people had the same problem, they started building the Airly platform to monitor real-time air quality. State-owned air quality monitoring stations are usually only affordable for large cities, Warchalowski explained, and since they are expensive, there are often only three to five covering large expanses of land. Not only that, but they typically have a delay of several hours in reporting data. Airly wants to solve that problem with affordable sensors that are easy to install, so one can be on every street in a city. They also send data to Airly’s app every five minutes, so air quality can be monitored in real time. The platform’s insights help communities gauge real-time health risks of poor air quality, based on WHO standards or illegal emissions. It analyzes trends to identify sources of pollution, and gives recommendations on how to improve air quality. For example, it can tell communities if they should implement low-emission zones, solid fuel bans and green school streets. It also tracks improvements once those measures are made. A couple examples of how Airly has been used include the #LetSchoolsBreathe campaign in the United Kingdom, where Airly’s monitors were installed in 50 schools. It’s also helped a large city in Central Europe get evidence that fuel combustion-free zones were working as planned. Communities have used data collected by Airly to lobby local governments to take air quality action. “On a macro scale, our data has repeatedly become an incentive to change local policy in terms of reducing the use of solid fuels, car traffic or influencing local polluters,” Warchalowski said. “Airly supports organizations in their journey to eliminate pollution, improve air quality and protect public health as the data is the first step toward pollution-free cities and communities. You can’t control what you can’t measure.” Airly currently has 500 paying customers and uses a “sensing-as-a-service” model. Customers pay a yearly subscription based on how many nodes they access, and pricing starts from $540 per node per year. There’s a one time setup fee for installing devices. One of Airly’s main competitors is Breezometer, which was ( acquired in September by GOogle. Breezometer’s competitive advantage is the breadth of its air quality network coverage, which stretches across more than 100 countries and has a resolution of five meters. But Breezometer’s is not able to provide the hyperlocal insights that Airly can, said Warchalowski. Another competitor is Clarity, which is also building an end-to-end air quality and control platform with software and hardware. But Airly has a wider set of pollutant measures and it also delivers recommendations based on data. Airly will use its new funding on research and development and to expand into new markets. In a statement about the funding, Founders Fund and firstminute capital co-founder and executive chairman Brent Hoberman said, “Trailblazers in London are showing how real-time local air quality data is the catalyst for taking action to make our urban spaces healthier and more sustainable. I expect many cities and local authorities to follow their leadership, starting with more precise and local data. Airly is at the forefront of building this data infrastructure and our fight against air pollution, and we’re very proud to continue our support by co-leading their Series A.”

Apple limits AirDrop ‘everyone’ option to 10 minutes in China • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in airdrop, Apple, censorship, China, Government & Policy, HardwareNo Comments

A change in the iOS 16.1.1 update for Chinese users is turning some heads. Apple is restricting the “Everyone” option in AirDrop to ten minutes on iPhones purchased in mainland China, according to online user reports. That means people can no longer keep their Airdrop on for an unlimited time, including for strangers and contacts. Some argue that this feature should have long been an option for all Apple users — sometimes one just forgets to switch Airdrop off and end up with unsolicited content from unknown users — but others interpret the decision as Apple’s response to recent incidents in China. Airdrop, which uses Bluetooth Low Energy and peer-to-peer wifi technology to enable instant file transferring, remains one of the few uncensored communication medium in China, which is why people were using the feature to share politically sensitive content with others in recent weeks as the country’s top leadership reshuffled. Despite the rise of local rivals like Huawei and Oppo, Apple has managed to hold onto its dominance in China, especially among more affluent demographics. In the second quarter, iPhones accounted for 13% of handset shipments in China, according to Counterpoint’s research, down from 18% and 22% in Q1 and Q4 respectively. It’s not unusual for Apple to introduce region-specific restrictions to abide by local regulations. In EU countries, for example, users can’t exceed the EU Volume Level as a result of hearing protection standards. In China, Apple has a history of applying more stringent rules on content-related services, including games and podcasts, a closely watched area by the local authorities.

