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XPrivate Equity Firm Loses Its Billion-Dollar-Bid to Control Dot.Org Website Domains
Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.
A regulatory body that oversees the address book of the internet has put the kibosh (at least for now) on a private equity firm's efforts to purchase control of all dot-org domains for more than $1 billion.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said late Thursday that its board had voted to reject the proposed change in ownership, which would have impacted 10.5 million registered domain names, including Farm Aid, The Sierra Club, Amnesty International, Girl Scouts of the USA, The Associated Press and ProPublica.
"ICANN entrusted to PIR (Public Interest Registry) the responsibility to serve the public interest in its operation of the .ORG registry, and now ICANN is being asked to transfer that trust to a new entity without a public interest mandate," ICANN said. Their conclusion was "the public interest is better served in withholding consent."
It's the final chapter in a complex, technical discussion that's taken place over the last few months about the future of a critical segment of the internet, which has included letters from lawmakers, petitions and a subpoena for information and review by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra's office. The decision by ICANN was praised by digital rights advocates.
In November, Boston-based Ethos Capital publicly announced the deal to acquire the nonprofit Public Interest Registry (PIR), which manages the dot-org domain, setting off public debate over the appropriateness of such a deal.
The purchase would have given The Internet Society, a nonprofit that controls and created PIR, a $1.135-billion endowment to continue its other good works it engages in to strengthen the internet, without having to rely solely on fees from dot-org registry users.
In its rationale for the decision, the board stated that its decision to not bless the deal is "both reasonable and in the public interest" and that the board had determined that "the public interest is better served in withholding consent as a result of various factors that create unacceptable uncertainty over the future of the third largest gTLD (generic top level domain aka dot-org) registry."
The board said that if it had consented to the deal being made, it would have to trust that the new proposed for-profit entity, which would lack embedded nonprofit protections and now have fiduciary obligations to its new investors to repay $360 million in debt, would serve the same benefits to the dot-org community.
More than 21,000 people, 660 organizations and six members of Congress have written letters to say they oppose the deal, which internet governance experts worried would lead to unsavory efforts to make back the more than $1 billion to please investors at the expense of nonprofits doing good or monetize the data's registry at the expense of the public.
Ethos called the decision by ICANN a "dangerous precedent with broad industry implications" in a statement released late Thursday and said it was evaluating its options.
Ethos has tried to address concerns about it being a private equity firm by releasing initiatives to assuage concerns, including a stewardship council, measures to limit prices, safeguard against censorship and protect personal data. But none appeared to assuage concerns about the overall structure of the deal.
"ICANN has overstepped its purview enabling it to unilaterally reject future transfer requests based on agenda-driven pressure by outside parties," Ethos said. "This decision will suffocate innovation and deter future investment in the domain industry."
Their statement was also sent out with statements from PIR and ISOC. PIR called the decision "disappointing" and a failure by ICANN to follow its bylaws, processes and contracts. ISOC also echoed that disappointment and questioned ICANN's actions as inconsistent and not in line with what the regulatory body was meant to be.
But the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates digital rights, hailed ICANN's decision as a "stunning victory." Its staff has pushed for months against the deal, organizing letter-writing campaigns and protesting outside ICANN's Playa Vista, Calif. offices.
U.S. Democratic senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Edward J. Markey, of Massachusetts, and Anna Eshoo of California, who earlier wrote a letter to ICANN's board urging them to block the potential sale, praised their decision in a statement released on Friday.
"ICANN made the right decision," Wyden said, adding that the deal would have put the dot-org registry in an "unstable position during this current economic crisis, solely to enrich a private equity firm at the expense of users and nonprofits. The .org registry is too important to be at the mercy of wealthy investors."
Warren called the decision "good news for nonprofits and everyone who relies on a free and open internet" while Eshoo called it a "big win for the internet."
California's AG had previously waded into the issue, writing a letter to ICANN's board, informing them that in his authority to speak for California's public interest in the dot-org registry as the home to noncommercial entities that the public interest would be better served by ICANN withholding its approval of a change in control. ICANN said it considered the AG's letter as one reason to withhold its approval.
Because PIR is incorporated in Pennsylvania, the state's AG also has a role in oversight and approving the proposed conversion of PIR from not-for-profit to for-profit entity. ICANN's board said the lack of approval by Pennsylvania, which won't complete its process before May 4, remains an area of concern and also influenced the decision to withhold consent.
The ICANN board left open the possibility of approving such a deal in the future if PIR is able to provide additional information that resolves concerns raised by the board.
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- Ethos Capital's Bid for Dot.Org Website Registry Faces Criticism ... ›
- Dot Org Domain Sale May Be Decided By California's AG - dot.LA ›
- icann - dot.LA ›
- ICANN- Verisign Agreement Could Make Domains More Expensive ... ›
Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.
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Greater Good Health Raises $10 Million To Fix America’s Doctor Shortage
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
The pandemic highlighted what’s been a growing trend for years: Medical students are prioritizing high-paying specialty fields over primary care, leading to a shortage of primary care doctors who take care of a patient’s day-to-day health concerns. These physicians are a cornerstone of preventative health care, which when addressed can lower health care costs for patients, insurers and the government. But there’s a massive shortage of doctors all over the country, and the pipeline for primary care physicians is even weaker.
One local startup is offering a possible answer to this supply squeeze: nurse practitioners.
On Wednesday, Manhattan Beach-based Greater Good Health unveiled a $10 million Series A funding round led by LRVHealth, which adds to the startup’s $3 million seed round last year. The company employs nurse practitioners and pairs them with doctor’s offices and medical clinics; this allows nurse practitioners to take on patients who would otherwise have to wait weeks, or even months, to see a doctor.
