blogger better: 2018-06-03

Friday, June 8, 2018

Workday acquires Rallyteam to fuel machine learning efforts

Sometimes you acquire a company for the assets and sometimes you do it for the talent. Today Workday announced it was buying Rallyteam, a San Francisco startup that helps companies keep talented employees by matching them with more challenging opportunities in-house.

The companies did not share the purchase price or the number of Rallyteam employees who would be joining Workday.

In this case, Workday appears to be acquiring the talent. It wants to take the Rallyteam team and incorporate it into the company’s engineering unit to beef up its machine learning efforts, while taking advantage of the expertise it has built up over the years connecting employees with interesting internal projects.

“With Rallyteam, we gain incredible team members who created a talent mobility platform that uses machine learning to help companies better understand and optimize their workforces by matching a worker’s interests, skills and connections with relevant jobs, projects, tasks and people,” Workday’s Cristina Goldt wrote in a blog post announcing the acquisition.

Rallyteam, which was founded in 2013, and launched at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco in September 2014, helps employees find interesting internal projects that might otherwise get outsourced. “I knew there were opportunities that existed [internally] because as a manager, I was constantly outsourcing projects even though I knew there had to be people in the company that could solve this problem,” Rallyteam’s Huan Ho told TechCrunch’s Frederic Lardinois at the launch. Rallyteam was a service designed to solve this issue.

[gallery ids="1055100,1053586,1053580,1053581"]

Last fall the company raised $8.6 million led by Norwest Ventures with participation from Storm Ventures, Cornerstone OnDemand and Wilson Sonsini.

Workday provides a SaaS platform for human resources and finance, so the Rallyteam approach fits nicely within the scope of the Workday business. This is the 10th acquisition for Workday and the second this year.

Chart: Crunchbase

Workday raised over $230 million before going public in 2012.

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Women’s Safety XPRIZE $1M winner is a smart, simple panic button

Devices like smartphones ought to help people feel safer, but if you’re in real danger the last thing you want to do is pull out your phone, go to your recent contacts, and type out a message asking a friend for help. The Women’s Safety XPRIZE just awarded its $1 million prize to one of dozens of companies attempting to make a safety wearable that’s simple and affordable.

The official challenge was to create a device costing less than $40 that can “autonomously and inconspicuously trigger an emergency alert while transmitting information to a network of community responders, all within 90 seconds.”

Anu and Naveen Jain, the entrepreneurs who funded the competition, emphasized the international and very present danger of sexual assault in particular.

“Women’s safety is not just a third world problem; we face it every day in our own country and on our college campuses,” said Naveen Jain in the press release announcing the winner. “It’s not a red state problem or a blue state problem but a national problem.”

“Safety is a fundamental human right and shouldn’t be considered a luxury for women. It is the foundation in achieving gender equality,” added Anu Jain.

Out of dozens of teams that entered, five finalists were chosen in April: Artemis, Leaf Wearables, Nimb & SafeTrek, Saffron, and Soterra. All had some variation on a device that either detected or was manually activated during an attack or stressful situation, alerting friends to one’s location.

The winner was Leaf, which had the advantage of having already shipped a product along these lines, the Safer pendant. Like any other Bluetooth accessory, it keeps in touch with your smartphone wirelessly and when you press the button twice your emergency contacts are alerted to your location and need for help. It also records audio, possibly providing evidence later or a deterrent to harassers who might fear being identified.

It’s not that it’s an original idea — we’ve had various versions of this for some time, and even covered one of the other finalists last year. But they haven’t been quantitatively evaluated or given a platform like this.

“These devices were tested in many conditions by the judges to ensure that they will work in real-life cases where women face dangers today. They were tested in no-connectivity areas, on public transit, in basements of buildings, among other environments,” explained Anu Jain to TechCrunch. “Having the capability to record audio after sending the alert was one of the main differentiators for Leaf Wearables. Their chip design and software was also easy to be integrated into other accessories.”

Hopefully the million dollars and the visibility from winning the prize will help Leaf get its product out to people who need it. The runners up don’t seem likely to give up on the problem, either. And it seems like the devices will only get better and cheaper — not that this will change the world on its own.

“Prices will come down as the sensor prices drop. In many countries it will require community support to be built,” continued Jain. “These technologies can act as a deterrent but in the long term culture of violence again women must change.”

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The Hybrid and Gaza Sky Geeks are helping Arab-Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs overcome adversity

Imagine trying to build a business in a country where 90 percent of the water is undrinkable, electricity only works four hours a day and your travel is restricted to an area four times the size of Manhattan, and where in-person meetings are impossible because your partners can’t enter your country to meet you.

And imagine not having access to capital because of your ethnicity (as many POC entrepreneurs across the globe already do).

That’s the situation for Arab-Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs trying to create businesses and access the enormous engine of wealth creation that has transformed Israel into “startup nation.”

The billions of capital and transformational opportunity that building startups affords to economies has largely been denied entrepreneurs in Israel’s Arab community and in Palestine.

However, two organizations in the country and in the violence-stricken Gaza strip are working to provide access. One is Hybrid, an Israeli government-backed initiative out of Nazareth that is trying to bring the benefits of the tech economy to Israel’s Arab population. The other is Gaza Sky Geeks, an Alphabet-backed initiative based in Gaza that provides pre-seed investments, training and technology resources to Palestine’s Gazan population.

For Arab entrepreneurs living in Israel, Hybrid is a resource to help overcome the broad cultural challenges that they need to combat. Things like a perception that backing their startups is inherently riskier than investing in a company founded by a Jewish Israeli citizen. Or the cultural stigma of failure that’s more prevalent in the Arab community.

These are the things that Fadi Swidan and his Nazareth-based organization are working to combat. “There was the most important miracle that has influenced billions of people and it was the annunciation,” Swidan said. “The next miracle for the world and for the high-tech industry will also come from Nazareth.”

The Hybrid invests in early-stage Arab-Israeli entrepreneurs and encourages Israel’s technology companies to reach out to the nation’s Arab population and bring them into startups to gain experience, skills and know-how that the nation has cultivated among its Jewish population for decades.

