Technology

On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk calledVern Unsworth, one of the rescuers who helped save the young Thai football team trapped in caves, a &pedo.& Today, Wednesday, Musk issued what could be construed as an apology to Unsworth on Twiter.

The apology wasn&t a public one sent to all of MuskTwitter followers, and therefore many might have missed it. Instead, it came in response to a Twitter user who highlighted &a thorough piece of reporting& on Quora that defends hiswell-intentioned but ultimately controversial efforts to help save the Thai children.

Musk replied to the tweet explaining that he was angered by Unsworthcomments in the media which played down the importance of a mini-sub constructed by Tesla to aid the operation — Unsworth said it &had absolutely no chance of working& — and suggested Musk should &stick his submarine where it hurts.& Ultimately, Musk admitted, he should not have accused Unsworth of being a pedophile.

Muskapology comes a day after Teslashare price dipped on the news that Unsworth was considering a lawsuit against Musk, who deleted the &pedo& tweet and another that doubled down on the accusation hours after they went viral.

Despite the apology, it would be remiss of me not to point out some facts (sus): it took Musk two days to apologize; he didn&t do it directly; he took action only after the Tesla stock price fluctuated; and — finally — he continues to be scathing of mediaby endorsing the Quora &reporting.&

Nonetheless, hopefully, this brings closure to this sorry affairbecause ultimately it is a near-miracle that these kids were able to leave the caves alive as they did.All this bickering after the event leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

Spanish startup Glovo, whose platform lets app users summon a gig economy worker to shop on their behalf, be it for a takeaway burger or a multi-bag supermarket shop, has bagged a €115 million (~$134M) Series C round of funding.Spanish press are reporting the round values Glovobusiness at more than €300M.

The lead investors in the Series C are Rakuten, Seaya and Cathay, which had also invested in its Series B.

Also investing is AmRest — apublicly listed restaurant operator in Central Europe — as well as European funds Idinvest Partners and GR Capital, plus some other minor investments.

AmRest controls more than 1,650 restaurants in more than 16 countries — with brands such as KFC, La Tagliatella, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and Burger King, Blue Frog and KABB under its belt. So the strategic opportunities itspying to ply fast food fans with on-demand food at the tap of an app button are clear.

Glovo raised a €30M Series B last October. The startup was founded in Barcelona in 2015, and its delivery riders — with the distinctive yellow box bags strapped to their backs — are a common sight around the city, often to be spotted clustering in expectant groups at the entrance to McDonaldand other fast food outlets.

The startup says the new funding will be put towards optimizing its platform and tech resourcesto improve the service to riders, users and associated stores.

Specifically, itplanning toincrease its tech team by adding more than 100 engineers in the coming months — saying it wants to become what it dubs &the most relevant technology hub in Southern Europe&.

It also plans to use the funds to fuel its momentum, noting itopened up six countries and 20 cities around the world in just three months. Its regions of focus are Latin America and EMEA areas (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), and its app is available in 61 cities in 17 countries in all at this stage.

While Europe is a core region, and Spain alone accounts for a major chunk of its business — where itnow operating in 21 cities — the legal risk for gig economy companies operating there is rising as political pressure grows to reform employment law to bolster workers& rights against erosions by app platforms that are in turn relianton huge armies of so-called ‘self-employed& workers to power their businesses.

In the UK, for example, the government is consulting on a package of labor market reforms, saying in Februarythat it wanted to be &accountable for good quality work as well as quantity of jobs& — and putting gig economy platforms on watch for changes.

Glovoother regional focus — of Latin America — suggests the startup is hedging its bets where this type of employment law legal risk is concerned.

And indeed where competitive risk is concerned, given the space itplaying it is a very crowded one on the food delivery front (with the likes of Deliveroo, UberEats and JustEast competing to conveniently serve consumers& stomaches in Europe), and the likes ofPostmateshaving established a shop-on-your-behalf business in the US.

Also today Glovo announced the nomination of Niall Wass as chairman. It said that Wass, a former Uber SVP for the EMEA - APAC region, has been working for it as advisor for the past year and helping with its expansion strategy.