“This access and equity issue is just going to become more pervasive if we don't do things to help people gain more access,” Greater Good founder and CEO Sylvia Hastanan told dot.LA. “We need more providers to offer more patients appointments and access to their time to take care of their needs. And in order to do that, we really need to think about the workforce.”
There has been a growing movement in the medical industry to use nurse practitioners in place of increasingly scarce primary care physicians. California passed a law in 2020 that will widen the scope of nurse practitioners and allow them to operate without a supervising physician by 2023. Amid a shortage of doctors, there’s also the question of what will become of the largest and longest-living elderly population in recent history, Baby Boomers. Public health officials are already scrambling for ways to take care of this aging demographic’s myriad health needs while also addressing the general population.
“By the time you and I get old enough where we need primary care providers to help us with our ailments and chronic conditions, there aren't [going to be] enough of them,” Hastanan said. “And/or there just isn't going to be enough support for those nurse practitioners to really thrive in that way. And I worry about what our system will look like.”
Nurse practitioners function much like doctors do—they can monitor vitals, diagnose patients, and, in some cases, prescribe medication (though usually under the supervision of a doctor). Nurse practitioners need to get either a master’s degree or higher in nursing and complete thousands of hours of work in a clinical setting. All told, it usually takes six-to-eight years to become a nurse practitioner, compared to 10-to-15 years to become a practicing physician.
Greater Good Health’s platform puts nurse practitioners in often years-long care settings where they manage patients—most of whom are chronically ill, high-risk patients that need to be seen regularly and thoroughly. This allows them to follow up more carefully on patients they have managed for years, instead of catching up on a new patient’s history and treating them in the moment. Patients, meanwhile, don’t have to see a rotating door of clinicians and can talk to a provider they already have an established rapport with.
The one-year-old startup will use the funding to provide learning and development opportunities for its nurse practitioners and also connect them with each other through virtual support groups. Burnout has been an issue across health care during the pandemic, spurring an exodus of nursing and support staff and leaving health care facilities woefully understaffed. Greater Good hopes that keeping nurse practitioners in more stable, years-long care situations and offering them career development opportunities will help retain them and keep them in the workforce longer.
“We want them to be well-rounded and balanced both in work and life, and we see that returns us healthier, more engaged and ready nurse practitioners,” Hastanan said.
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
Plus Capital Partner Amanda Groves on Celebrity Equity Investments
On this episode of the L.A. Venture podcast, Amanda Groves talks about how PLUS Capital advises celebrity investors and why more high-profile individuals are choosing to invest instead of endorse.
As a partner at PLUS, Groves works with over 70 artists and athletes, helping to guide their investment strategies. PLUS advises their talent roster to combine their financial capital with their social capital and focus on five investment areas: the future of work, future of education, health and wellness, the conscious consumer and sustainability.
“The idea is if we can leverage these people who have incredible audiences—and influence over that audience—in the world of venture capital, you'd be able to help make those businesses move forward faster,” Groves said.
PLUS works to create celebrity partnerships by identifying each client’s passions and finding companies that align with them, Groves said. From there, the venture firm can reach out to prospective partners from its many contacts and can help evaluate businesses that approach its clients. Recently, PLUS paired actress Nina Dobrev with the candy company SmartSweets after she had told them about her love for its snacks.
Celebrity entrepreneurship has shifted quite a bit in recent years, Groves said. While celebrities are paid for endorsements, Groves said investing allows them to gain equity from the growth of companies that benefit from their work.
“Like in movies, for example, where they're earning a residual along the way, they thought, ‘You know, if we're going to partner with these brands and create a tremendous amount of enterprise value, we should be able to capture some of the upside that we're generating, too’,” she said.
Partnering in this way also allows her clients to work with a wider range of brands, including small brands that often can’t afford to spend millions on endorsements. Investing allows high-profile individuals to represent brands they care about, Groves said.
“The last piece of the puzzle was a drive towards authenticity,” Groves said. “A lot of these high-profile artists and athletes are not interested, once they've achieved some sort of level of success, in partnering with brands that they don't personally align with.”
Hear the full episode by clicking on the playhead above, and listen to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.
Rivian Stock Roller Coaster Continues as Amazon Van Delivery Faces Delays
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.
Rivian’s stock lost 7% yesterday on the back of news that the company could face delays in fulfilling Amazon’s order for a fleet of electric delivery vans due to legal issues with a supplier. The electric vehicle maker is suing Commercial Vehicle Group (CVG) over a pricing dispute related to the seats that the supplier promised, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The legal issue could mean that Amazon may not receive their electric vans on time. The dispute hinges on whether or not Commercial Vehicle Group is allowed to raise the prices of its seats after Rivian made engineering and design changes to the original version. Rivian says the price hike from CVG violates the supply contract. CVG denies the claim.
Regardless, the dispute could hamper Rivian’s ability to deliver electric vans to Amazon on time. The ecommerce/streaming/cloud computing/AI megacorporation controls an 18% stake in Rivian as one of the company’s largest early investors. Amazon has previously said it hopes to buy 100,000 delivery vehicles from Rivian by 2030.
The stock plunge marked another wild turn for the EV manufacturer. Last week, Rivian shares dropped 21% on Monday after Ford, another early investor, announced its intent to sell 8 million shares. The next few days saw even further declines as virtually the entire market saw massive losses, but then Rivian rallied partially on the back of their earnings report on Wednesday, gaining 28% back by Friday. Then came yesterday’s 7% slide. Today the stock is up another 10%.
Hold on tight, who knows where we’re going next.
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.