Meanwhile, Gaza Sky Geeks has set itself out with the no less daunting task of training entrepreneurs that are mostly confined to 140 square miles on how to build successful businesses. It’s there that potable drinking water is scarce; that electricity is intermittent; and that entrepreneurs with the dream of building big businesses are struggling every day to build thriving international businesses.

“The fact that people can’t travel is definitely the biggest obstacle,” says Ryan Sturgill, director of Gaza Sky Geeks. “You can’t meet your investor or partner… or even go out and travel professionally… Most of the entrepreneurs that we’re working with haven’t been more than 20 feet from their home.”

Even with the challenges that entrepreneurs face, both Sturgill and Swidan have successes that can promote. For example, entrepreneurs out of Gaza Sky Geeks are looking to take advantage of the wave of e-commerce growth in the Gulf countries. Zumrod, which sells high-end makeup online; Izaari; Threadless for the Middle East; and MomyHelper.com, which is a social network for mothers, are all making progress. Meanwhile, MindoLife, an industrial IoT startup, and Optima Design Innovation, focused on bringing safety to autonomous vehicles, are also showing early signs of success.

But the issue still stands. Challenges, ranging from the biases of the establishment to literally locked down borders and isolation, stand between these entrepreneurs and their dreams.

For Hybrid, and Arab-Israeli founders, one clear example was the Al-Bawader fund. The state-sponsored fund, working in collaboration with Pitango, was created to invest solely in Arab startups, looking to integrate the Arab startup scene into the much larger and more mature Israeli tech scene. But the fund didn’t adapt to the more nascent Arab tech ecosystem, attempting to write larger checks and take more equity than was seemingly appropriate, and not making as many deals as was expected.

For these emerging entrepreneurs it may not be the capital that’s the most important (although the capital is definitely important), rather it’s just an acknowledgement by the entrepreneurs — who are able to enjoy all of the fruit that the technology ecosystem offers — of the obstacles that their fellow startup founders face.

Which is why Sturgill left the audience with this:

There’s a tendency from the tech community, emanating from the Valley, that tech will bring people together… That can be a ways off…. It’s important… tech is important in that it can build empathy..

There are entrepreneurs in Gaza that are trying to build the exact same thing that businesses here are trying to build.

Try to understand that… if you’re here in this room… there are people there who are just like you… they’re facing the same challenges, but also a set of challenges that are really unique and totally outside of their control… I would encourage people here to have conversations around yourselves… The tech community is fairly influential… People can have conversations about whether it’s the right thing to have a place like that that has been closed off for a decade.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J The Hybrid and Gaza Sky Geeks are helping Arab-Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs overcome adversity https://ift.tt/2sDRr30

SeatGeek brings ticket buying into Snapchat

{rss:content:encoded} SeatGeek brings ticket buying into Snapchat https://ift.tt/2Jmqs2l https://ift.tt/2HrAxta June 07, 2018 at 06:04PM

You can now buy game and concert tickets from teams and musicians within Snapchat, thanks to an integration with SeatGeek.

While Snapchat has started testing e-commerce features in the past few months, SeatGeek says this is the first ticket-buying experience built into the Snapchat app.

The Los Angeles Football Club was the first team to sell tickets through this integration, by posting a Snapchat Story (and a Snapcode on the team website) that allowed users to swipe up to buy tickets to the May 26 game. The full purchase experience takes place without leaving the app.

“We’re always looking to reach our fans in innovative ways, and selling tickets directly to our followers on Snapchat gives us an incredible opportunity to connect with our most dedicated supporters,” said Los Angeles Football Club President and co-owner Tom Penn in the announcement.

SeatGeek Snapchat

SeatGeek co-founder Russ D’Souza said that as “the pipe gets solidified,” you’ll start seeing more Snapchat/SeatGeek ticket sales. He added that this the kind of integration he was hoping for when the company launched the SeatGeek Open platform a couple years ago, allowing teams, musicians and other rightsholders to sell tickets directly through SeatGeek. (The platform also supports ticket sales through Facebook.)

“For too long, the legacy ticketing approach has been to make it difficult for teams to sell tickets in lots of places,” D’Souza said. “Teams should want to sell their tickets in as many places as possible.”

And it sounds there are additional deals in the works: “What we’re excited about over the next few months is beating the drumbeat of openness with new partnerships … We want to drive the whole industry forward and create more tangible results that cause the industry to open up.”

SeatGeek brings ticket buying into Snapchat

You can now buy game and concert tickets from teams and musicians within Snapchat, thanks to an integration with SeatGeek.

While Snapchat has started testing e-commerce features in the past few months, SeatGeek says this is the first ticket-buying experience built into the Snapchat app.

SeatGeek Snapchat

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2HrAxta SeatGeek brings ticket buying into Snapchat Anthony Ha https://ift.tt/2Jmqs2l
via IFTTT

SeatGeek brings ticket buying into Snapchat

You can now buy game and concert tickets from teams and musicians within Snapchat, thanks to an integration with SeatGeek.

While Snapchat has started testing e-commerce features in the past few months, SeatGeek says this is the first ticket-buying experience built into the Snapchat app.

SeatGeek Snapchat

https://ift.tt/2HrAxta SeatGeek brings ticket buying into Snapchat https://ift.tt/2Jmqs2l

Here’s the sequel to the surprisingly nice BlackBerry KeyOne

{rss:content:encoded} Here’s the sequel to the surprisingly nice BlackBerry KeyOne https://ift.tt/2kUWJTF https://ift.tt/2sPoTmB June 07, 2018 at 04:15PM

TCL just dropped the sequel to the KeyOne, the company’s surprisingly good keyboard-sporting BlackBerry handset. We reviewed it roughly this time last year, and it was almost enough to restore our faith in the possibilities of BlackBerry as a brand. Almost. Of course, that had much more to do with TCL’s ability to create solid hardware than any residual BB legacy.

The Key2 builds on the promise of its predecessor, bringing back the physical keyboard and familiar BlackBerry-styled design, constructed around a 4.5-inch touchscreen and aluminum frame. The phone, naturally, runs Android (8.1 to start), loaded up with your standard suite of BlackBerry software, including DTEK. The security app has been updated with an new Proactive Health feature, which offers a full system scan.

