The European Investment Fund (EIF) announced today it would invest €40mn with Blume Equity. Based out of London, the VC was founded by three women in 2020, and invests into European high-growth climate tech scaleups.
Blume Equity backs companies focusing on decarbonisation as well as broader environmental sustainability. These include carbon accounting platform Normative, sustainable femtech startup Elvie, Matsmart Motatos that looks to combat food waste, and IoT industrial SME data support provider Sensorfact.
The €40mn comes from the InvestEU program as part of the EIF’s mission to support high-growth and innovative SMEs across Europe, along with a regional mandate from the Dutch Future Fund. EIF joins other Blume Equity investors, including Swedish pension fund AP4 and Visa Foundation.
“By supporting Blume with one of the largest investments EIF has made to a first time fund, the European Union highlights its commitment both to the environment and to supporting the growth-stage ecosystem in Europe,” said Clare Murray, one of Blume Equity’s co-founders and partners. “This partnership will help us continue our profit with purpose mission to support entrepreneurs tackling the climate emergency.”
Cutting-edge technology to play a major role in EU green transition
Climate tech investment pace has suffered along with other funding over the past year. However, there is reason for optimism for the sector — ironically, much due to the all-too immediate urgency of tangible climate events, such as the wildfires and floods of the summer.
According to a report published by the Economist last week, VC investment in climate tech has surged over the past decade. Meanwhile, the recent slowing down highlights the need for a diversification of funding sources. This includes government agencies and alternative pools of capital, such as pension funds.
“The green transition must be accelerated to meet our current climate and environmental challenges,” EIF Chief Executive Marjut Falkstedt commented. “Innovation in all sectors of our economy and cutting-edge technology will play a major role in achieving it. With the backing of the InvestEU programme and the Dutch Future Fund, we are very happy to invest in the female-led Blume Equity Fund to support disruptive businesses with a positive impact on people and planet.”
More money for climate tech to grow
Meanwhile, London-based HSBC also announced today it would make $1bn (€940mn) in funding available to climate tech startups globally. The banking and financial services company said it expected the funds to go toward EV charging, battery storage, carbon removal technologies, and sustainable food and agriculture. Indeed, the Economist study identified food and agriculture technology as a sector that is receiving disproportionately little funding compared to its contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions.
Furthermore, HSBC also launched a new climate-tech venture capital strategy, and will invest $100mn (€94mn) in Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a separate platform that supports cleaner energy source technologies.
“Access to finance is critical for early-stage climate tech companies to create and scale real-world solutions,” said Barry O’Byrne, CEO of global commercial banking at HSBC. They also need ample support in making the jump from early to late stage — a funding gap that is gaining more and more attention.
On Wednesday, the UK’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman unveiled a new campaign against Meta, urging the tech giant to rethink its plan to roll out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) on Facebook Messenger and Instagram.
The company aims to finalise the encryption rollout later this year, but the British government is worried that the move will hinder the detection of child sexual abuse.
According to the Home Office, 800 predators are currently arrested per month and up to 1,200 children are protected from sexual abuse following the information provided by social media companies. If Meta’s encryption moves forward, the National Crime Agency (NCA) estimated that 92% of Messenger and 85% Instagram direct referrals could be lost.
Based on these risks, Braverman is asking Meta to implement “robust safety measures” that ensure minor protection, or halt the encryption rollout altogether.
“The use of strong encryption for online users remains a vital part of our digital world and I support it, so does the government, but it cannot come at a cost to our children’s safety,” Braveman said in a statement.
The Home Secretary first outlined her concerns in a letter to Meta thispast July. But the company “has failed to provide assurances” ensuring protection from “sickening abusers,” she now noted, adding that “appropriate safeguards” are an essential requirement for its end-to-end encryptionplans.
In response (or even anticipation) of the government’s attack, Meta published yesterday an updated report on its safety policy for the messaging platforms.
“We are committed to our continued engagement with law enforcement and online safety, digital security, and human rights experts to keep people safe,” the company writes in the report — which includes measures such as restricting adults from messaging teens they’re not connected to on Messenger.
Nevertheless, the tech giant stresses its commitment to delivering end-to-end encryption as standard for Messenger and Instagram.
“We strongly believe that E2EE is critical to protecting people’s security. Breaking the promise of E2EE — whether through backdoors or scanning of messages without the user’s consent and control — directly impacts user safety,” argues the report.
