What teen wants their parents to know exactly where they are at all times? That’s the challenge Life360’s CEO Chris Hulls was trying to solve.
The mobile tech company’s main product is an app that provides your location for friends and family. But for teenagers, that lack of privacy led many to voice their displeasure on TikTok.
So what did Hulls do? He went on TikTok himself, listened to what the teens had to say and created a solution called “Bubbles.” It’s a new feature on the app that shares a more generalized location shaped like a bubble for a temporary window of one to six hours, while still enabling Life360’s safety and messaging features.
“Teens are a core part of the family unit — and our user base — and we value their input,” Hulls told TechCrunch in October. “After months of communicating with both parents and teens, I am proud to launch a feature that was designed with the whole family in mind.”
Life360 isn’t the only tech company in the San Francisco area with worthy news to share. Molekule, which manufactures air purifiers using photo electrochemical oxidation technology, unveiled a new purifier built for commercial use. In September, NUVIA, a silicon design company in Santa Clara, announced that it raised $240 million in Series B funding.
Here are more updates from eight San Francisco tech companies we’re featuring this month.
What They Do: Molekule is on a mission to eliminate indoor air pollution. The company designs and manufactures air purifiers that use photo electrochemical oxidation (PECO) technology, which helps to eliminate tiny pollutants in the air such as mold, bacteria, viruses and allergens.
In The News: Molekule premiered a professional-grade air purifier called the Air Pro last month, engineered specifically for commercial spaces.
"The challenges people face with indoor air quality today have evolved,” Jaya Rao, CEO of Molekule, said in a press release. “Air Pro was built to help provide a solution to today's worsening air, all while continuing to provide ease of use to users."
A Hollywood Investment: Molekule announced in August that it had secured an investment from “Game of Thrones” star Maisie Williams. In a press release, the actress explained that she had long been a fan of the company, and felt it was important to team up. "With the dangers of air quality so prevalent in our lives today, there has never been a more important time to protect ourselves against air pollution," Williams said.
What They Do: NUVIA is a silicon design company in Santa Clara that started last year. Its vision is to create a new class of processor that delivers the step-function performance and energy efficiency improvements needed to power the next era of computing.
Funding: In September, NUVIA announced that it had raised $240 million in Series B funding, led by the global investment firm Mithril Capital. “The opportunity in front of NUVIA has never been brighter, with an industry that’s looking for a new way to get the performance needed to power the next generation of cloud and enterprise computing,” Gerard Williams III, CEO of NUVIA, said in a press release.
They’re Hiring: The company is currently hiring for more than 65 positions, primarily in development and engineering.
What They Do: Sisense is a business intelligence software product development company. It provides solutions for preparing, analyzing and visualizing big datasets.
Tech Stack: Sisense uses .NET, Python, R, Ruby and SQL for languages, and Node.js and Ruby on Rails for frameworks.
Rising Up: In a recent Built In article, Olivia Xu, an engineering manager at Sisense, detailed the challenges and successes of transitioning from an engineer to a managerial role, along with some advice for those in a similar position. “It’s basically a new job, so it’s OK if there are lots of things that you have to struggle through and learn,” Xu said. “The lessons you learn along the way are highly valuable and transferable.”
What They Do: Gusto is a software tech company that helps more than 100,000 small businesses nationwide take care of their teams. It offers health insurance, 401(k) plans, HR, team management tools and full-service payroll.
Company Perks: Employees receive a month-long paid sabbatical when celebrating a five- or 10-year anniversary at Gusto. The company also offers a flexible PTO policy and family-friendly health benefits like primary and secondary parental leave.
Tech Stack: Gusto uses JavaScript and Ruby for languages, React and Redux for libraries and Ruby on Rails for framework. It’s currently looking to fill positions across many teams throughout the company, including product, engineering and data analytics.
What They Do: Alto Pharmacy is a full-service pharmacy with a team of engineers, pharmacists and patient care specialists. It delivers prescriptions to your door for free, seven days a week.
Top Ranking + Funding: Alto was named to LinkedIn’s top 50 startups of 2020. And at the start of the year, the company raised $250 million from investors.
Tech Stack: Alto is hiring for a number of engineering roles. Some languages used by the company include Golang, Java, Python, Ruby and SQL, databases include PostgreSQL and Snowflake, and it uses React for libraries.
What They Do: Sentry is a software tech company that helps developers diagnose, fix and optimize the performance of their code. It supports native, mobile, web IoT frameworks and more than 30 languages.
Three Hubs: The company has three different hubs across the world, with offices in San Francisco, Vienna, Austria and Toronto, Canada.
Worldwide Customers: Sentry’s software is used by more than 60,000 companies across 146 countries in six continents. Some of its notable customers include Disney, Peloton, GitHub and Microsoft.
What They Do: UserTesting is a big data and software tech company. Its on-demand human insight platform gives companies a better understanding of how their target audiences behave.
Prime Location: The company’s office is located in the heart of the China Basin, surrounded by restaurants, bars and the bay. Want to catch a ballgame? UserTesting is only a five-minute walk from Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.
They’re Hiring: UserTesting is looking to fill a slew of positions across product, engineering, design, sales and more. Some open jobs include a Ruby on Rails engineer, a VP of accounting and a senior UX researcher.
What They Do: Life360 is a mobile tech company that provides location-based services. Its main product allows family members and friends to share their locations with each other.
In The News: Life360’s CEO Chris Hulls recently spoke with TechCrunch about the company’s newest feature, “Bubbles.” It was implemented for teens who didn’t like how easily their parents were able to track their exact whereabouts. Bubbles works by sharing a more generalized location. “Teens are a core part of the family unit — and our user base — and we value their input,” Hulls said to TechCrunch.
Remote Hiring: The company has more than 15 openings, spanning engineering, data, design, product and more, and they’re all remote. Some notable open positions include lead data analyst, lead software developer in test and senior product designer.