As TCL proudly notes, this is the first BlackBerry/BlackBerry-branded device to feature dual rear-facing cameras, so that’s something. The pair of 12-megapixel cameras help deliver the device into 2018 with features like Portait Mode, Optical Super Zoom and Google Lens.

There’s a chunky 3,500mAH battery and a middling Snapdragon 660, coupled with a generous 6GB of RAM and either 64- or 128GB of storage. Not too shabby, but all of that comes with a $649 price tag, which marks a $100 premium over the KeyOne, which should make this a bit of a tougher pill to swallow for what to many no doubt still feels like a bit of a novelty in the smartphone category.

The Key2 starts shipping this month, and TCL tells me that it plans to keep selling the KeyOne as well, for the time being.

Devo scores $25 million and cool new name

Logtrust is now known as Devo in one of the cooler name changes I’ve seen in a long time. Whether they intended to pay homage to the late 70s band is not clear, but investors probably didn’t care, as they gave the data operations startup a bushel of money today.

The company now known as Devo announced a $25 million Series C round led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from Kibo Ventures. Today’s investment brings the total raised to $71 million.

The company changed its name because it was about much more than logs, according to CEO Walter Scott. It offers a cloud service that allows customers to stream massive amounts of data — think terabytes or even petabytes — relieving the need to worry about all of the scaling and hardware requirements processing this amount of data would require. That could be from logs from web servers, security data from firewalls or transactions taking place on backend systems, as some examples.

The data can live on prem if required, but the processing always gets done in the cloud to provide for the scaling needs. Scott says this is about giving companies this ability to process and understand massive amounts of data that previously was only in reach of web scale companies like Google, Facebook or Amazon.

But it involves more than simply collecting the data. “It’s the combination of us being able to collect all of that data together with running analytics on top of it all in a unified platform, then allowing a very broad spectrum of the business [to make use of it],” Scott explained.

Devo dashboard. Photo: Devo

Devo sees Sumo Logic, Elastic and Splunk as its primary competitors in this space, but like many startups they often battle companies trying to build their own systems as well, a difficult approach for any company to take when you are dealing with this amount of data.

The company, which was founded in Spain is now based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has close to 100 employees. Scott says he has the budget to double that by the end of the year, although he’s not sure they will be able to hire that many people that rapidly

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Self-driving robot delivery startup Starship Technologies raises $25 million

The robots are here and one company, Starship Technologies, has raised $25 million to bring even more to the mainstream. This latest round of funding includes a follow-on investment from Matrix Partners and Morpheus Ventures. New investors include Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, Skype founding engineer Jaan Tallinn and others.

These autonomous robots can carry items, like groceries or packages, within a two-mile radius. The plan with the funding is to deploy Starship robots in neighborhoods, corporate and university campuses in both the U.S. and Europe.

Starship has also brought on former Airbnb business development lead Lex Bayer as chief executive officer.

“We are at the point where we are ready to start deploying our network of robots at scale,” Starship co-founder Janus Friis said in a statement. “This additional funding, and Lex’s appointment, will allow us to bring our services to market. Lex joins us with a proven track record of growing businesses that change the way we live for the better.”

But Starship is by no means the only company operating in this space. There’s Boxbot, a startup that recently received a permit to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver, and Nuro.

The race to build autonomous delivery robots rolls on

Starship has previously partnered with on-demand food delivery companies like DoorDash and Postmates to test out its robot delivery service. Last January, Starship partnered with the aforementioned companies for a pilot program in Redwood City, Calif. and Washington, D.C. To date, Starship robots have traveled more than 100,000 miles in 20 countries, across 100 cities.

Prior to this round, Starship raised $17.2 million in a seed round led by Mercedes-Benz Vans with participation from Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners, ZX Venturers, Morpheus Ventures and others.

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Zebra Medical Vision gets $30M Series C to create AI-based tools for radiologists

Zebra Medical Vision, an Israeli medical imaging startup that uses machine and deep learning to build tools for radiologists, has raised a $30 million Series C led by health technology fund aMoon Ventures, with participation from Aurum, Johnson & Johnson Innovation—JJDC Inc. (the conglomerate’s venture capital arm), Intermountain Health and artificial intelligence experts Fei-Fei Li and Richard Socher. Existing investors Khosla Ventures, Nvidia, Marc Benioff, OurCrowd and Dolby Ventures also returned for the round.

Zebra also announced its Textray research today, which it claims is the “most comprehensive AI research conducted on chest X-rays to date.” Textray is being used to develop a new product that has already been trained using almost two million images to identify 40 clinical findings. Scheduled to launch next year, it will help automate the analysis of chest X-rays for radiologists.

Founder and CEO Elad Benjamin, who launched Zebra with Eyal Toledano and Eyal Gura in 2014, told TechCrunch in an email that its Series C capital will be spent on new hires to speed up the development of its analytics engine and its go-to-market strategy.

Chest X-rays are one of the most common radiographs ordered, but also among the most difficult for radiologists to interpret. There are several groups of researchers focused on using artificial intelligence algorithms to make the process more accurate and efficient, including teams from Google, Stanford and the Dubai Health Authority.

Benjamin said Zebra, which has now raised a total of $50 million, differentiates its approach by looking at its algorithms from a “holistic product perspective. Developing an algorithm is just one piece,” he added. “Integrating it into the workflow, adapting it to the needs of multiple countries and healthcare environments, supporting and updating it, and regulating it properly globally takes a tremendous focus – and that’s what delivers value, over and above an algorithm.”

He added that “it will take a few more years” before AI becomes mainstream in medical imaging and diagnosis, but he believes that it will eventually be a critical component of radiology. Zebra Medical Vision already markets a bundle of algorithms for lung, breast, liver, cardiovascular and bone disease diagnoses called AI1 that costs hospitals $1 per scan.

In a press statement, aMoon managing partner Dr. Yair Schindel said “We are excited to partner with the Zebra team, which is harnessing the power of data and machine learning to provide physicians and healthcare systems with tools to dramatically increase capacity, while improving patient care. This investment aligns with our vision of backing scalable and sustainable innovations that will have a valuable impact on fundamental facets of global healthcare.”