But the UK government may be holding the upper hand in the dispute, now armed with the Online Safety Bill, passed by the parliament on Tuesday.
The legislation sets sweeping content rules for social media, even empowering Britain’s comms regulator, Ofcom, to force tech companies to monitor messaging services for child sexual abuse content — a provision that has, reasonably, sparked controversy.
Apple is having a rough time of it in France as of late. As if mandated updates to the iPhone 12 due to radiation concerns weren’t enough, Apple customers in the country may now struggle to get their mitts on the latest model when it’s released.
French Apple store workers have voted to strike at the end of the week — coinciding with the launch of the iPhone 15. Apple unions including CGT, Unsa, CFDT and Cidre-CFTC, are asking for better pay and working conditions, or their members will walk out this Friday and Saturday.
Among the demands is a 7% increase in wages to make up for inflation (Apple is offering 4.5%). Furthermore, the negotiators are requesting that Apple put an end to a month-long hiring freeze.
“Since the management has decided to ignore our demands and concerns despite their perfect legitimacy, the 4 unions of Apple Retail France are calling for a strike on the 22nd and 23rd September,” the CGT Apple Retail said in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.
“We remind management that it is not these movements that harm the company, but rather its denial in the face of the discomfort of its employees,” it continued (translated from the French original text).
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For context, during the announcement of the company’s Q3 financial results last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he was happy to report an all-time revenue record in Services, driven by over one billion paid subscriptions, and “continued strength” in emerging markets thanks to robust sales of the iPhone. Last year, Apple reported a revenue of $394.33bn.
According to a union spokesperson, workers can mobilise in three quarters of the country’s Apple stores. They will not prevent customers from shopping, however buyers will “need to be patient.” Union officials do not rule out more strike actions the following weekends if Apple’s management does not budge from its position.
The iPhone 15 will feature the EU mandated shift to USB-C charging — which some of our reporters are more than happy about. Other than that, it is far from revolutionary and more of a slightly updated phone — although it does feature the brand new A17 Pro chip. Among the more notable upgrades are a customisable action button, a titanium body for the pro range, and a next-generation automatic portrait mode for the camera.
New iPhones always arrive with upgrades, but this year’s crop will feature one improvement that Apple didn’t want to make.
As a result of new EU rules, the US tech giant is set to ditch its Lightning charging cable for a USB-C wire. The entire range of iPhone 15s is expected to make the transition. Full details will be revealed at Apple’s Wonderlust event, which begins at 19: 00 CEST today.
The move will satisfy EU requirements to standardise mobile chargers. From 28 December 2024, every new phone sold in the bloc must have USB Type-C port. The law will also cover other portable electronic devices, including tablets, digital cameras, and headphones. In spring 2026, the obligation will be extended to laptops.
Lightning lovers and EU critics have slammed the rules as another case of government overreach. They accuse the bloc of sacrificing innovation at the altar of regulation.
When applied to other European tech directives, those arguments may have validity. In this case, however, the EU rules could genuinely make the world a better place.
The legislation aims to improve sustainability, reduce electronic trash, and make consumer lives easier. Unused and discarded chargers create an estimated 11,000 tonnes of e-waste a year. According to the EU, the new law will increase their reuse and help consumers save up to €250mn a year on unnecessary cable purchases.
Apple, however, has been resistant to the changes. The US tech giant spent years lobbying against the switch before finally conceding defeat.
In 2019, Apple commissioned a study that claimed the regulation would cost consumers €1.5bn. The company also warned the move would consign millions of cables and adaptors to the scrapheap. Curiously, the firm didn’t raise such concerns when it switched to the pricey Lightning connector in 2012.
Industry experts predict that Apple will soon change its tune. Thomas Husson, a principal analyst at research firm Forrester, expects a different tone now that the move to USB-C is happening.
“The likely shift from iPhone’s charging port shifting from Lightning to USB-C will be marketed as a key consumer benefit, which is a paradox after Apple pushed back on this standard for many years,” he said.
USB-C is so useful that tech experts want its inventor to get a Nobel Prize. “Which tech experts?” I hear you ask. Why, TNW’s of course.
Cynics also note that Apple’s corporate activism has ulterior motives (well, duh). The company is notorious for pushing proprietary components over open standards — an approach that’s proven lucrative.
Sales of in-house cables, licensing fees from third-party manufacturers, and restrictions on compatibility with rival vendors generate vast revenues. The EU’s intervention will bite a chunk out of those earnings.
