Realme has a future best-seller on its hands - but not two of them. The Realme 5 Pro got a very positive reception in last week's poll - people are happy with the upgrades over the Realme 3 Pro, which launched earlier this year at the same price. The upgrades are mostly in the camera department - going up to a 48MP sensor for the main camera and adding an ultra wide and dedicated macro cameras. The selfie camera dropped in resolution (25MP to 16MP), but the new sensor has larger pixels (0.8µm to 1.0µm). Added splash resistance and a slightly overclocked chipset just about cover...
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Apple began life as a hardware company, selling desktop computers and then adding laptops to its roster. But in 2001 the company started its long journey to becoming a media distribution company - a journey that saw the launch of Apple Music in 2015 and will welcome Apple TV+ later this year. In 2001 Apple released iTunes to the world and a few months later the very first iPod followed. Those two products revitalized the waning company and grew quickly. In 2005 Apple had a commanding 75% share of digital music sales and 80% of MP3 player sales. With over 20 million iPods sold, Steve...
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A number of malicious websites used to hack into iPhones over a two-year period were targeting Uyghur Muslims, TechCrunch has learned.
Sources familiar with the matter said the websites were part of a state-backed attack — likely China — designed to target the Uyghur community in the country’s Xinjiang state.
It’s part of the latest effort by the Chinese government to crack down on the minority Muslim community in recent history. In the past year, Beijing has detained more than a million Uyghurs in internment camps, according to a United Nations human rights committee.
Google security researchers found and recently disclosed the malicious websites this week, but until now it wasn’t known who they were targeting.
The websites were part of a campaign to target the religious group by infecting an iPhone with malicious code simply by visiting a booby-trapped web page. In gaining unfettered access to the iPhone’s software, an attacker could read a victim’s messages, passwords, and track their location in near-real time.
Applefixed the vulnerabilities in February in iOS 12.1.4, days after Google privately disclosed the flaws. News of the hacking campaign was first disclosed by this week.
These websites had “thousands of visitors” per week for at least two years, Google said.
Victims were tricked into opening a link, which when opened would load one of the malicious websites used to infect the victim. It’s a common tactic to target phone owners with spyware.
One of the sources told TechCrunch the websites used to infect iPhones had been inadvertently indexed by Google’s search engine, prompting the FBI to alert Google to ask for the site to be removed from its index to prevent infections, they added.
A Google spokesperson would not comment beyond the published research. A FBI spokesperson said they could neither confirm nor deny any investigation, and did not comment further.
Google faced some criticism following its bombshell report for not releasing the websites used in the attacks. The researchers said the attacks were “indiscriminate watering hole attacks” with “no target discrimination,” noting that anyone visiting the site would have their iPhone hacked.
But the company would not say who was behind the attacks.
Apple did not comment. An email requesting comment to the Chinese consulate in New York was unreturned.
Tesla said Saturday that its Model 3 interiors are now completely free of leather, fulfilling a promise made by CEO Elon Musk at this year’s annual shareholder meeting.
Tesla has been closing in on a leather-free interior for a couple of years now. But a sticking point was the steering wheel, which Musk made mention of at the company’s shareholder meeting in June in response to a request from PETA activist.
“Ibelievewewereclosetohavinganon-heatedsteeringwheel,that’snotleather,” Musk said at the time. “Therearesomechallengeswhenwhenheatthenon-leathermaterialandalsohowwellitwearsovertime.”
Musk said Model Y and Model 3 would be vegan by 2020. He wasn’t sure if the company would be able to meet that same goal for the Model S and X.
Activist shareholders made a proposal in 2015 that Tesla no longer use animal-derived leather in the interiors of its electric vehicles by 2019. While stockholders rejected that proposal, Tesla did begin rolling out more “vegan” interior components in its cars.
The company began by offering leather-free seats as an option. Two years ago, Tesla made the synthetic material standard in its Model 3, Model X and Model S vehicles.
Huawei's Mate 30 lineup isn't going official until later in September, but the company's still coming to IFA next week. Among the things the Chinese maker is bringing there is a new Kirin chipset, but that's not all - apparently, a new pair of wireless earbuds is on the way unless we're totally misinterpreting this short teaser below. New Kirin technology will connect you to a whole new audio experience.Discover how by following #HuaweiIFA2019 👉 https://ift.tt/2Ljp42H #IFA19 pic.twitter.com/WBwKrACotr— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) August 31, 2019 What we...