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Laka raises $1.5M seed to take its ‘crowd insurance’ model beyond bicycles

Laka, a London-based insurtech startup that has developed what it calls “crowd insurance” to rival the traditional premiums and is initially targeting high-end bicycle owners, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding. The round is led by publicly-listed Tune Protect Group, with participation from Silicon Valley’s 500 Startups — money that will be used to enter new insurance categories and for international expansion, including South East Asia.

Founded in 2017, Laka has developed what it claims is a unique insurance model that sees customers only pay for the true cost of cover. At the end of each month, the cost of any claims is split fairly between customers, with the individual’s maximum premium capped at the “market rate”. If there is no claim, the premium that month is zero. To date, the startup says it has saved customers more than 80 percent compared to market prices.

What’s interesting about this model is that it is potentially much-better aligned with customers, meaning that fewer claims mean lower costs for the entire Laka customer base. Laka itself only makes money when a claim is made — it adds 25 percent on top of each claim to cover costs and create some margin. As long as it stays on top of fraudulent claims, customers stand to benefit with a more cost-effective and fairer insurance product.

“Customers join without paying any upfront premiums. When there is a claim, we settle it with working capital we borrow from our insurance partner in exchange for a fee,” explains Laka co-founder Jens Hartwig. “At the end of the month, we total up all claims we have settled, add our fee on top, and split the bill on a pro-rata basis. Thus, we pay out first and then ask customers to pay us back the expenses incurred”.

In contrast, the more a traditional insurer pays out in claims, the less profit it makes. “It’s a great business model from the insurer’s point of view as they happily take customer’s money and maybe settle a claim down the line. In the meantime they can reinvest the available capital. This proposition is clearly not as attractive from the customer’s’ point of view,” says Hartwig.

To change this, Laka’s model moves away from “underwriting risk” to credit risk — that is, ensuring customers can pay the required, albeit capped premium when the startup does have to pay out, which Hartwig reckons is an easily manageable risk with credit cards and modern payment providers such as Stripe.

The cap — where the monthly premium has a maximum so that Laka’s customers never face bill shock — is being provided by Zurich U.K. in the form of a stop-loss agreement for which Laka pays a small fixed fee per policy, per month. Any exposure above the cap is absorbed by Zurich, acting like a reinsurer.

Hartwig says that in months with a lot of claims, this is where the stop-loss kicks in, capping each customer’s exposure at a clearly communicated level. The promise is that you will never be charged more than competitors, but — crucially — if everyone takes better care, you will pay much less.

“We effectively offer a profit share to our customers, encouraging improved behaviour as they benefit from taking better care. By changing the way we earn money in the business model, we fixed the conflict of interest between customer and insurer,” adds the Laka co-founder.

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CloudNC scores £9M Series A led by Atomico to bring AI to manufacturing

CloudNC, the U.K. startup and Entrepreneur First alumni that is developing AI software to automate part of the manufacturing process, has quietly raised £9 million in Series A funding, TechCrunch has learned.

According to sources — and since confirmed by the company — Atomico, the European VC firm founded by Skype’s Niklas Zennström, has led the round. A number of existing investors, including Episode 1 and Entrepreneur First, also participated. We first heard a term sheet had been put on the table as far back as March, and last week the investment finally closed.

With the broader aim of using AI to dramatically reduce the time and costs associated with manufacturing, CloudNC is developing software and a cloud computing service that hopes to automate the programming of CNC milling machines.

These machines work by carving blocks of solid metal into useful shapes, where a useful shape could be anything from a Macbook body, to bits of a car, to jet engine turbine blades. Unlike 3D printing, this happens in a ‘subtractive’ way; metal is cut out until what is left is the resulting component.

The problem is that to instruct a CNC machine to turn a 3D design into a finished part requires it to be fed pre-programmed sequences of machine control commands, which currently is a highly skilled and manual process. You have to instruct the machine not just precisely where and how to cut, but also which of its hundreds of tools to use. Programming a CNC machine can also be time-consuming, taking up to 100 hours for more complicated parts.

Related to this manual labour, there’s a second problem CloudNC thinks it can solve, which is the speed of manufacturing itself. That’s because, the startup claims, a human can’t possibly calculate the most efficient way to cut out a block of metal for each bespoke part being manufactured, even though it is currently extremely well-educated guess-work. However, in theory, AI combined with ‘super computing’ in the cloud, can. The result: halving the time needed to manufacture parts and therefore halving the costs (minus the raw material costs, of course).

“We’re applying breakthrough AI methods to control these machines automatically, which will revolutionise how the things around us are made,” CloudNC co-founder and CEO told me after I called him yesterday to confirm the startup’s Series A. “Our mission is to make milling machines one click devices that can produce a part easily, efficiently and with minimal human intervention”.

Meanwhile, a person familiar with Atomico’s investment tells me it plays into the VC firm’s strategy around “industry 4.0,” and that we can expect further investments in the space.

Specifically related to CloudNC, the thinking is that we are heading towards a future where there will be less emphasis on mass production and a move towards just-in-time manufacturing, where certain kinds of products are produced closer to where they are sold and can benefit from near zero inventory. Consumer trends such as product personalization and an appetite for innovative design-led products, enabled by new technology, business models and startups, are helping to drive this.

If CloudNC can deliver on its promise of halving the cost of CNC machine-based manufacturing, it stands to make a major contribution to — and benefit from — that future.

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Marshmallow picks up $1.2M seed to provide car insurance to immigrants and expats

Marshmallow, a new ‘insurtech’ startup in the U.K. building a product for immigrants/expats who are poorly served by the car insurance market, has picked up $1.2 million in seed funding. Backing the company, which is set to launch later this year, is Passion Capital, and Investec Bank.

Founded in March 2017 by identical twins Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham, and David Goate — all three of whom previously worked at digital identity company Yoti — Marshmallow is developing insurance products that aim to use better data and technology to provide more fairly priced insurance cover to non-U.K. nationals. To that end, the startup is starting out with car insurance for foreign-born drivers.