Inevitably, there will be some backlash from iPhone users who have amassed numerous Lightning accessories. On the plus side, their USB-C wire can charge almost all their other electronic devices. Even iPads and Macbooks now use Type-C.
The switch should also expand interoperability. In the EU, people own an average of three chargers and use two regularly. Nonetheless, 38% of them have had problems powering their phones because they couldn’t find the right charger.
That incompatibility comes at a cost. Consumers spend around €2.4bn a year on standalone chargers that don’t come with their devices.
Apple’s switch to USB-C should reduce both the financial and environmental impacts. It will also make this Android user’s trips to Apple houses less stressful — although, obviously, I would never have ulterior motives of my own.
Today, the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, along with early-stage VC OpenOcean, released what they call “the world’s most accurate open access startup insights platform” — the O3.
The platform is the result of three years of research from Oxford Saïd and 13 years of experience of data economy investing from OpenOcean. It leverages public and private data sources and is meant to help improve decision making across the UK tech ecosystem, through “granular data on startups and their technology stack, solutions, and go-to-market strategies.”
“In my time in venture capital, far too often the choice of which startups receive funding has come down to instinct and opportunistic use of data, rather than accurate definition and comparison of startups,” said Ekaterina Almasque, General Partner at OpenOcean. “We wanted to change that, creating a platform that cuts through the noise, and removes bias from decision-making.”
The O3 platform has already screened 16,913 UK startups according to a unique taxonomy developed by Oxford Saïd. For an initial analysis, it has looked specifically at high-growth startups that use or facilitate AI (close to 1,300), and has come up with some interesting findings about the sector.
AI startups a small portion of UK tech ecosystem
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The UK government has asserted that it is going to make the country an AI powerhouse. However, thus far, the number of UK startups with a pronounced AI focus make up less than 10% of the ecosystem.
Mari Sako, Professor of Management Studies at Oxford Saïd, believes that the O3 will enable policymakers, researchers, founders, and investors to clearly identify gaps and opportunities in the AI ecosystem. “We believe this platform has immense potential to aid innovators in making informed decisions based on sound data, and to boost research on AI,” Sako said.
UK fintech is generally a top investment destination in Europe, but when it comes to AI, the health tech startup segment receives more funding (£2.6bn vs. £3.4bn, respectively).
Startups using AI for recognition tasks, including but not exclusive to facial recognition, have collectively raised the most funding (£6bn). Meanwhile, among the least funded are those focusing on privacy protection (£1.2bn).
The analysis has also uncovered, perhaps unsurprisingly, a significant bias towards London for startup fundraising. However, there is also notable support in Bristol, Oxford, and Cambridge.
According to the originators of the platform, the UK is only the beginning. “We want to see it expand to cover more markets and geographies,” Almasque continued. “It is a community driven project, built on open access, where the more stakeholders participate, the more powerful is the common knowledge.”
A Swiss startup has unveiled a solution to the global shortage of security guards: an autonomous patrol robot.
Named the Ascento Guard, the two-wheeled sentinel is equipped with thermal and infrared cameras, speakers, a microphone, and GPS tracking. The bidepal design promises all-terrain mobility, fall recovery from any position, and top speeds of 5km/h.
Using these features, the Ascento Guard can spot trespassers, monitor parking lots, and record property lights. It can also identify floods and fires, as well as check that doors and windows are closed.
When an incident is detected, an alarm is sent to an operator. Only then is a human security guard sent onsite to take action.
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The bot is the brainchild of Ascento, a Zurich-based developer of bipedal security robots. Alessandro Morra, the startup’s CEO, told TNW that Ascento Guard is designed for large outdoor premises.
“Instead of installing many fixed cameras or sending human guards in harsh weather conditions and at night for patrol, Ascento Guard can secure the assets,” he said.
Ascento co-founders (left to right) Dominik-Mannhart, Alessandro-Morra, Ciro Salzmann, and Miguel de la Iglesia Valls. Credit: Ascento
Ascento’s founding team combines experience as security guards with robotics expertise honed at ETH Zurich, a renowned research university.
Their inventions have been deployed at large outdoor warehouses, industrial manufacturing sites, and pharma campuses. Since the start of this year, the robots have secured over 3,000 km of outdoor premises.
The Ascento Guard is the latest addition to the portfolio. According to its creators, the bot can be installed and deployed within a few hours.