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A new 15% tariff on Chinese imports will go in effect just after midnight Sunday, placing levies on hundreds of household goods and consumer tech, including a bevy of Apple products.
The tariffs, put in place by President Donald Trump as part of an escalating tit-for-tat trade war with China, were entered into the Federal Register on Friday.
Apple, the largest U.S. technology company by market cap, has its products assembled in China by Foxconn and then ships them to consumers all over the world. The Apple Airpods, Apple Watch and accompanying Apple Watch bands and the Apple Homepod are all products subject to the higher tariffs beginning Sunday. The iPhone doesn’t appear to be impacted this round, but could be subject to tariffs that begin Dec. 15.
Apple is hardly the only electronics company — most of which have final assembly in China — to be affected by the tariffs. TVs, speakers, digital cameras, lithium-ion batteries and flash drives are just a few of consumer electronics that will be subjected to a 15% tariff beginning Sunday. But the higher tariffs do threaten to give rival Samsung an edge.
The new higher tariffs come just a few weeks since Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Trump to argue that such a move would benefit its No. 1 competitor Samsung.
The 15% tariff will affect about $112 billion of Chinese goods, lower than the original list of $300 billion imports. Last week, the U.S. Trade Representative office modified the original list, either delaying tariffs on some products until December 15 or removing some goods altogether.
Despite the lower number, the impact is still expected to pinch companies importing products from China. The complete list of products affected by the 15% tariffs is 122 pages long. And eventually, that pain — aka higher prices — will be passed onto consumers.
Tariffs have already had a cost, according to the Consumer Tech Association. Since July 2018, Section 301 tariffs on China have cost the consumer tech industry over $10 billion, including $1 billion on 5G-related products, the CTA said.
In total, American taxpayers have paid over $27 billion in extra import tariffs from the beginning of the trade war in 2018 through June of this year, most of which can be attributed to the U.S.-China trade war, according to U.S. Census information provided by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI).
Another 30% tariff on about $250 billion of goods is expected to begin October 1.
There’s no doubt that Apple’s self-polished reputation for privacy and security has taken a bit of a battering recently.
On the security front, Google researchers just disclosed a major flaw in the iPhone, finding a number of malicious websites that could hack into a victim’s device by exploiting a set of previously undisclosed software bugs. When visited, the sites infected iPhones with an implant designed to harvest personal data — such as location, contacts and messages.
As flaws go, it looks like a very bad one. And when security fails so spectacularly, all those shiny privacy promises naturally go straight out the window.
The implant was used to steal location data and files like databases of WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage. So all the user messages, or emails. Copies of contacts, photos, https://t.co/AmWRpbcIHwpic.twitter.com/vUNQDo9noJ
And while that particular cold-sweat-inducing iPhone security snafu has now been patched, it does raise questions about what else might be lurking out there. More broadly, it also tests the generally held assumption that iPhones are superior to Android devices when it comes to security.
Are we really so sure that thesis holds?
But imagine for a second you could unlink security considerations and purely focus on privacy. Wouldn’t Apple have a robust claim there?
On the surface, the notion of Apple having a stronger claim to privacy versus Google — an adtech giant that makes its money by pervasively profiling internet users, whereas Apple sells premium hardware and services (including essentially now ‘privacy as a service‘) — seems a safe (or, well, safer) assumption. Or at least, until iOS security fails spectacularly and leaks users’ privacy anyway. Then of course affected iOS users can just kiss their privacy goodbye. That’s why this is a thought experiment.
But even directly on privacy, Apple is running into problems, too.
To wit: Siri, its nearly decade-old voice assistant technology, now sits under a penetrating spotlight — having been revealed to contain a not-so-private ‘mechanical turk’ layer of actual humans paid to listen to the stuff people tell it. (Or indeed the personal stuff Siri accidentally records.)
Apple is starting a screen replacement program covering the aluminum versions of the Apple Watch Series 2 and Series 3. It addresses a crack that may develop along the rounded edge of the screen, starting from one corner and then potentially spreading along the entire perimeter, as shown in the example drawings. The affected models are both 38mm and 42mm sizes of the Series 2 and 3 with GPS-only and GPS+cellular versions of the latter. Nike+ versions of both generations are part of the program as well. It's unclear what causes the crack to form and just what the "very rare...