Waymo can now charge for fully driverless services in San Francisco • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in autonomous vehicles, robotaxi, Transportation, waymoNo Comments

The California Department of Motor Vehicles approved an amendment to Waymo’s existing deployment permit Wednesday to include driverless, as well as drivered, operations. Now, Waymo will be able to charge for usage of its autonomous vehicles, which will operate without anyone in the driver’s seat, for services like food and grocery delivery. The upgraded DMV permit is a prerequisite to launching a fully autonomous commercial ride-hail service in San Francisco, as its main competitor Cruise did this summer. All Waymo needs now is a driverless deployment permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to finally start charging for rider-only autonomous rides in the city. The company will be eligible to apply for that permit once it has operated its driverless cars on public roads for at least 30 days. Waymo has been operating with its drivered deployment permit from the DMV since last October, which allowed the company to begin a commercial autonomous delivery pilot in San Francisco with Albertsons earlier this year. Per the permit’s requirements, a human safety operator has to be in the front seat during operations. Waymo’s service area in San Francisco. Image Credit: Waymo Waymo then received a CPUC drivered deployment permit in February this year and began charging its “trusted testers” for robotaxi rides with a human safety operator in the front seat in May. Between June and August, Waymo completed more than 709,000 miles with a safety driver in the state of California, according to the CPUC’s quarterly report. The company recently expanded its service in downtown Phoenix to include trips, with a human safety operator, to Phoenix’s airport, and said it would launch a robotaxi service in Los Angeles.

I guess you can (officially) use your fancy Canon camera as a webcam studio now • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Canon, Gadgets, Hardware, webcamNo Comments

When the pandemic slammed into our shores a couple of years ago, many of us were shoo-ed inside, doomed to endless Zoom meetings. At the time, Canon released a beta of its EOS Webcam Utility, and then seemed to pretty much forget about it. Until today. In a ‘geez, Canon, this would have been helpful two years ago’ kind of move, the company released the EOS Webcam Utility Pro software, so you can finally show up crisply high-def with Canon’s blessing. Canon claims that ‘millions of users’ have already been using the EOS Webcam Utility for streaming and meetings, and its ‘pro’ installment of the software lets you give the company money (yay!) and ‘unlock exclusive features that take video communication and customization capabilities to the next level.’ Forgive the sarcasm; Canon’s EOS cameras are legitimately high-end and high-quality products and its lens lineup continues to be world-class, so if you really want to highlight every pore and every stray eyelash, Canon’s got your, er, front. The subscription version of the software will set you back $4.99 per month, or $50 per year. It enables you to hook up several cameras, unlocks wireless connectivity, and gives more camera and content control. It ups the framerate available to 60 fps, and you can push the video streams to multiple channels at once, such as YouTube, Facebook Live, and others. The new software also includes layout options, watermarking, scene transitions, and other stuff. Now, if those things were important to you, you have probably already discovered the free OBS software and a slew of other, paid-for solutions that have various degrees of sophistication and feature sets. But, you know. Canon.

Sequoia Capital marks its FTX investment down to zero dollars • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Crypto, VentureNo Comments

