The former Tesla employee who was fired and then sued by the electric vehicle automaker has filed a formal whistleblower tip tothe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the company has misled investors and put its customers at risk.

Martin Tripp has retained Meissner Associates, awhistleblower, securities, investment fraud and employment law firm to represent him before the SEC. Tesla did not respond to questions about the whistleblower tip.

The filing is the latest blow in a bout between Tesla, its CEO Elon Musk and Tripp.

Tesla filed a lawsuit on June 20 against Tripp for $1 million, alleging the man, who worked as a process technician at the massive battery factory near Reno, hacked the companyconfidential and trade secret information and transferred that information to third parties, according to court documents. The lawsuit also claims the employee leaked false information to the media.

A mere 24 hours later a combative email exchange between Musk and Tripp emerged. Tesla also notified police based on a tip to its customer service line that Tripp had allegedly told a friend he was going to attack the companyGigafactory in Sparks, Nevada.Tripp has denied this and the Storey County Sheriffdepartment, which investigated, told TechCrunch they found no credible threat.

Tripp is turning to an attorney with a successful whistleblower track record. The firm obtained a more than $22 million judgment from the SEC on behalf of a Monsanto whistleblower in 2016.

Trippwhistleblower tip, which was filed July 6,alleges that Tesla knowingly manufactured batteries with punctured holes possibly impacting hundreds of cars on the road; misled the investing public as to the numbers of Model 3s actually being produced each week by as much as 44 percent; and lowered vehicle specifications and systemically used scrap and waste material in vehicles, all so as to meet production quotas, according to a statement from Meissner Associates.

Tesla has said in the past that Trippallegations are false and contend that he is not a whistleblower, but someone who hacked and stole confidential information.

Tripp says he has been threatened and harassed in the days since he revealed information about Tesla to the media.

&Getting the truth out has become a nightmare. While we have had to relocate due to threats and harassment, both online and offline, making it difficult to press on, my family and I have also received a ton of support, which keeps us going,& Tripp said in a statement. &I hope that, in the end, my fight will make it easier for future whistleblowers to come forward without fear of repercussions like those I have endured.&

Meissner will not handle the federal lawsuit that Tesla filed against Tripp. He is currently looking for an attorney to represent him in the case, the firmmanaging member Stuart Meissnertold TechCrunch.

Meissner, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and assistant New York state attorney general, said Tesla filed its lawsuit against Tripp and engaged in a PR campaign to defame him in a calculated effort to ruin his reputation and silence him and other potential Tesla whistleblowers from coming forward.

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Have we reached &peak software&

Just like the idea of &peak oil&—the hypothetical point at which global oil production could max out—you could say we&re approaching a saturation point for venture-capital investments in software companies.

Recent data from Pitchbook shows that venture investing in software companies has plateaued: The amount of VC money invested in these companies&$32 billion last year—remained roughly constant over the last four years. The actual number of venture-backed software investments, mostly for business-focused companies, has actually declined, from 4,068 in 2014 to 2,980 last year.

But software is not, in fact, a declining industry. As I explore with my colleague Neeraj Agrawal in a recent report calledSoftware 2018, released last month, a closer look at the Pitchbook data shows that the falloff in software deal volumes is primarily in the Bay Area, where an overheated market has boosted valuations and caused some investors to temporarily pull back. Investment in other U.S. regions, and globally, is actually going up. Investment in software companies based in Europe, Canada and Australia/New Zealand, for example, was $5.4 billion in 2017, up nearly 69% from the previous year.

Perhaps more important, a number of broader, global mega trends continue to fuel software innovation today, promising more new companies and more new jobs. These trends include everything from the rise of artificial intelligence, which is pushing software into new fields like autonomous driving, to the recent corporate tax cuts in the U.S., which could free up hundreds of billions of dollars for big corporations to buy up software startups.

In Mary Meekerannual, consumer-focused Internet Trends reportin late May.But some of the key trends we see shaping the global, mostly business-focused (or enterprise) software market may signal a rebirth.