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“The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” returns viewers to the world of Thra — a distant, magical planet ruled over by the sinister, long-lived Skeksis, who have lied their way into ownership of the titular crystal and dominance of the elf-like Gelflings.
The series is a prequel to Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s 1982 film “The Dark Crystal” — but two out of your three hosts at the Original Content podcast haven’t seen the original movie, so our opinions weren’t colored by nostalgia.
Like the Henson/Oz film, “Age of Resistance” relies on sophisticated puppetry to bring a complex fantasy world to life. It’s genuinely dazzling, with sprawling cities, steampunk machinery and all manner of fantasy creatures all fully realized, and often captured in fast-moving scenes of kinetic action.
On the other hand, for some of us, the puppetry wasn’t quite up to the task when the show got darker and more serious. It’s hard to care about family drama and romance when your lead characters have limited facial mobility, or to feel the weight of the show’s numerous death scenes (we’re not talking “Game of Thrones”-level here, but still) when the person dying is played by puppet.
To balance out our fantasy-heavy review, we kick things off by catching up on what Jordan and Darrell think of the latest season of “Bachelor in Paradise.”
You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
And if you want to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:50 “Red Sea Diving Resort” listener reaction
6:01 “Bachelor in Paradise” recap
26:10 “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance” spoiler-free review
The Samsung Galaxy M30s made headlines throughout the week and it seems an official announcement isn't too far away as the smartphone has received Android certification from Google. The Galaxy M30s has been listed on Google's Enterprise Recommended devices website and the listing confirms a few specs of the smartphone. The M30s will sport a 6.4" display which is likely to have a 1080p resolution. The smartphone runs Android Pie and has 4GB RAM. It will come in two storage options - 64GB and 128GB. The listing also confirms the presence of a fingerprint scanner, which from...
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From afar, Olli resembles many of the “future is now!” electric autonomous shuttles that have popped up in recent years.
The tall rectangular pod, with its wide-set headlights and expansive windows nestled between a rounded frame, gives the shuttle a friendly countenance that screams, ever so gently, “come along, take a ride.”
But Olli is different in almost every way, from how it’s produced to its origin story. And now, its maker, Local Motors, has given Olli an upgrade in hopes of accelerating the adoption of its autonomous shuttles.
Meet Olli 2.0, a 3D-printed connected electric autonomous shuttle that Rogers says will hasten its ubiquity.
“The future is here; it’s just not evenly distributed,” Local Motors co-founder and CEO John B. Rogers Jr. said in a recent interview. “That’s something I say a lot. Because people often ask me, ‘Hey, when will I see this vehicle? 2023? What do you think?’ My response: It’s here now, it’s just not everywhere.”
Whether individuals will adopt Rogers’ vision of the future is another matter. But he argues that Olli 1.0 has already been a persuasive ambassador.
Olli 1.0 made its debut in 2016 when it launched in National Harbor, Md., at a planned mixed-use development a few miles south of Washington, D.C. In the two years since, Olli has shown up at events such as LA Automobility, and been featured by various media outlets, including this one. Heck, even James Cordon rode in it.
Local Motors, which was founded in 2007, and its Olli 1.0 shuttle are familiar figures in the fledgling autonomous vehicle industry. But they’re often overshadowed by the likes of Argo AI, Cruise, Uber and Waymo — bigger companies that are all pursuing robotaxis designed for cities.
Olli, meanwhile, is designed for campuses, low-speed environments that include hospitals, military bases and universities.
“The public isn’t going to see New York City with autonomous vehicles running around all the time (any time soon),” Rogers said. Campuses, on the other hand, are a sweet spot for companies like Local Motors that want to deploy now. These are places where mobility is needed and people are able to get up close and personal witha “friendly robot” like Olli, Rogers said.
Olli 2.0
Olli and Olli 2.0 are clearly siblings. The low-speed vehicle has the same general shape, and a top speed of 25 miles per hour. And both have been crash tested by Local Motors and come with Level 4 autonomous capability, a designation by the SAE that means the vehicle can handle all aspects of driving in certain conditions without human intervention.
Olli 2.0 has a lot more range — up to 100 miles on a single charge, according to its spec sheet. The manufacturing process has been improved, and Olli 2.0 is now 80% 3D-printed and has hub motors versus the axle wheel motors in its predecessor. In addition, there are two more seats in Olli 2.0 and new programmable lighting.