“Car insurance typically requires an insurer to understand a person’s driving ability, driving history and current lifestyle before they can offer them an accurate price,” explains Marshmallow’s Oliver Kent-Braham.

“Unfortunately, a lot of insurers don’t attempt to understand foreign drivers living in the U.K., instead they just overcharge them. U.K.-based, foreign drivers can expect to be quoted prices that are 51 percent higher than the market average”.

To fix that, the Marshmallow team — which also includes Tim Holliday, who was previously the Chief Underwriting Officer and MD of Personal Lines at Zurich — has built an underwriting system that aggregates global data rather than U.K.-only data.

“We combine this with a proprietary algorithm that eliminates underwriting bias before computing a more accurate price for foreign drivers living in the U.K.,” says Kent-Braham.

The Marshmallow founder says typical customers are people who have moved to the U.K. to build a life here. The company’s research suggests that after one or two years of living in the U.K., people are ready to settle down and that this often means buying a car and inevitably getting insurance.

“Our customers are ambitious, entrepreneurial, educated people who are striving to build a better life in the U.K. Unfortunately, with the current political climate these individuals don’t always feel welcome in the U.K. and we don’t want financial services to further discourage them to settle here,” he says.

Meanwhile, competitors are cited as large incumbent insurers who still use legacy systems and struggle to use U.K. data, let alone global data. In other words — similar to other fintech narratives — this is being pitched as a battle against antiquated companies and old technology.

“We’ve built everything from the ground up which enables us to access global data, have accurate pricing and a user experience that is transparent and convenient,’ adds Kent-Braham.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Marshmallow picks up $1.2M seed to provide car insurance to immigrants and expats https://ift.tt/2sEkkfm

A friendly reminder: Don’t put passwords in Trello

A new bit of research from David Shear at security firm Flashpoint found that there are hundreds if not thousands of open Trello boards containing passwords, login credentials, and other potentially sensitive stuff including employee on-boarding documents. He and Brian Krebs reported the boards to Trello although some folks have already been notified by well-meaning hackers who wrote “Change your password” on some of these public boards.

“One particularly jarring misstep came from someone working for Seceon, a Westford, Mass. cybersecurity firm that touts the ability to detect and stop data breaches in real time,” wrote Krebs. “But until a few weeks ago the Trello page for Seceon featured multiple usernames and passwords, including credentials to log in to the company’s WordPress blog and iPage domain hosting.”

Another Trello board made at Red Hat in 2017 offered passwords to a pair of online test servers.

Trello worked with the pair to take down the public boards they found and is working with Google to remove the cached sites.

“We have put many safeguards in place to make sure that public boards are being created intentionally and have clear language around each privacy setting, as well as persistent visibility settings at the top of each board,” said a Trello spokesperson.

Missteps like these are sadly common. Another rich trove of user data, Github, has been used to find private passwords for years. Anecdotally, a project I was working on suffered a breach when the CTO put a Bitcoin private key into some public Github code. Yeah. Exactly.

So, again, keep your Trello boards private, don’t paste passwords willy-nilly, and maintain at least a basic level of operational security by not pasting passwords into any site that could make it public. It’s hard but definitely worth the effort.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J A friendly reminder: Don’t put passwords in Trello https://ift.tt/2xMoh6V

Photos on social media can predict the health of neighborhoods

The images that appear on social media – happy people eating, cultural happenings, and smiling dogs – can actually predict the likelihood that a neighborhood is “healthy” as well as its level of gentrification.

From the report:

So says a groundbreaking study published in Frontiers in Physics, in which researchers used social media images of cultural events in London and New York City to create a model that can predict neighborhoods where residents enjoy a high level of wellbeing — and even anticipate gentrification by 5 years. With more than half of the world’s population living in cities, the model could help policymakers ensure human wellbeing in dense urban settings.

The idea is based on the concept of “cultural capital” – the more there is, the better the neighborhood becomes. For example, if there are many pictures of fun events in a certain spot you can expect a higher level of well-being in that area’s denizens. The research also suggests that investing in arts and culture will actively improve a neighborhood.

“Culture has many benefits to an individual: it opens our minds to new emotional experiences and enriches our lives,” said Dr. Daniele Quercia. “We’ve known for decades that this ‘cultural capital’ plays a huge role in a person’s success. Our new model shows the same correlation for neighborhoods and cities, with those neighborhoods experiencing the greatest growth having high cultural capital. So, for every city or school district debating whether to invest in arts programs or technology centers, the answer should be a resounding ‘Yes!'”

The Cambridge-based team looked at “millions of Flickr images” taken at cultural events in New York and London and overlaid them on maps of these cities. The findings, as we can imagine, were obvious.

“We were able to see that the presence of culture is directly tied to the growth of certain neighborhoods, rising home values and median income. Our model can even predict gentrification within five years,” said Quercia. “This could help city planners and councils think through interventions to prevent people from being displaced as a result of gentrification.”

The team expects to be able to assess the health of citizens using the same method, overlaying pictures of food on maps in order to find food deserts and spots where cafes and croissants are on the rise. Just imagine: all those Instagrammed photos of your favorite sandwiches will some day help researchers build happier cities.

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Photos on social media can predict the health of neighborhoods John Biggs https://ift.tt/2LuYXUK
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Photos on social media can predict the health of neighborhoods

From the report:

So says a groundbreaking study published in Frontiers in Physics, in which researchers used social media images of cultural events in London and New York City to create a model that can predict neighborhoods where residents enjoy a high level of wellbeing — and even anticipate gentrification by 5 years. With more than half of the world’s population living in cities, the model could help policymakers ensure human wellbeing in dense urban settings.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Photos on social media can predict the health of neighborhoods https://ift.tt/2LuYXUK

“Social selling” startup Meesho lands $11.5M Series B led by Sequoia India

Y Combinator alum Meesho, one of several “social selling” startups gaining speed in India, will add more features to its e-commerce platform after closing a $11.5 million Series B led by Sequoia India. Existing investors SAIF Partners, Y Combinator and Venture Highway also returned for the round, which brings the Bangalore-based startup’s total funding so far to $15 million. Its last round of funding, a $3.4 million Series A, was announced last October.