Enterprise software investments may be tepid now, but they&re poised to engage

(Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

Softbank: Not just for consumer companies anymore

Softbanknew, $100 billion Vision Fund has had a huge impact on the technology industry already, given the Japanese firmability to essentially play kingmaker in a given technology market by making a huge investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in one company. This, obviously, makes it extremely difficult for competitors to keep up in terms of building market share. And if a company declines Softbankmoney, therethe potentially lethal possibility that Softbank could fund a competitor, essentially snuffing out the first company.

Whatless noticed, however, is that Softbank is investing in many business-focused software companies, not just big consumer names like Uber, FlipKart and SoFi. In the last two weeks, Softbank put $2.25 billion into GMCruise business unit for autonomous driving and $250 million into secondary storage vendor Cohesity*, for example and has backed other B2B players such as construction/building-software outfit Katerra; real-estate software company Compass; and workplace chat app Slack.

With these investments and others, Softbank is accelerating the pace of growth in many key software markets and likely also dampening these companies& IPO prospects, since companies receiving several hundred million dollars from the Japanese company face less of a financial need to go public. Softbank is essentially taking the place of an IPO.

Enterprise software investments may be tepid now, but they&re poised to engage

Image: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

More software means less hardware, more robots

The continuing march of software innovation isn&t great for everyone—losers in this picture could include hardware vendors and people with jobs that can be automated by smart, software-powered robots. (Yes, even lawyers and doctors could be affected—itnot just truck drivers.)

The implications of artificial intelligence on the job market, and the auto industry, have been widely discussed. Less noticed, though, are the shifting growth rates in cloud-based IT gear versus traditional IT hardware, the technology that powers large corporations and other organizations. IDC predicts that by 2020, corporate spending on cloud-infrastructure software will finally exceed spending on non-cloud IT infrastructure—meaning all those boxes inside corporate data centers from vendors like Dell, IBM, Cisco, H-P etc. Many of those companies are trying to figure out their cloud services approach to stay relevant.

Enterprise software investments may be tepid now, but they&re poised to engage

Lower taxes = more software M-A

Not everyone loves the Trump administrationpolicies, but if you&re a software CEO, you might be a fan of the administrationnew tax bill. Thatbecause the 2017 bill could be a boon for software-industry M-A. Two key components of the new law—the reduced rate charged to companies to repatriate cash from overseas, and the lowering of the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%&could leave many big tech acquirers with new war chests, analysts believe.

According to investment bank Qatalyst Partners, both changes could leave a group of the largest traditional tech-company acquirers with an additional $400 billion to spend, if they repatriate money from overseas. This would be enough to buy 50 leading software companies today, according to Qatalyst. We have already seen some this with the recent acquisitions of GitHub by Microsoft ($7.5B) and Adaptive Insight by Workday ($1.55B) and Q1 deals like MuleSoft by Salesforce ($6.5B) and CallidusCloud by SAP ($2.4B).

The traditional tech acquirers could be more receptive to acquisitions than ever these days, given that the easy, low-cost cloud business model has allowed a range of young tech upstarts to attack many parts of their businesses from all angles. Often, the easiest solution is for the big tech companies to buy the upstarts.

Enterprise software investments may be tepid now, but they&re poised to engage

Niche is nice for software

As software transforms big, well-known corporate markets—like datacenter software, and technology for functions like human resources, sales and marketing—it is also making inroads into much more narrow industries and corporate functions. The low cost of the cloud makes it easy for every industry, from physical therapy to prison management to mortgage lending, to grow its own, customized software, usually deployed for tasks like operations and customer management. Often there are multiple firms vying for customers (and investor dollars) today in these specialized fields.

Similarly, software is fueling extremely specialized companies to serve business needs inside companies today. These include companies as varied as DocuSign, which has built a multi-billion dollar public company focusing exclusively on document signing, and Carta, which sells technology to help companies manage their financial cap tables.