Just like a human security officer, the Ascento Guard can be hired by the hour. Autonomous charging will then keep the device running at speeds of up to 5km/h.
Operators can monitor the surveillance in a web interface. Credit: Ascento
A companion app extends the robot’s capabilities. The app integrates with existing video management systems, offers end-to-end encrypted two-way communication, and generates security reports.
Morra is particularly excited about the system’s AI analytics. He envisions them identifying suspicious patterns, such as specific locations and times of incidents, or cars that consistently park in distinctive places.
“This robot design is just the beginning,” Morra said. “We are seeing multiple opportunities for how we can complement our robot to offer an indoor, aerial application integration of our technology.”
The web interface also provides a live view of footage from the cameras. Credit: Ascento
Alongside the new robot launch, Ascento today announced that it’s received another $4.3mn in funding. The pre-seed round was led by VC firms Wingman Ventures and Playfair Capital.
You can review their investment for yourself by watching the video below:
Understand this is a work-in-progress. We’ve built a talented team, but this game won’t ship until late next year at the earliest.
Early access will give you a behind-the-scenes peek on how game development is made, gray block-out environments, programmer assets, all while the final look of the game hasn’t been established. You’ll see level layouts that will never ship, mechanics that are too OP, design explorations, lots of bugs and fun things in between.
This is not a beta … this is early access.
However, this is the fun part of game development and we are excited to bring you in.
Echo VR Evolved
But this isn’t just an Echo VR remake. Another Axiom has an ambitious plan to make ‘Project A2’ a much more social VR experience by incorporating and expanding some of Gorilla Tag’s underappreciated innovations.
Yes, GorillaTag has a novel locomotion and capitalizes on the seemingly innate human experience of ‘tag’, but the game’s seamless social structure—where game lobbies are ‘places’ and changing game modes is as natural as walking between rooms—is another key element to its success.
In the message on the studio’s Discord server, the developers explain the game’s structure.
Stations: Travel through a fleet of stations to find your community. Once arrived, float or take one of the many high speed systems to different casual game modes. However, if larger arena sport games are more your style, then find your way to one of the many stadiums. Hang out in the bleachers with your friends to cheer on your favorite players, commentate from the casters’ booth, or float through the locker rooms to join in on the action.
The studio plans to give ‘Project A2’ a seamless social structure, where game maps and modes are realized as ‘stations’ that players can navigate between by traveling through the game world. Don’t like how the people are playing in one station? Wander off and find a new group of players down the hall.
This social structure can lead to the kind of happenstance networking that delights us in the real world; maybe you’re wandering down the hall, peek into a station, and hear a funny conversation that has nothing to do with the itself game, but you decide to pop in and join the group for some laughs.
In essence it sounds like the studio wants to structure the game as its own sort of mini-metaverse—a ‘miniverse’, perhaps? It’s not terribly different from something like Rec Room or VR Chat, except there’s a greater emphasis on making navigation between ‘places’ more natural.
Your Domain
The studio also plans to give players wide-reaching control over ‘Project A2’, allowing them to create their own stations that they can adjust as they see fit.
“[…] players can run their own servers, control their own stations, host their own rule sets, moderate and customize the look and feel of, activities, posters, game modes and more,” the studio wrote. Not to mention plans for a level editor, allowing people to build interesting new maps to attract players to their specific station.
Full Circle
Image courtesy Another Axiom
‘Project A2’ is a full-circle moment for the studio. It’s co-founder, Kerestell Smith, has said that Echo VR—before it was shut down—was his original inspiration for Gorilla Tag.
“[…] Echo VR was the first game that really made me certain VR was going to be transformative. I got so into it that I started competing, which I had never done before, and my team, Eclipse, ended up winning the first two championships,” Smith has said. It’s unique zero-G arm-based locomotion was one of the key inspirations for Gorilla Tag’s movement system.
Another of the studio’s co-founders, David Neubelt worked at Ready at Dawn as one of the leads on Echo VR, and has since gone on to join Another Axiom.
Now that the game has been shuttered, Smith, Neubelt, and the rest of the studio actually have a shot at resurrecting a spiritual successor to the game they loved—for themselves and the community that was left behind when Echo VR was shut down.
New & Improved?
While ‘Project A2’ could revive the essence of Echo VR, it will be interesting to see how players of the original game and those of Gorilla Tag receive Another Axiom’s spin on zero-G locomotion.