Like social selling competitors including GlowRoad and Zepo, Meesho’s model combines dropshipping from its wholesale partners with a comprehensive suite of e-commerce tools and services. This reduces overhead while making it easy for sellers, who Meesho says includes many housewives, students and retirees, to set up an online business through WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media.

Meesho’s tools include an online platform that allows sellers to manage purchases and process payments, as well as a network of wholesale suppliers (its main categories are currently fashion and lifestyle items) and logistics providers. In other words, it offers almost everything its vendors need to start selling online. This leaves vendors responsible for customer acquisition, picking what items they want to include in their online shops and marketing them.

This reselling model appeals to small stores, as well as individuals, who want to make more money but don’t want the expense of setting up an e-commerce business from scratch and carrying inventory. Meesho’s rivals include e-commerce startups like GlowRoad, Shopmatic and Zepo, which have also recently raised large funding rounds. All of these companies attract sellers by offering a significant amount of help with order management, payment processing, fulfillment and logistics.

In order to differentiate, chief executive officer Vidit Aatrey, who co-founded Meesho in 2015 with Sanjeev Barnwal, its chief technology officer, tells TechCrunch it focuses on product quality, pricing and personalization to help resellers improve their sales and customer service. Meesho claims that more than 800,000 resellers have used its platform and that a “typical” reseller earns between 20,000 to 25,000 rupees per month (about $298 to $373).

In a press statement about the funding, Sequoia India managing director Mohit Bhatnagar said “Social commerce is the future of e-commerce in India. People buy from people they trust, and that’s what Meesho enables. Entrepreneurs, many of them women, use the Meesho platform to recommend, customize and sell to their family and friends. Social selling is a huge trend and Sequoia India is excited to partner with Meesho, which is the early leader in this space.”

Aatrey says Meesho’s Series B capital will be used to hire more people for its tech and product teams in order to build a suite of new customer acquisition and selling tools. The startup also plans to add more personalization options for its resellers and product categories.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J “Social selling” startup Meesho lands $11.5M Series B led by Sequoia India https://ift.tt/2HoCeY5

Revolut announces a Robinhood-like trading product

Fintech startup Revolut likes to announce new things all the time. Even though nothing is going live today, it’s interesting to see where the startup is heading. The company is working on a trading platform for traditional shares without any commission.

You’ll find stock from public companies from the U.K. and the U.S., as well as various ETFs and options. In other words, Revolut is going to become the Robinhood of Europe.

While American customers have been using Robinhood for years, the rest of the world has been lagging behind when it comes to stock trading.

You still have to open an account on a painfully slow website and pay a few euros for every transaction. Some companies even ask you to send a letter to create an account. And if you want to buy stock through your existing bank account, it usually costs even more.

Revolut promises that you won’t pay any commission when you buy or sell shares. The company plans to make money on margin trading, securities lending and interest on cash. Unfortunately, Revolut didn’t say when the feature would launch.

Premium subscribers will be able to test the feature first. Eventually, you’ll also get additional perks if you’re a premium subscriber. Trading will be available to all Revolut users in Europe and future markets. The company plans to launch in the U.S., Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand in the coming months.

Revolut’s premium subscription is becoming a sort of Amazon Prime for financial products. You pay £6.99/€7.99 per month and you get unlimited foreign exchange transactions, travel insurance, access to new features and more.

It’s clear that Revolut plans on making predictable revenue on this premium subscription. And maybe the trading platform will make more people subscribe to Revolut Premium.

Additionally, Revolut now officially has 2 million users. It’s funny to see that Revolut is announcing this new milestone just days after N26 announced a million users. Interestingly, Revolut has 900,000 users in the U.K., where N26 has yet to launch.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Revolut announces a Robinhood-like trading product https://ift.tt/2Joejde

Android P Beta 2 brings updated system images and 157 new emojis

{rss:content:encoded} Android P Beta 2 brings updated system images and 157 new emojis https://ift.tt/2LsrgmY https://ift.tt/2xMJ4Hr June 06, 2018 at 08:08PM

A month after releasing the first beta version of Android P at I/O (and right in the middle of Apple’s own developers conference), Google has just released Beta 2 of its upcoming mobile operating system. The update is available to users enrolled in Google’s developer program, who have access to a Pixel device. Those who’ve already download Beta 1 will get the new version automatically.

The latest build features new system images and tools designed to help developers create apps for the upcoming version of the mobile operating system. Adaptive Battery is on-board here, leveraging DeepMind to decide which apps should get the most system resources. App Actions helps developers make their apps more prominent in places like Search, the Google Assistant and the Google Launcher, while Slices provides a way to offer elements of an app without having to open it up.

Also of note is the addition of 157 new emojis. The list includes two gender neutral emojis, offering awn additional options for the Family and Couple With Heart emojis, joinging last year’s addition of a gender-neutral Adult emoji.

There’s a Red Hair and Superhero emoji, both of which are available in two genders and five skin tones, a bagel with cream cheese, a llama and a lobster. Sounds like a fun crew.

A handful of existing emojis have also gotten a facelift here, including Bacon, Turtle, Cricket and Salad, which drops the egg to go full-on vegan. Google notes that the new emojis may be further updated prior to Android P’s final release.

More information on the updates for devs can be found here.

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is coming to Disrupt SF

Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd has always done things her own way.

Whether it’s standing up for her political beliefs, building a company with fully outsourced engineers, or avoiding the usual startup fundraising runaround, Wolfe Herd follows her own instincts in building a business. Which is why we’re super excited to announce that Whitney Wolfe Herd will join us at TC Disrupt SF 2018.

Wolfe Herd first came on to the scene as a cofounder and VP of Marketing at Tinder, where she helped grow the dating app into one of the world’s biggest dating platforms. But after a lawsuit over sexual harassment and discrimination, which was settled out of court, Wolfe Herd left the company to build an app focused on compliments and positive affirmations.

Originally, she wanted nothing to do with the dating space. But after meeting Andrey Adreev, Badoo founder and Bumble’s majority stake holder, she realized that giving women a voice in digital dating could be revolutionary. And so, Bumble was born in 2014.