Mary Meeker is right that consumer Internet trends like the rise of online wallets, subscription services for certain goods and increasing oversight of social media by regulators will have big economic implications in the years to come. But we humbly offer that business software is a pretty big economic driver too—you just have to work a little harder to figure out the implications for businesses and the markets.

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Telemedicine startup Nurx just recently closed a $36 million financing round led byKleiner Perkins. As part of the investment, Kleiner Perkins General Partner Noah Knauf is joining the startupboard of directors, in addition to Chelsea Clinton. With this brand-new funding, CEO and co-founder Hans Gangeskar informed TechCrunch that the start-up plans to scale its clinical teams, drug stores and geographical reach in the coming year. & We have a new website in Miami where we have a group of nurses being on-boarded, [we & re] building out our engineering and design teams and really just [working to] increase the rate of everything that we & re doing, & Gangeskar stated. The start-up released in 2014 with the goal to make dependable access to contraceptives as easy as opening your web browser. After plugging your info into its online app, users are connected with physicians, given a prescription and Nurx prepares their product for delivery. Since its launch, this California-based startup now operates in 17 states, and has broadened its items to include not only contraceptives (such as pills, patches, injectables and items like Nuva Ring) however the anti-HIV medication PrEP. Gangeskar says the company is likewise preparing to launch an at-home laboratory set soon for HIV screening. For Gangeskar, producing budget-friendly access to contraceptives is a first step to changing how clients engage and get medication from their physicians. & Birth control is among the basic functions of any health care system [] for us its a natural place to start, & said Gangeskar. To help advance its strategies to redefine this space, Gangeskar states Nurx is thrilled to welcome public health veteran Chelsea Clinton to its board. & Her experience in public health and international health from the Clinton Global Initiative has been actually important, [particularly finding out about] presenting preventative services in big scales, because truly thatthe potential of our platform —-- [to reach] populations that can & t be reached by the traditional medical system. &. While Washington looks to make cuts to Americanhealthcare gain access to, start-ups like Nurx use a fresh point of view on this vital area.

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Uber has released all (about 100) of its self-driving vehicle operators in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, Quartz reportsand has actually been confirmed by TechCrunch. This follows Uber officially ended on its operations in Arizona in May, following a deadly car crash including among its autonomous lorries in March. In spite of how this may at first look, Uber is still working on resuming self-governing lorry screening in Pittsburgh this summer season. Those impacted by the layoffs can apply for among roughly 55 brand-new advanced operator positions that Uber calls Mission Specialists in either San Francisco or Pittsburgh. Mission Specialists are trained for on-road and test track operations, and are accountable for offering feedback to developers.There are also other open roles that don & t involve the operation of self-driving cars and trucks. & Our team remains dedicated to developing safe self-driving innovation, and we look forward to returning to public roadways in the coming months, & an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch. Uber suspended its self-driving vehicle operations in all markets following the fatal Tempe, Ariz. crash, but operators were still employed by Uber and getting regular pay. Now, those lorry operators get first top priority at obtaining a Mission Specialist role, which requires some more technical knowledge. In California, Uber decided in March not to re-apply for its self-driving cars and truck permit in the state, however Uber is still in reality intending to resume checking in the state at some time. A couple of months later on, at UberElevate conference, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he anticipated self-driving automobiles to strike the streets once again within the next few months.Self-driving screening is also on hold in Toronto, but it appears that the employees behind the wheel were currently in Mission Specialist-like functions. You can learn more of TechCrunchcoverage of Uberautonomous driving below. Uber self-driving car strikes and eliminates pedestrian while in self-governing mode Uber safety chauffeur of deadly self-driving crash was seeing Hulu, not the roadway

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Casper is opening a storefront designed specifically for sleepy New Yorkers in need of a nap.

In The Dreamery, you can reserve nooks for 45 minutes at a time, at a cost of $25 per session. These nooks are basically giant wooden &Owith curtains and soundproofed backing, and of course they&re stocked with Casper beds.