Fundamentally the studio appears to be building on the foundation of Gorilla Tag’s movement (which, as we mentioned, was inspired by Echo VR’s movement!); but ‘Project A2’ will make some key tweaks, the studio writes:
Learn more about our new approach to zero-g movement. We’re targeting human scale speeds with more physicality, hand-based collision, sliding, and paddle-based momentum mechanics, all while using very few controller inputs. We have removed the ability to grab flat walls, only allowing grabbing on bars and handles that your fingers could wrap around. We hope this model will follow people’s expectations of how hands work in real life, while adding depth and a high skill ceiling by layering multiple physical mechanics together.
In a way, this system sounds like a fusion of both Echo VR’s movement (where players could grab and push off of any wall) and Gorilla Tag’s movement (where players can’t grab onto any wall, any have to move themselves purely with momentum).
– – — – –
With the success of Gorilla Tag, Another Axiom has set a very high bar for themselves. Can ‘Project A2’ achieve similar levels of success, or will Gorilla Tag remain the studio’s flagship game? Only time will tell, as the studio says it doesn’t plan to ship ‘Project A2’ until late 2024 “at the earliest.”
Magic Leap 1, the AR headset that helped the Plantation, Florida-based startup attract over three billion dollars in funding, will be completely defunct by late next year.
The company announced this week that Magic Leap 1’s cloud services are due to be shut off on December 31st, 2024. After that date, the headset will receive no further support.
The loss of cloud services indeed means the headset will essentially be ‘bricked’ on that date, as “core functionality will reach end-of-life and the Magic Leap 1 device and apps will cease to function,” the company says in a recent FAQ.
Image courtesy Magic Leap
On September 29th, 2023, a number of developer resources are being pulled too, including the forum dedicated to Magic Leap 1 as well as the headset’s dedicated Discord channel.
Here’s the full statement from Magic Leap, courtesy a comment made by Reddit user ‘The Golden Leaper’.
Today we are announcing that Magic Leap 1 end of life date will be December 31, 2024. Magic Leap 1 is no longer available for purchase, but will continue to be supported through December 31, 2024 as follows:
Magic Leap 1 Developer Forum: On September 29th, 2023, Magic Leap 1 Developer Forum (https://ml1-developer.magicleap.com/) will no longer be available. Please refer to the Magic Leap 2 Developer Forum for current information and updates on the Magic Leap platform.
Magic Leap Discord channel: On September 29th, 2023, Magic Leap Discord channel will no longer be available. Please refer to the Magic Leap 2 Developer Forum for current information and updates on the Magic Leap platform.
OS Updates: Magic Leap will only address outages that impact core functionality (as determined by Magic Leap) until December 31, 2024.
Customer Care (http://magicleap.com/contactus) will continue to offer Magic Leap 1 product troubleshooting assistance through December 31, 2024.
While no longer sold by Magic Leap, the company was selling ML 1 up until mid-2022. Brand new units, including the headset’s hip-worn compute unit and single controller, were being liquidated for the barn burner deal of $550 via Amazon subsidiary Woot. It’s uncertain how many developers and enterprise users will be affected by the shutdown, however they do have a little over a year to figure out a replacement strategy.
Launched in 2018, Magic Leap straddled an uneasy rift between enterprise and prosumers with ML 1 (known then as ‘ML One’), which gained it a lukewarm reception mostly thanks to its $2,300 price tag and relatively narrow differentiation from Microsoft HoloLens. Despite Magic Leap’s best efforts, it simply wasn’t the consumer device the company wanted to make from the onset.
A leadership shuffle in mid-2020 saw co-founder and CEO Rony Abovitz step down, tapping former Microsoft exec Peggy Johnson to take the reins and immediately pivot to target enterprise with its most recent AR headset, Magic Leap 2.
VanMoofers, rejoice — the ebike gods have not abandoned you. Yesterday, McLaren Applied and its escooter department Lavoie announced they had agreed to purchase the bankrupt ebike startup.
The details of the deal have not been made public. However, the F1 engineering and technology company stated that it would invest in stabilising and expanding VanMoof’s existing business. This will be in the realm of “tens of millions” of pounds in the short term, according to McLaren Applied Chairman Nick Fry, quoted by Reuters.
“This is a huge opportunity for us as this [VanMoof] is a company with a brilliant product,” Fry said, adding that it would be “no walk in the park” due to the financial difficulties the startup had gotten itself into.