The app has grown to 30 million users, and continues to grow in popularity based on a simple premise: women make the first move.

But Wolfe Herd’s ambitions don’t stop at dating. The 28-year-old founder has added new verticals to the app, letting users find friends and make professional connections via Bumble.

And all the while, Bumble’s cap table has never changed, with Wolfe Herd’s 20 percent stake as yet undiluted. Wolfe Herd was named one of Time 100’s most influential people this year, and has herself become a brand that represents authenticity and self-empowerment.

We can’t wait to talk to Wolfe Herd at Disrupt SF 2018. You can buy tickets to the show here.

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is coming to Disrupt SF Jordan Crook https://ift.tt/2xOS0w6
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Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is coming to Disrupt SF

Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd has always done things her own way.

The app has grown to 30 million users, and continues to grow in popularity based on a simple premise: women make the first move.

But Wolfe Herd’s ambitions don’t stop at dating. The 28-year-old founder has added new verticals to the app, letting users find friends and make professional connections via Bumble.

We can’t wait to talk to Wolfe Herd at Disrupt SF 2018. You can buy tickets to the show here.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is coming to Disrupt SF https://ift.tt/2xOS0w6

Facebook is funding news programs from CNN, Fox News, Univision and others

Facebook has unveiled its initial lineup of news programming that will be airing in a dedicated section of Watch, the original video content initiative that the social network launched last year.

While these shows are being produced by outside media organizations, it’s actually Facebook that’s funding them. In a blog post, Head of News Partnerships Campbell Brown described this as an extension of the company’s announcement in January that it would prioritize meaningful social interaction over publisher content.

While that decision took a toll on digital publishers, Brown echoes CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s rationale for the move, saying that while there will be less news in users’ feeds, what remains should be “trustworthy, informative, and local.”

Here’s how Brown describes the news initiative:

This first lineup of funded shows includes news publishers from broadcast to digital native, national and local. The shows will be hosted by award-winning journalists, as well as new faces, and the formats will vary from a mix of daily briefings, weekly deep dives, and live breaking news coverage. They’ll debut later this summer, and we’ll announce additional shows in the coming weeks. We will work closely with our publisher partners to experiment with these different formats to understand what works, and they will have full editorial control of their shows.

The shows include:

A daily news show from ABC News
“Chasing Corruption,” a series from Alabama’s Advance Local that interviews watchdog journalists
A weekly explainer program from ATTN:
CNN’s “Anderson Cooper Full Circle,” a weekday news brief featuring Cooper and guests
Daily updates from Fox News’ Shepard Smith and others.
A twice weekly show from Mic.
Univision’s “Real America with Jorge Ramos,” where Ramos interviews immigrants from diverse backgrounds. Univision will also air a daily news roundup in Spanish.

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Facebook is funding news programs from CNN, Fox News, Univision and others Anthony Ha https://ift.tt/2Ju16mq
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Kayla Itsines’ Sweat app will rake in $77 million this year

{rss:content:encoded} Kayla Itsines’ Sweat app will rake in $77 million this year https://ift.tt/2JxjCuk https://ift.tt/2kQJZNC June 06, 2018 at 04:47PM

In earlier years, fitness gurus would market their programs for getting in shape on VHS tapes and, later, DVDs. These days, it’s an app business. At Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference this week in San Jose, the company brought in one of the fitness app industry’s superstars, Kayla Itsines, co-creator of the BBG (Bikini Body Guides) and the Sweat app – which will pull in $77 million USD this year – to lead a morning workout for around 200 conference attendees.

For Apple, Kayla’s brand represents not only a good App Store success story, but also spreads the message of how its own products, like iPhone and Apple Watch, enable access to better health through their platforms.

From e-books to apps

Kayla’s fitness company was started several years ago by two personal trainers – herself and business partner Tobi Pearce. Both were using social media, including Instagram, to drive leads for their own PT sessions and bootcamps.

But Itsines’ online profile really took off and soon, people from all over the world wanted to know how they could train like her and get the same results.

WWDC Workout with Kayla Itsines

So the trainers packaged up her program materials and sold it as an e-book online starting in early 2014. Over the next year or so, the business grew, as they distributed more e-books and a broader content series.

But Kayla and Tobi wanted to reach even more people, so they turned to the App Store.

“That’s where our consumers are,” said Tobi, speaking of the company’s decision to launch a mobile app, in a conversation with TechCrunch backstage at the WWDC fitness event.

“We have mostly millennial consumers – 25 to 35 is our main market,” he continues. “Part of being a personal trainer is that you get to be there – personally – and train people in real-time. Now, obviously, you can’t do that for every person in the world, and an e-book can’t do that. But Apple allowed us to do that,” he says. “The Apple ecosystem is kind of a no-brainer.”

WWDC Workout with Kayla Itsines

The team launched the Sweat app in November 2015, but it got a big refresh – almost a full relaunch – early last year, with three to four times the amount of content.

Today, the Sweat app is a one-stop shop for fitness programs for women, featuring not only Kayla’s own content, but other trainers’ programs as well, across areas like yoga, pregnancy and gym workouts, for example.

Subscribers pay $19.99 per month to use the Sweat app, which is cheaper than the gym, or they can opt for an annual membership to save 50 percent.

However, not all of Sweat’s users are turning to the app instead of the gym – it can also be a companion for those who want the assistance of a personal trainer in a gym environment, but not want to pay the hundreds of dollars they tend to charge.

And thanks to team Kayla’s social media savvy and the team’s marketing prowess, they’ve built a community that’s happy to pay, it seems.

These days “well over a million” people use the app on a monthly basis, out of 30 million total app downloads, Tobi tells TechCrunch. And though the company’s now 70-person team is largely based in Australia, the U.S. is Sweat’s largest market.

“Since re-launching [the Sweat app], we had a really big growth year – we grew about 86 percent last year, which is pretty huge for us. And this year, we’re on track to hit about $100 million in revenue this year – that’s AUD,” Tobi clarifies.

In U.S. dollars, that’s around $76.75 million – not bad for a fitness app that never took in outside capital.