Sequoia Capital just marked down to zero the value of a stake that, as of last week, represented one of the firm’s biggest unrealized returns in its 50-year history. In short, Sequoia has decided not to bail out the beleaguered crypto exchange following its abrupt implosion over the last couple of days. This story is developing: here is the letter it just sent out to its limited partners. Dear Limited Partner, We are reaching out to share an update on our investment in FTX. In recent days, a liquidity crunch has created solvency risk for FTX. The full nature and extent of this risk is not known at this time. Based on our current understanding, we are marking our investment down to $0. Sequoia Capital’s exposure to FTX is limited. We own FTX.com and FTX US in one private fund, Global Growth Fund III. FTX is not a top ten position in the fund, and our $150 million cost basis accounts for less than 3% of the committed capital of the fund. The $150 million loss is offset by ~$7.5B in realized and unrealized gains in the same fund, so the fund remains in good shape. Separately, SCGE Fund, L.P. invested $63.5M in FTX.com and FTX US, representing less than 1% of the SCGE Fund’s 9/30/2022 portfolio (at fair value). We are in the business of taking risk. Some investments will surprise to the upside, and some will surprise to the downside. We do not take this responsibility lightly and do extensive research and thorough diligence on every investment we make. At the time of our investment in FTX, we ran a rigorous diligence process. In 2021, the year of our investment, FTX generated approximately $1B in revenue and more than $250M in operating income, as was made public in August 2022. The current situation is developing quickly. We will communicate in a timely manner when more information is available. If you have any additional questions, please contact Andrew Reynolds, Marie Klemchuk and Kathleen Forte at: investorrelations@sequoiacap.com. For SCGE questions, please contact Kimberly Summe at summe@sequolacap.com. Sincerely. Team Sequoia Footnotes: Global Growth Fund III (GGFIlI) data is as of September 30, 2022 and is based on U.S. GAAP. The $7.5B is composed of $5.8B of unrealized gain and $1.7B of realized gain. which includes the General Partner distribution on May 27, 2021 pursuant to the 2021 Amendment. Past performance is not indicative of future results Global Growth Fund III (GGFIII) refers to Sequoia Capital Global Growth Fund III – Endurance Partners, L.P. and does not include Sequoia Capital Global Growth Fund III – U.S./India Annex Fund, L.P., Sequoia Capital Global Growth Fund III – China Annex Fund, L.P., and their parallel funds More on this story shortly . . .

Lyft-backed plan to fund electric cars flops in California • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Climate, electric vehicles, Gavin Newsom, Lyft, Michael Moritz, Ron Conway, TransportationNo Comments

California voters shot down a plan to make electric vehicles more affordable for some residents, dealing a blow to Lyft and the EV industry alike. Proposition 30 would have taxed residents making more than $2 million a year to subsidize electric cars and public charging stations as well as funded wildfire prevention programs. Even with just 41% of the votes tallies so far, the defeat was clear. As of Wednesday afternoon, some 59% of voters rejected the proposition. The measure’s defeat comes as several states ready bans on gas-powered vehicles in urgent efforts to cut climate pollution. Prop 30’s primary backer was Lyft, which paid more than $48 million to support the would-be wealth tax. The measure’s opponents — which included Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and venture capitalists Michael Moritz and Ron Conway — cast Prop 30 as a “Lyft grift,” calling it a “scheme to further line the pockets of Silicon Valley tech billionaires.” Yet, Prop 30 did not include carve-outs for ride-share companies. It would have raised tens of billions of dollars to push down the price of electric cars for individuals, including drivers for ride apps like Lyft and Uber. Both companies have committed to going electric by 2030, and this measure could have helped them hit their targets. Earlier this year, California mandated that nearly all ride-share vehicles go electric by 2030, as part of a broader effort to gradually push combustion engines off roads. Although the state already operates some programs to help cover the cost of going electric, Prop 30 could have provided further assistance. Without it, ride-app companies may be forced to fork up additional cash, one way or another, to incentivize their drivers to switch, so they’ll comply with the state’s mandate. Though more affordable options are gradually coming to market, electric vehicles are generally still in short supply, and most are too pricey up front for most people. This is no good for the climate, because light-duty vehicles like cars and SUVs make up more than half of transportation-related emissions in the U.S., per the EPA. On the NASDAQ, Lyft closed at $10.64, down by almost 2.4% from the prior day. The decline pales in comparison to the nosedive Lyft shareholders suffered on Monday, after disclosing hefty losses in its latest quarterly report. Earlier this month, Lyft laid off 683 employees, or about 13% of its workforce.