Perhaps the biggest shift to VanMoof’s operating model will be the abandonment of its in-house-only store and repair model. Instead, the bikes will be available to purchase and, importantly, serviced, at third party retailers. The brand, Fry assured, will remain the same, capitalising on the loyal following the record-funded startup amassed during its first years of operations.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the buyers said they would “combine and integrate” the companies’ premium capabilities to create a “next-generation e-mobility business and establish a world-leading premium e-mobility offering.”
Building an e-mobility legacy on F1 experience
McLaren Applied used to be the tech division of the McLaren Group, best known for its luxury supercars and elite motorsport vehicles. Itself acquired in 2021 by British private capital firm Greybull, the company continues to supply advanced engineering and technology solutions to high-level motorsport such as Formula One, and a range of other transport modalities.
Lavoie was founded by McLaren Applied and announced its first electric scooter last year. It comes in two models — the Series 1 and the Series 1 Max, with price tags of €1,990 and €2,290, respectively. Its customised motor can deliver a peak output of 900W, reaching top speeds of over 40kph, and its Samsung 21700 battery over 40km of range for the standard model, or 60km for the Max version.
The Lavoie Series 1 escooter in Silence White. Credit: Lavoie
Furthermore, it has a patent-pending folding system inspired by motorsport car suspensions. It also comes in four different colours: sunset orange, silence white, electric blue, and racing green. Deliveries are set to begin in earnest in Q4 this year.
More details for VanMoof riders next week
The news surely lets VanMoof customers — some even yet to pick up the €2,000+ bikes they had bought and paid for — to breathe a sigh of relief.
Roughly 200,000 people feared their bikes would be rendered useless after the company was declared bankrupt on July 18 — especially the earlier models plagued by quality defects.
“Clearly I will not be able to get it serviced and I doubt the one year of remaining warranty on my battery is worth anything,” said one VanMoofer (that’s a word now, right?) at the time.
The VanMoof trustees said in a statement that more details regarding the continuation of services provided to riders would be made public on Monday, September 4.
TNW has previously covered the rise and fall of VanMoof and what it means for the e-mobility startup sector as a whole. You can read more about the whole saga and industry reactions to the consequences here.
In a bid to allay EU antitrust concerns, Microsoft will start unbundling Teams from the Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites in European markets.
Microsoft announced the move on Thursday. The company said the software will be split in the European Economic Area, which unites the EU member states with Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, as well as in Switzerland.
The changes will commence on October 1. From that point, enterprise customers can buy Office 365 and Microsoft 365 without Teams at a lower price of €2 per month or €24 per year. To access Teams, they will need to buy a standalone subscription for €5 per month or €60 per year.
The move comes a month after the European Commission openeda formal investigation into the bundling of Teams.
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“Remote communication and collaboration tools like Teams have become indispensable for many businesses in Europe,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust commissioner, said when the investigation was launched.
“We must therefore ensure that the markets for these products remain competitive, and companies are free to choose the products that best meet their needs.”
The investigation had been prompted by an antitrust complaint filed by Slack. In 2020, the workplace collaboration app accused the Windows-maker of “abusing its market dominance” to stifle rivals.
Microsoft said it hopes that the unbundling eases the Commission’s concerns.
“We believe these changes balance the interests of our competitors with those of European business customers, providing them with access to the best possible solutions at competitive prices,” Nanna-Louise Linde, Microsoft’s vice president for European government affairs, said in a blog post.
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Today, Paris became one of the first European cities to implement an outright ban on rented e-scooters, after residents previously voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motion.
During a referendum in April, voters were given two choices: “for” or “against” a city-wide ban on shared e-scooters. Almost 90% voted in favour of the ban, but the overall turnout was low — only 7.5% of eligible voters casted ballots. Nevertheless, the result was celebrated as a win for democracy by Mayor Anne Hidalgo who vowed to follow through on the verdict.
The ban applies to rental e-scooters (known as trottinettes in French) from the three companies with licences to operate in Paris — Tier, Dott, and Lime. These micro-mobility companies, with a combined fleet of roughly 15,000 e-scooters in the city, have until tomorrow (September 1) to remove their trottinettes from the streets.
The ban will not affect shared ebike services in the city. The ban also won’t prohibit people from whizzing through Paris on privately-owned trottinettes.