“When we first started doing the e-books, I had a few bootcamp franchises of my own, and Kayla had a small studio that she ran…I put up most of my own money, initially,” Tobi explains. “It was sort of big turning point in both of our careers because we could – you know: the Australian dream, buy your own home – or we could invest a hundred thousand dollars and hope something comes out of it.”

WWDC Workout with Kayla Itsines

What’s next: Apple TV, AR and…funding?

Part of the Sweat app’s appeal – beyond its promised results, of course – is its use of new technologies to keep people engaged.

The current app leverages Apple Watch’s visual interface to give video cues, and it added audio cues to the iOS app so the trainers can talk to you as you work out – much like an in-person trainer would. (That feature is coming to the Watch soon, so more advanced users who don’t need the videos can just listen through their headphones or AirPods to hear what to do next.)

Sweat also includes its own curated music playlist streamed through Apple Music, and, in the future, the Sweat program is expanding to Apple TV.

Tobi says they have plans to do something with augmented reality as well, but couldn’t offer more details.

“I’m not too sure yet [what we’re doing with AR], I guess we’re kind of curious,” he admits. “It’s almost part of our responsibility and obligation. We’re a market leader for women’s fitness, and if we want to continue to be that, we want to have the best technologies,” he says.

While Sweat isn’t in need of outside investment, the team isn’t ruling out the idea entirely.

“I don’t necessarily think it would be a bad idea. I think, obviously, for all businesses at any stage – whether it be really early on with venture capital, or whether it be a different type of funding later in the lifecycle of the business – I think it always serves a purpose, honestly,” says Tobi.

“Now we’re in the cycle of trying to optimize the experience to get the best results for the user – whether it be content or features or whatever. Having a funding partner – not so much necessarily just for the capital, but also for the resources and the network – would be really handy,” he says.

Facebook introduces new bidding support for in-app ads

{rss:content:encoded} Facebook introduces new bidding support for in-app ads https://ift.tt/2kT9gqo https://ift.tt/2sL0Xkk June 06, 2018 at 03:49PM

Facebook is expanding its support for header bidding, a technology that allows publishers to auction off ad impressions through real-time bidding between ad networks.

The company announced its support for header bidding on the mobile web last year. Today, it’s adding something similar for in-app advertising.

That means app publishers who use header bidding can include ads from Facebook’s Audience Network in their auctions. To enable this, Facebook is partnering with Fyber, MAX and Twitter’s MoPub.

Here’s how Facebook’s Vijay Balan laid out the benefits of the new approach:

Currently, ad networks are called one-by-one until an app ad is filled, determined by historical average CPMs rather than which buyer is willing to pay the most. This method often overlooks a network willing to pay more for an impression because it is lower in the chain.

App bidding enables app publishers and developers to establish an impartial and open auction over their ad inventory. All advertising networks are called simultaneously and the highest bidder for the placement wins, thereby providing publishers with opportunities to earn more. Publishers can maximize their access to high value advertisers, fueling the creation of sustainable ad businesses that help ensure people continue to enjoy access to high quality free content.

Balan said Facebook has already been testing this with publishers who have their own ad-serving technology, including Rovio, Talefun and GameInsight. Those early tests have seen revenue gains of up to 20 percent.

Motorola’s Z3 Play modular handset arrives this summer for $499

{rss:content:encoded} Motorola’s Z3 Play modular handset arrives this summer for $499 https://ift.tt/2M42o6g https://ift.tt/2kTxi4Q June 06, 2018 at 03:30PM

At an event in Brazil this morning, Lenovo announced the latest addition to its line of modular handsets. The Moto Z3 doesn’t represent a big leap for the line, but it does introduce a slight change in approach for a company hoping to make a bigger splash on the modular side of the question.

Like its predecessor, the Z3 Play will be priced at an extremely reasonable $499. That includes some upgrades, such as a slight redesign with a glass back (Gorilla Glass 3 on both sides) and a screen that’s been extended to six inches (a 2160 x 1080 resolution at 18:9), courtesy of thinner bezels and fingerprint reader that’s been moved around to the side of the devices.

That’s a 79 percent screen-to-body ratio, by Motorola’s count, but no embrace yet of the nearly ubiquitous top notch. The company, it seems, is saving that for the upcoming Motorola Power One, its upcoming iPhone X-like flagship. The Z3 Play, for all of the flashiness of modularity, is still a mid-tier handset, as evidenced by (among other things), the octa-core Snapdragon 636 inside.

One of the key differentiators here, however, is how the company is selling the device. Bundles make a lot of sense with a device for which accessories are a key selling point. A number of third parties have offered some version of this, discounting mods with the purchase of the phone. Now, however, the bundles are being offered from the get-go, included as part of that $499 price point.

The Z3 will ship with either Motorola’s first-party speaker or battery pack. Availability will depend on the country. Here in the States, for example, it seems we’ll only be getting access to the battery version, which augments the handset’s solid 3000 mAh “all day” battery. It is, understandably, the best-selling Moto Mod — the speaker, meanwhile, is in second place. The availability of said bundles will be dependent on the popularity of those devices in a given location.

Motorola’s given out these numbers before, but they bear repeating: one-third of those who purchase a Moto Z device end up picking up a Mod. Roughly 60 percent of that number, meanwhile, buy two or more. Those numbers are surprisingly low, given that Mods seems like such a central selling point for the product.

After all, the company has made some sacrifices for such modularity. Chief among these are the fact that there’s really not a lot of wiggle room with regard to device footprint. As long as the company wants to continue making the devices backward-compatible with Mods, the phones are going to have remain roughly the same size.

Motorola squeezes a little more screen out of the device through the above-mentioned methods, and while it tells me that it’s confident there’s still space to work with on future devices, it does seem to have painted itself in a corner here. For all of Essential’s seeming struggles, the device’s connector allowed for a broader range of sizes and shapes.

The company’s no doubt hoping these bundles will kickstart interest in Mods. Until one comes along that really excites the fan base, however, it’s easy to see how making the two most popular Mods available essentially for free could ultimately eat into potential sales.

Meantime, the device will be arriving at Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Fry’s and B&H Photo this summer. It will also be available through Amazon’s Prime Exclusive program.