Canoo to buy vehicle manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Canoo, earnings, electric vehicles, TransportationNo Comments

Commercial electric vehicle company Canoo entered into an agreement to acquire a vehicle manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City, the company announced Wednesday along with its third-quarter earnings. The news comes a week after Canoo said it would build an EV battery module manufacturing facility in Pryor, Oklahoma. The new facility will be dedicated to producing Canoo’s electric Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle (LDV) and Lifestyle Vehicle (LV), an electric SUV. Canoo is still working on its “megamicro factory” in Pryor, but until that comes online, this new facility will help Canoo ramp production and bring EVs to market in 2023. Canoo CEO Tony Aquila said the company expects to start production for the LDV on November 17 and complete final certification in the first quarter of 2023. The goal is to build 15 production vehicles this year, which will go to committed order customers like NASA and Walmart. The Oklahoma City 120+ acre facility has “production-ready infrastructure” and is “strategically located with easy access to road and rail,” according to Canoo Aquila. Canoo will adapt the facility to accommodate a full vehicle assembly line with robotics, a paint shop and upfitting center. Canoo said the facility will be powered by clean energy. “Following these initial builds, we will then aggressively shift all our equipment and focus to our new facility during Q1 and Q2 of 2023,” Aquila said Wednesday. “As we start production, we expect the first sellable vehicle deliveries to occur in the back half of Q1 and we will ramp production in 2H 2023 to 20,000 units run rate by year end.” Aquila said the megamicro factory in Pryor is “a bit delayed due to economic reasons,” but that when Canoo is able to shift resources there, the startup will be able to double its run rate to 40,000 units by the end of 2024. Long term, the Oklahoma City facility announced Wednesday will focus on producing defence and specialty products, said Aquila. In April, NASA selected Canoo to provide crew transportation vehicles for the crewed Artemis lunar exploration launches, and in July, the U.S. Army selected Canoo to supply EVs for analysis and demonstration. Canoo Q3 financials Canoo closed out the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $6.8 million. That’s down from last quarter’s $33.8 million, and $224.7 million from the fourth quarter of 2021. In less than a year, Canoo burned through $217.9 million, and it’s still not generating revenue. Quarter-over-quarter, Aquila says Canoo’s cash burn is down 25% as the company continues to shift its expense mix, increasing the ratio of capital spend to operating spend. The company’s loss from operating activities totaled $109.4 million this quarter, and its GAAP net loss and comprehensive loss hit $117.7 million. Canoo says it has access to $200 million through an “at-the-market offering” program, as well, but access to capital isn’t the same thing as having cash on hand. “On the financing front, we have secured an additional $30 million in a PIPE and a note to be converted to cash or stock,” said Aquila, noting the company is in the final phases of evaluating different financing options for the Oklahoma facility. Canoo seems to be riding promises of future revenue to get access to more financing and stay afloat. After reporting first-quarter earnings this year, Canoo issued a growing concern warning, saying that it may not have enough funds to make it stay in business. Things improved for the company in the second quarter, in part due to its agreement with Walmart to sell 4,500 electric delivery vehicles. This not only assured future revenue for Canoo, but also gave the company another opportunity to go after additional non-dilutive and lower-cost capital financing opportunities. Since then, Canoo has also secured binding fleet orders from Kingbee and Zeeba to purchase 9,300 and 3,000 vehicles, respectively, with the option to increase to 18,600 and 5,450 vehicles, respectively. Today, Canoo has over $2 billion in total orders in its pipeline, according to Aquila. “The last two quarters have been very tight,” said Aquila. “The macro economic has worsened, pushing the cost of capital higher and forcing us to accelerate our maturity and manage costs efficiently to achieve our goals. We have been doing our best to manage cash, continued access to liquidity and dilution.” Aquila said that even though Canoo’s cash situation looks dire, he believes having less access to cash has led to more competitiveness and efficiencies. “Being able to teach the crew here how to run a business on ‘just in time’ milestone capital is a very disciplined approach as an investor, not just as the chairman and CEO,” he said “I know it is painful. But, you know, would you rather give a young company a lot of money, or would you rather give it money based on milestones?” Canoo revised its expenditure guidance for the remainder of the year, anticipating $70 million to $90 million in operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation, and $30 million to $50 million of capital expenditures. “We are now on track for a 40% reduction in operating expenses for the second half of the year, which is significant improvement compared to a previously disclosed projection of 20% reduction,” said Ramesh Murthy, Canoo’s senior vice president of finance. Canoo’s stock, which closed at $1.17, is up 3.42% in after-hours trading.

