Venmo API

on demand valet service lux may get
millions in a new funding round zenefits
is laying off 250 people
ouch venmo shuts down access to its
developer API and more it's Friday
February 26 and this is crunch report
presented by Toyota
so that mode just did something kind of

weird after six years of providing an
API for developers to build experiences
on top of its money transfer system
venmo suddenly shut down the API
altogether the company's developer page
now says the venmo API is no longer
available we're sorry for the
inconvenience please reach out to our
support team if you have questions
people probably have some questions
because back in 2010 then most started
promoting that's API it's been doing it
for a while now hosting hackathons to
get more people to build on top of its
platform some fun venmo hack projects
have come out of that but also bigger
businesses have been using it to vend
Mo's payouts API allowed money transfers
to contractors like a driver or a dog
walker or a handyman and it was marketed
as a way to avoid having to collect
people's bank account information to pay
them that's why I like men moe
so what happened here well venmo tells
TechCrunch we've been working hard to
build a strong peer-to-peer platform as
well as a new feature that allows users
to potentially pay merchants apps with
venmo unfortunately with the work that's
required to continue delivering upon
these goals we sadly can't give the use
of our API the attention it truly
deserves that's understandable but just
not communicating that to developers who
are using your API ahead of time even a
day ahead of time seems kind of weird
right some of these developers have
supported venmo from being a small
start-up to being bought by Braintree
which then got acquired by PayPal it's
been quite a ride
Frederic Jacobs a Swiss based developer
who worked on secure messaging app
signal which happens to be the
communications app that NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden uses and
says it's the best announced today that
he's joining Apple this summer to work
on its core OS security team now Jacob
spent two and a half years with whisper
systems that's the company that makes
before leaving earlier this year so I
guess he decided on Apple signal is one
of the few apps to receive top marks for
security in an AFF survey and security
researchers have praised it for
revealing virtually nothing when put up
against data excavation tools Apple
obviously has a ton of interns kind of
sounds like what Jacobs going to be
doing but the timing really can't be
ignored Apple of course is going through
an extremely public security battle with
the FBI and the company is increasing
the security of iOS with every major
software release in an interview with
ABC yesterday Apple CEO Tim Cook
described the software that the FBI was
ordering Apple to create as being the
equivalent of cancer which would
compromise the security and safety of
all Apple customers on-demand parking
valet service locks isn't talks with a
strategic investor that would give the
company tens of millions in new
financing possibly from Hertz sources
are telling TechCrunch now it sounds
like the round is still in negotiations
which means it can totally change but
the information is reporting that the
funding round is coming from Hertz and
that the round is coming in at more than
a 100 million pre-money valuation our
sources say that this round of
negotiations may go back as far as last
quarter the same time there was talk
that lux may be having trouble raising
money altogether but Hertz could be a
good match here if they use Lux's model
and Hertz his strongest markets they
could offer consumers a way to park
rental cars on demand currently lux is
only available in markets like San
Francisco Los Angeles and New York and
if you live in my neighborhood which is
soma in San Francisco you're always
dodging those Lux employees on razor
scooters they're like barreling down the
sidewalk it's probably how they get
around so fast the model is that certain
cities are so congested that people are
willing to pay somebody else to park
their car and save themselves the
headache Lux has raised twenty five
point five million dollars in financing
prior to this possible new round of
funding zenefits laying off around
seventeen percent of its employees or
250 people with the layoffs mostly
centered in sales this is according to
an email sent to the team by new CEO
David Sachs this follows regulatory
concerns that the company was running an
internal program called the macro that
allowed employees to overstate the hours
that
they committed for health insurance
pre-certification in the state of
California and that led to an
investigation by the state itself
BuzzFeed also reported the company
allowed unlicensed brokers to sell
health insurance and that eighty percent
of the company's deals in the state of
Washington were done by unlicensed
brokers as well
CEO Parker Conrad left both the company
and the Board of Directors with Saks
who's the former CEO of Yammer taking
over the company and obviously starting
to clear house Sachs's email explains
that the layoffs were in part because
zenefits grew so fast he says it was too
fast stretching both our culture and our
controls yesterday I was sitting at my
desk doing my own thing and listening to
techCrunch's Josh Kahn seen in a meeting
room playing a game called dragon front
a virtual reality card game coming to
oculus rift and it seemed like he was
having some fun he was summoning
warriors and attacking enemy fortresses
from within the headset but kind of just
sitting there nothing that seemed
physically exhausting by having to go
ham on or a mode or whatever so with
dragon front you get cards with
creatures and spells that you can play
to turn while you destroy your enemies
forces and their castle you can also
play against other people from around
the world so it's kind of gonna sound
like a familiar card game but in VR it's
made by a high voltage which is a 23
year old game studio and will be
available for oculus rift in the second
quarter of 2016 not right at launch but
pretty soon afterwards the company
previously worked on some of the Mortal
Kombat games and will also release a
first-person shooter called damaged core
for oculus as well and that is the
report for the week happy Friday I'm
Sarah Lane crunch report airs every
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see you Monday