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XEco-Conscious Neo-Bank Aspiration Acquires Startup to Help Track Companies’ Carbon Footprints

L.A. fintech firm Aspiration, which offers an eco-friendly digital spin on consumer banking, has purchased Carbon Insights, a Denver-based startup that uses APIs to help financial institutions track carbon footprints.
The acquisition is Marina del Rey-based Aspiration’s first-ever since it launched in 2015. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, Carbon Insights co-founders Chad Hunter and Ally Kadel have joined Aspiration.
Aspiration will deploy Carbon Insights’ technology to enhance its scoring system for tracking the sustainability impact of its customers’ spending habits, Aspiration co-founder and CEO Andrei Cherny told dot.LA. Carbon Insights relies on a combination of business attributes and operational data—like energy consumption and corporate expenditures—to estimate a company’s carbon footprint, Cherny explained.
Aspiration co-founder and CEO Andrei Cherny
The technology will allow Aspiration to better provide “a sustainability score for our customers based on where they are shopping and spending,” Cherny explained.
Aspiration is currently in the process of becoming a publicly traded company and is eying an initial public offering by the end of March. The neo-bank is expected to be valued at $2.3 billion after it merges with InterPrivate III Financial Partners Inc., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
SPAC mergers have become an increasingly common way for companies to go public. Local companies to recently pursue the route include West Hollywood-based neo-bank Dave, Culver City-based clinical research firm Science 37, and Santa Monica-based fitness brand The Beachbody Company.
The Carbon Insights purchase could be the first in a string of possible mergers and acquisitions that offer “sustainable solutions” for Aspiration, according to Cherny. He declined to identify potential targets.
“I wouldn’t speculate on the timing, in terms of whether it will be before or after we go public,” Cherny said. “But there certainly is more M&A down the road for us.”
Last month, the fintech startup received $315 million in financing from Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and Downtown-based private equity giant Oaktree Capital Management in advance of the SPAC deal. Oaktree initially began talks to invest in Aspiration in early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global economy and threw talks off course, Cherny said. Aspiration also sealed a 23-year, $300 million sponsorship deal with Ballmer’s Clippers last fall.
Including the financing from Oaktree and Ballmer’s affiliates, Aspiration is poised to have more than $700 million in proceeds after it goes public.
Aspiration has sought to tackle climate change through its services, which offer its nearly 2 million customers a range of tools to prioritize sustainability through their spending and investing. Its “Plant Your Change” feature, for instance, allows consumers to round up credit or debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and directs the spare change toward planting trees.
Aspiration counts actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., and Orlando Bloom, as well as Canadian rapper Drake, among its celebrity investors. (Disclosure: dot.LA co-founder and chairman Spencer Rascoff is an Aspiration investor.)
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Gen Z is Turning to TikTok as Go-To Search Engine, Claims Google
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
TikTok has already dominated the social media landscape. Now, its users are helping it become a search engine.
While at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference, Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan said internal research indicates that users aged 18 to 24 are forgoing Google Search or Maps and instead sending their inquiries to social media sites. Despite growing concern about misinformation on such platforms, TechCrunch reported that TikTok and Instagram are now steering attention away from the core feature that launched the company into notoriety.
“We keep learning, over and over again, that new internet users don’t have the expectations and the mindset that we have become accustomed to,” Raghavan said at the conference.
Google, for its part, wants to highlight TikTok and Instagram videos in its search engine. Additionally, Raghavan said the search engine is incorporating more visuals while also leaning into voice searches.
As TikTok users film their meals and often add short, quippy reviews, Raghavan said Gen Z is turning to social media apps for their next lunch spot. Many TikTok users turn to influencers for food suggestions, with Los Angeles restaurants like The Red Chickz and Paris Tokyo gaining notoriety on the app.
Users often check the app for a widerange of recommendations. Raghavan’s statements confirm that TikTok users are turning to the video-sharing app for information. Videos under the hashtag for facts, hacks and recommendations, #tiktoktaughtme, have gained a cumulative 8 billion views.
Influencers on TikTok, however, often do not accurately disclose when a video includes sponsored content, as required by the Federal Trade Commission. And marketing companies have shifted to incorporate ideologies, like Urban Legend, an ad-tech startup that recruits social media celebrities from macro to nano to create content around everything from climate change to discouraging mask mandates. Urban Legend’s strategy draws on the idea that users who turn to influencers for recipe recommendations or fashion trends may also trust their opinion on political issues—even if many of the posts were not flagged as sponsored.
TikTok has also come under fire for misinformation—from the potentially harmful abortion tips to internationalelections to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the app has been criticized for not doing enough to combat it. Google has also been criticized for how its algorithm can highlight misinformation, such as suggesting “fake” abortion clinics.
With TikTok’s growing popularity, Google must contend with how to capture Gen Z’s attention as they try to retain that audience. And TikTok, for all its problems, has helped communities come together to inform people about topics ranging from autism diagnoses for women to astrological terms to LGBTQ+ information. Suggestions get local, too, with Los Angeles residents sharing free things to do downtown, vintage stores to shop at and museums to visit—succinctly providing recommendations with flashy videos.
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Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Electric Vehicle Tax Rebates Favor the Wealthy
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
What do we want? Money!
When do we want it? Now!
That’s the takeaway from a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters. In a survey of 2,170 Americans, the authors asked respondents to rate how attractive they found different financial incentives for buying a new electric vehicle. Immediate rebates—cash off sticker price, in other words—were consistently and “overwhelmingly” rated as the most attractive way for the government to subsidize purchases.