Meta decimates its staff as the social media giant lays off 11,000 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Daily Crunch, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

To get a roundup of ZebethMedia’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Whooo-weee interesting times for crypto land, as Bitcoin crashes down to under $17,000 for the first time in a while. Wild, given that the cryptocurrency was trading at $65,000 or so a year ago. That’s a 74% decrease. What kind of winter is this — are we seeing a crypto cold snap or crypto permafrost? Answers on an immutable blockchain transaction, please. If you’re excited to make sense of the crypto world, we’ve got an event in Miami coming up in a couple of weeks — details and tickets here! — Christine and Haje. The ZebethMedia Top 3 More social media struggles: Though the subject matter was a downer, Paul wrote a great story about Meta’s confirmed layoffs of 11,000 employees, explaining what happened, why and what it means in the greater context of Meta’s future. More in Big Tech below. It was good while it lasted: For a few hours this morning, us ZebethMediaers were elated to see our precious Twitter handle get the “Official Twitter Badge,” but as Amanda writes, what Twitter giveth, Twitter quickly taketh away. This is what really happened: It was Elon Musk, in the boardroom, with the badge code. As we just mentioned, Musk was killing spirit all over Twitter today, rolling out gray checkmarks for high-profile accounts and then deleting them. Kyle has more. Startups and VC Edge computing cloud and global data network Macrometa has raised $38 million led by Akamai Technologies, as the two announce a new partnership and product integrations, Catherine reports. The funding also included participation from Shasta Ventures and Sixty Degree Capital. Akamai Technologies CTO Andy Champagne will join Macrometa’s board. Startups might be in a funding midwinter, but the ray of sun shining on some VCs speaks of a different trend, reports Ingrid. EQT Ventures, the venture fund arm of Sweden’s investment giant EQT making early-stage bets on startups primarily in Europe, has closed its latest fund and filled its coffers with €1 billion (and $1.1 billion in total commitments). Like our headline stories, but more summarized: Three tips for managing a remote engineering team Image Credits: Inok (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Remote work is not for every business, and it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. When Greg Soh and his co-founder decided to build a distributed engineering team for their startup, numerous questions raced through their minds: Will the team be productive? How will decisions be made? How do they keep the culture alive? Today, the startup manages a remote team of about a dozen engineers, and they’ve learned quite a bit along the way. On ZebethMedia+, he shares some of the tips and advice the company has learned — most of the advice is best applicable to earlier-stage startups. Three more from the TC+ team: ZebethMedia+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Big Tech Inc. Following today’s Meta announcement regarding the layoff of 11,000 employees, Ingrid did a deep dive into the company’s 8-K and emerged with some fresh catch, including the predictable — that slashing expenses on hiring and capex investments will help the company’s 2023 bottom line. Meanwhile, Frederic writes about IBM’s Osprey quantum processor, which isn’t exactly the 4,000 qubits the company wants to achieve by 2025, but at 433 qubits, it’s a good start. And we have five more for you: More layoffs: You didn’t think you’d get off that easy, did you? Ron reports that Salesforce has laid off hundreds of employees, while Aria reports that Astra lays off 16% of its staff after nearly tripling it in the last year. Brrr, it’s cold in here — there must be some crypto in the atmosphere: It’s like Anita had some sixth sense or something. Earlier today, she wrote that the proposed Binance and FTX M&A deal looked unlikely to close. Lo and behold, just before this went out, Binance decided to walk away from the deal, Jacquelyn reports. Collaboration station: Ready to Freeform? Not sure it’s going to be a verb yet, but Apple hopes its collaborative whiteboard is something that sticks, Ivan reports. Sensors and software and EV, oh my!: Volvo unveiled its first all-electric SUV today, and we are drooling. Jaclyn has more. We’re guessing he didn’t win the Powerball: Elon Musk sold more of his Tesla shares, Rebecca writes. The 19.5 million shares were worth almost $4 billion. Wonder what he’s using the money for…