A Dott spokesperson told TNW that by August 21 its fleet of 5,000 e-scooters had already been cleared from the sidewalks and alleyways of Paris. The machines will be heading to other places where Dott sees high demand, such as Belgium or as far afield as Tel Aviv. Tier will return most of its scooters to Germany or Warsaw, while Lime will ship them to Lille, London, Copenhagen, and cities in Germany.
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A love-hate relationship
Paris was an early adopter of shared e-scooters back in 2018. Hiring dockless scooters via an app was touted as a promising climate-friendly alternative to cars for a city that needed to reduce its pollution levels and free up space.
However, the influx of these scooters soon led to chaos, with many users, including tourists, abandoning them on sidewalks, riding them recklessly in crowded areas, and even dumping them into the River Seine. This misuse also resulted in injuries and a handful of fatalities, mainly among pedestrians.
In response, Mayor Hidalgo pledged stricter regulations, including speed limits and cracking down on reckless riding and improper disposal of scooters. In 2019, the French government integrated e-scooters into the national highway code, imposing countrywide rules.
The city then limited the number of e-scooter operators to three companies— Tier, Dott, and Lime — and set a cap of 15,000 scooters in total. Despite regulations, problems persisted, eventually leading to the referendum in April 2023 and the prohibition of shared e-scooters in the City of Light.
Paris isn’t the first city to have introduced restrictions on the scooters, such as speed limits and parking zones enforced via fines for users.
Madrid this year reversed a prior ban to allow rental firms back with new conditions, as Copenhagen also did in 2021. Most e-scooters are banned on public roads in the Netherlands. However, outright bans by cities that have previously welcomed them are rare.
Dott’s spokesperson said “the situation in Paris is isolated”, with several European centres doubling down on their commitments to the mode of transport.
“Lyon recently committed to a four-year contract for e-scooters, London has extended their trial by a further three years, and Madrid has committed to a three-year contract following a tender,” the spokesperson said.
In Paris, Dott, Tier, and Lime will now focus their efforts on ebikes, to fill the gap in the market left by the departing trottinettes.
Even before e-scooters were banned in Paris, operators reported healthy growth in their ebike businesses. Dott reported a 166% boost in ebike rides in the first half of this year, while Lime said journeys on its bikes increased by 73% in the capital last year.
“We now operate twice the number of e-bikes than we ever did e-scooters, and are encouraged by the city’s continued support for cycling ahead of the 2024 Olympics,” Lime told CNBC.
While ebikes can also clutter pavements and pose a hazard to pedestrians, they are generally perceived as safer, even though that may not be the case.
Either way, it remains to be seen how the ban impacts commuters in the long term. Perhaps Paris will overturn it in the future, as Madrid and Copenhagen did, but for now it’s time to bid au revoir to the French capital’s fleets of brightly coloured trottinettes.
Microsoft, Qualcomm and Magic Leap announced a partnership to “guide the evolution” of the Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK), a cross-platform AR/VR development framework which has now gone open-source.
MRTK was a Microsoft-driven project that provided a set of components and features used to accelerate cross-platform XR app development in the Unity game engine. The developing team behind MRTK was unfortunately disbanded, as Microsoft cut both MRTK and the AltspaceVR teams earlier this year in a wide-reaching round of layoffs.
Still, as an open-source project now, Microsoft is joining XR industry cohorts Qualcomm and Magic Leap to form their own independent organization within GitHub that aspires to transform the software into a “true multi-platform toolkit that enables greater third-party collaboration.”
“With Magic Leap joining Microsoft as equal stakeholders on the MRTK steering committee, we hope to enrich the current ecosystem and help our developer community create richer, more immersive experiences that span platforms,” Magic Leap says in a blogpost. “Additionally, our support for MRTK3 will allow for simple porting of MRTK3 apps from other OpenXR devices to our platform.”
MRTK3 already supports a wide range of platforms, either full or experimentally, including OpenXR devices like Microsoft HoloLens 2, Meta Quest, Windows Mixed Reality, SteamVR, Oculus Rift (on OpenXR), Lenovo ThinkReality A3, as well as Windows Traditional desktop. The committee says more devices are “coming soon,” one of which will likely be the Magic Leap 2 AR headset.
Meanwhile, Microsoft announced MRTK3 is on track to reach general availability to developers on the second week of September 2023. To learn more, check out Microsoft’s MRTK3 hub, which includes support info, tutorials, and more.
