Flattening the curve: SF tech companies including Twitter, Salesforce and others were among the first major employers who began to sound the alarm and encourage their employees to work from home, weeks prior to when government mandates called for that action. Their early action may have helped the state flatten its curve of new COVID-19 infections. [CNBC]
San Francisco launches contact tracing pilot: The city last week announced it is partnering with Dimagi, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, software company, and the University of California–San Francisco to track and trace which Bay Area residents have been exposed to the virus. It’s part of a push to help the region begin to address how it could reopen for business. The effort is aiming to have 250 workers trained within two weeks. [Politico]
Apple, Google partner for COVID-19 tracing: The tech giants are planning to release a private proximity contact detection API that users can opt into and that public-health groups can tap into by mid-May. While some have raised privacy concerns over the effort, it’s another push to explore a solution to the pandemic that doesn’t involve much of the world remaining quarantined until a vaccine is available. [Built In SF]
Event discovery in a pandemic? Event discovery platform IRL was founded with the goal of bringing people together “in real life.” Of course, that is much harder to do today thanks to the COVID-19 crisis. We spoke with Abraham Shafi, the company’s chief executive, to learn how his startup is charting these unprecedented waters. Want a hint? The “R” now stands for “remote.” [Built In SF]
Verizon bought a Zoom rival: Derek Jeter-backed videoconferencing company BlueJeans has been snatched up by the telecommunications giant. The deal is rumored to have cost Verizon $400 million. Though videoconferencing is more in demand than perhaps ever before due to the spread of stay-at-home orders, the deal was reportedly in the works for almost a year. [Bloomberg]
Big raise ahead for Figma? The design software company is reportedly eyeing a funding round in the ballpark of at least $50 million. The company has not confirmed this report. The startup has already raised $82 million and the company counts big names like Airbnb, Slack and Uber among its users. [Forbes]
ByteDance is hiring: The TikTok parent company has a Mountain View office and is reportedly aiming to hire more than 150 employees there as part of a global push for 10,000 new hires. The Chinese company, which is currently best known for its social media prominence, is said to be eyeing a push into e-commerce and gaming. [Built In SF]
Origin pivots from 3D printers to COVID-19 test swabs: In recent weeks, the SF startup has shifted its entire business away from manufacturing 3D printers in an effort to address the shortage of COVID-19 test kits. The company successfully completed a clinical trial of its test swabs on April 12. [Crunchbase News]