Iteasy to dismiss or giggle about a nap store, but it seems a lot less funny when ita warm afternoon and you&re having trouble keeping your eyes open at work. In fact, I will happily confess to taking advantage of the TechCrunch New York couch after a big lunch, or after a morning that started stupidly early thanks to deadlines and embargoes.

The Dreamery, of course, is a lot fancier than the office couch, as I discovered when I dropped by for a quick tour. Beyond the nooks themselves, there are also lockers to drop off your stuff, private washrooms to get cleaned up, a lounge for hanging out and drinking coffee before or after, plus additional amenities like pajamas and Headspace &sleepcasts.& (And yes, a Casper spokesperson assured me that the sheets are changed between each session.)

The Dreamery

&The Dreamery is about making sleep and rest a part of our regular wellness routines — similar to how many people prioritize a workout class,& ​said COO Neil Parikh in a statement. ​&The concept enables us to pilot new ways of bringing better sleep to more people and to more places — whether thathere, the workplace, airports, or beyond.&

Oh, and this new storefront is located on the same New York City block as a Casper sleep store, so it should be a pretty quick walk if you love the experience so much that you want to take a mattress home.

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The team at Dirt Protocol is using blockchain technology to create a new approach to verify information.

The startup doesn&t plan to launch its platform until later this year, but it announced today that it has raised $3 million in seed funding from General Catalyst, Greylock, Lightspeed, Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group, SV Angel, Avichal Garg, Elad Gil, Fred Ehrsam, Linda Xi and others.

Founder Yin Wu previously createdlockscreen startup Echo (acquired by Microsoft in 2015) and laundry startup Prim. She told me that after becoming interested in the cryptocurrency industry, she was concerned about thefear, uncertainty and doubt around coin offerings — after all, we&ve covered several ICOs where companies appear to have disappeared with peoplemoney.

&The market today is still unregulated, with high incentive for people to spread misinformation for personal gain,& Wu said.

Her solution Build databases where anyone can contribute information, but where they have &skin in the game,& so therea financial penalty if they&re not truthful.

Dirt Protocol isn&t trying to create a single, definitive data repository, but rather to provide the tools for developers to build their own databases. Those databases might focus on things like ICOs (providing information like the team, the investors and the number of tokens in circulation), or online publishers (to help advertisers avoid bots), or professional listings and membership lists.

dirt protocol

There will be a single token that works across the Dirt platform. Users will need to stake tokens to add new information to databases, to challenge an entry or to vote in disputes — you&ll be penalized (by losing tokens) for adding misinformation and rewarded for weeding it out.

While that should create an economic incentive for people to not just avoid inaccuracies but also to actively remove them, it doesn&t fully address the question of determining the truth — who, ultimately, gets to decide whether an entry is accurate Wu said Dirt will support a variety of different &governance structures,& whether thatcentralized moderation, free-for-all voting or a system where votes are weighted by reputation.

Wu also suggested that the system is designed in a way to discourage concerted misinformation campaigns. For one thing, hoaxers will probably want to target the more popular databases, but those are also the ones that should attract more active moderation. Plus, she said, &The more valuable the network, the more people are contributing information, the more expensive [it becomes to contribute].&

A recurring theme in our conversation was the advantage of a &decentralized& approach to data verification. Wu said that isn&t always the right way to go, but she said it makes sense when therea big platform with a centralized vetting process that works too slowly, or in situations where &you can&t trust the curator& of information, or with data sets that are just proprietary and expensive to access — while you have to buy tokens to contribute information, Wu said that Dirt Protocol data sets should be freely accessible, and &no single party owns that information and can shut off access.&

In a similar vein, she said Dirt Protocol isn&t currently focused on making money. Ultimately, the business model will probably involve some combination of giving the software away for free and charging for additional services.

&We&re focused on creating this open data set that anyone can use,& Wu said. &If we achieve that goal, I&m confident that some monetization will arise.&

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