Rivian upholds 2022 production targets as net loss widens • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in R1T, Rivian, TransportationNo Comments

Electric vehicle maker Rivian affirmed Wednesday that the company is on track to hit its annual production target of 25,000 vehicles despite unpredictable supply chain crunches and component shortages. The startup-turned-public company remained committed to its production goal, even as industry-wide challenges, supply chain snarls and macroeconomic forces conspired to keep automakers from satisfying a strong consumer appetite for cars, trucks and SUVs. Rivian reported that its third-quarter production rose 67% over the same period a year ago, for a total count of 15,000 vehicles, including the automaker’s truck, SUV and Amazon delivery vans, through September 30. During the quarter, the company produced 7,363 vehicles, boosted by the addition of a second shift at its Normal, Illinois, factory. It delivered 6,584 of them — a significant jump from the 4,467 vehicles Rivian delivered in the second quarter of the year. Like other automakers, and especially other startups, Rivian has struggled this year, with founder and CEO RJ Scaringe forced in July to lay off 6% of its workforce, or roughly 900 employees. For the third quarter, Rivian reported a net loss of $1.72 billion on revenue of $536 million. That compares with a net loss of $1.23 billion on revenue of $1 million the same period a year ago. In October, Rivian was forced to recall nearly all of its vehicles to fix a steering defect. Meanwhile, the company is gearing up for long-term supply chain constraints it foresees in the battery supply chain. The industry’s ongoing semiconductor chip shortage is “an appetizer to the degree of the sort of supply chain constraint we’re likely to see across the battery supply chain over the next 15 years,” Scaringe said from the ZebethMedia Disrupt conference stage later in the month. However, the demand for Rivian’s vehicles remains, with more than 114,000 preorders in the U.S. and Canada as of Monday. That’s on top of Amazon’s initial order of 100,000 electric vans. Rivian pointed to several segments where it sees potential growth, including the 2026 launch of its next-generation R2 EV platform, a partnership with Mercedes-Benz to build electric vans at scale and the hiring of former Waymo and Zoox executive James Philbin to lead Rivian’s efforts in AI and automated driving technology. The near-term economic challenges are putting pressue on EV makers of all sizes. British electric vehicle startup Arrival, which restructured its business amid a cash crunch and pivoted to develop commercial vans for the U.S. instead of Europe, said Tuesday it doesn’t expect to earn revenue until after 2023. Also on Tuesday, Lucid Motors reported a net loss of $530 million for the third quarter, on $195.5 million in revenue. The startup confirmed it’s on track to build between 6,000 and 7,000 of its Lucid Air luxury sedans in 2022, down from an initial target of 20,000. Tesla nearly doubled its third-quarter income, to $3.3 billion compared with the same year-ago period, but said production remains hamstrung by supply. The record-setting $21.45 billion revenue Tesla reported for the quarter still fell below analyst expectations. Rivian, Tesla and the others also face competition from strong legacy automakers that continue to launch electric trucks and SUVs, such as the Volvo EX90 revealed Wednesday morning, on their quest to go fully electric by the end of the decade.