Currently in The United States, new EV buyers are eligible to receive up to $7,500 back in the form of a tax rebate. This discount is actually a piece of Obama-era legislation from 2009. President Biden attempted to expand the tax credit to $12,500 in the Build Back Better legislation but was stymied by West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a man who has taken more money the fossil fuel industry than any other Democrat in the Senate
Seven thousand, five hundred dollars is no small sum, but, on average, survey respondents said they’d be willing to accept a lower rebate if they could have it today, to the tune of $1,400. In other words, the average respondent felt that $6,100 today was as good as $7,500 back on their taxes.
In general, the current tax rebates system was viewed more favorably by wealthier respondents—people who could afford to wait for their money and who were going to owe a lot more money when April 15th rolls around. Remember, if you owe less than $7,500 at tax time, a rebate of that size is always wasted, at least in part. “It's a pretty unequitable thing and very much favors the wealthy and people who have higher tax liabilities,” says John Helveston, a researcher at George Washington University, who co-authored the study.
In addition to perhaps contributing to this sort of financial inequality, the current tax rebate system also means the government is overpaying for the effect they’re generating. If $6,100 today is considered on par with $7,500 at tax time to the average EV buyer, the government could’ve saved $2 billion between 2011 and 2019 by giving out less money more immediately. Or—even better—the program could’ve had a significantly larger effect for the same cost.
The argument—and Helveston says he gets this all the time—is that EV manufacturers would simply raise their prices to account for the immediate rebate, effectively nullifying the benefit to consumers. Helveston says it’s certainly possible that the manufacturers and the dealers would capture a bit of the value from an immediate rebate, but he doesn’t think it’s quite so simple. “These cars are more expensive to start with. They're hard to sell,” he says. “If you put this thing on the lot at a higher price, you're not going to sell that car. The consumers just going to say ‘no.’”
Helveston says that the rebate system might actually make EVs more attractive to dealers in the long run. Dealers have historically been lukewarm on EVs because they don’t require oil changes or a lot of other routine maintenance that internal combustion engines need, meaning dealers see reduced long term revenue from the sale. If some of the rebate value winds up going to the dealer and allows them to sell expensive cars a bit more easily, Helveston says it might help accelerate EV adoption even further. “The dealers have just been completely ignored, but they're actually a pretty serious gatekeeper,” he says.
If American politics shows anything, however, it’s that just because a policy makes sense, doesn’t mean it’s easy to enact. A change to the federal EV tax rebate policy would have to come from Congress, and as long as Joe Manchin continues to protect the interests of the fossil fuel industry, this remains unlikely. However, all is not lost! “That doesn't mean you can't make an impact today,” says Helveston. “At the state level, there's a lot more flexibility.”
The Nation Conference of State Legislatures has a nice roundup of the state-by-state EV incentives on offer, which gives an idea of how wildly variable this landscape is. California has 15 different programs in place that offer benefits ranging from financing for installing an EV charger on your property to an $800 rebate for residential customers purchasing an electric vehicle. West Virginia only has one. Kentucky, Kansas and North Dakota have zero. Check out what’s on offer in your state and see if it persuades you to think electric for your next purchase.
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
Netflix Could Generate $3B From Ads After Its New Deal With Microsoft
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Netflix’s decision to partner with Microsoft for its ad-supported subscription plan could put the company on track to generate a multi-billion dollar ad business.
The struggling streaming giant could boost its revenue in the U.S. and Canada by $3 billion, or 20%, by 2024, Bloomberg Intelligence tech and media analyst Geetha Ranganathan recently wrote to clients. She added that Netflix could use ads to potentially monetize 25% of its U.S. and Canadian subscriber base, or about 19 million people.
Assuming the streaming service airs seven ads an hour, she estimated around $750 million in new quarterly ad revenue, or $3 billion for the year, in the U.S. and Canada. A more conservative estimate suggests a $1.25 billion revenue opportunity by 2024, she said.
“Given the average user spends two hours a day on the platform, Netflix's opportunity appears compelling,” Ranganathan wrote.
The streaming giant has raced to introduce a cheaper subscription tier this year after it lost subscribers for the first time in a decade. Since Netflix set a tight deadline for itself to launch the low-cost plan, the company sought an outside partner to handle the ad sales and technology.
In tapping Microsoft, Netflix is choosing an established player in the online ad business—without having to work with a direct rival. Netflix reportedly kicked the tires on Comcast and Google, but both of those companies have their own streaming services. In addition, Microsoft offers strong privacy protections for consumers, Greg Peters, Netflix’s COO and chief product officer, wrote in a blog post.
The outlook on Netflix has been dire lately; the company shed 200,000 subscribers at the start of the year and is expecting to lose two million more during the quarter that just ended. But with a global customer base of 222 million, it also has the potential to build a significant ad business.
Netflix is still in the “very early days” of developing its ad-supported plan, Peters said, adding that the company is reportedly aiming for a launch by year’s end. Whenever Netflix starts airing commercials, it’ll join an expanding roster of streaming services opting to sell cheaper subscriptions with ads, including Hulu, HBO Max and Peacock.
As consumers continue to cut the cord on traditional cable TV in favor of online streaming, they’re increasingly opting for these less expensive plans. Spending on internet-connected TV ads, meanwhile, has rapidly risen in recent years, jumping 60% in 2021 alone, according to research from Insider Intelligence.
“Despite the lack of ad infrastructure, Netflix dominates U.S. streaming viewership, which we think will allow it to quickly ramp up ad revenue,” Bloomberg’s Ranganathan wrote.
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Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.