But where Olli 2.0 really stands out is in the improved user interface and more choices for customers looking to customize the shuttle to suit specific needs. As Rogers recently put it, “We can pretty much make anything they ask for with the right partners.”
The outside of Olli 2.0 is outfitted with a PA system and screens on the front and back to address pedestrians. The screen in the front can be shown as eyes, making Olli 2.0 more approachable and anthropomorphic.
Inside the shuttle, riders will find better speakers and microphones and touchscreens. Local Motors has an open API, which allows for an endless number of UI interfaces. For instance, LG is customizing media content for Olli based on the “5G future,” according to Rogers, who said he couldn’t provide more details just yet.
AR and VR can also be added, if a customer desires. The interior can be changed to suit different needs as well. For instance, a hospital might want fewer seats and more room to transport patients on beds. It’s this kind of customization that Rogers believes will give Local Motors an edge over autonomous shuttle competitors.
Even the way Olli 2.0 communicates has been improved.
Olli 1.0 used IBM Watson, the AI platform from IBM, for its natural language and speech to text functions. Olli 2.0 has more options. Natural language voice can use Amazon’s deep learning chatbot service Lex and IBM Watson. Customers can choose one or even combine them. Both can be altered to make the system addressable to “Olli.”
The many people behind Olli
In the so-called race to deploy autonomous vehicles, Local Motors is a participant that is difficult to categorize or label largely due to how it makes its shuttles.
It’s not just that Local Motors’ two micro factories — at its Chandler, Ariz. headquarters and in Knoxville, Tenn. — are a diminutive 10,000 square feet. Or that these micro factories lack the tool and die and stamping equipment found in a traditional automaker’s factory. Or even that Olli is 3D-printed.
A striking and perhaps less obvious difference is how Olli and other creations from Local Motors, and its parent company Local Motors Industries, come to life. LMI has a co-creation and low-volume local production business model. The parent company’s Launch Forth unit manages a digital design community of tens of thousands of engineers and designers that co-creates products for customers. Some of those mobility creations go to Local Motors, which uses its low-volume 3D-printed micro factories to build Olli and Olli 2.0, as well as other products like the Rally Fighter.
This ability to tap into its community and its partnerships with research labs, combined with direct digital manufacturing and its micro factories, is what Rogers says allows it to go from design to mobile prototype in weeks, not months — or even years.
The company issues challenges to the community. The winner of a challenge gets a cash prize and is awarded royalties as the product is commercialized. In 2016, a Bogota, Colombia man named Edgar Sarmiento won the Local Motors challenge to design an urban public transportation system. His design eventually became Olli.
(Local Motors uses the challenges model to determine where Olli will be deployed, as well.)
New design challenges are constantly being launched to improve the UI and services of Olli, as well as other products. But even that doesn’t quite capture the scope of the co-creation. Local Motors partners with dozens of companies and research organizations. Its 3D-printing technology comes from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Olli itself involves a who’s who in the sensor, AV and supplier communities.
Startup Affectiva provides Olli’s cognition system, such as facial and mood tracking of its passengers and dynamic route optimization, while Velodyne, Delphi, Robotic Research and Axis Communications handle the perception stack of the self-driving shuttle, according to Local Motors. Nvidia and Sierra Wireless provide much of the Human Machine Interface. Other companies that supply the bits and pieces to Olli include Bosch, Goodyear, Protean and Eastman, to name just a few.
Where in the world is Olli?
Today, Olli 1.0 is deployed on nine campuses, the most recent ones at the Joint Base Myer – Henderson Hall, a joint base of the U.S. military located around Arlington, Va., which is made up of Fort Myer, Fort McNair and Henderson Hall. Olli was also introduced recently in Rancho Cordova, near Sacramento, Calif.
Production of Olli 2.0 began in July and deliveries will begin in the fourth quarter of this year. In the meantime, three more Olli shuttle deployments are coming up in the next six weeks or so, according to Local Motors, which didn’t provide further details.
Production of Olli 1.0 will phase out in the coming months as customer orders are completed. Olli will soon head to Europe, as well, with Local Motors planning to build its third micro factory in the region.
Images of the Sony Xperia 2, expected to go official at IFA next week, surfaced yesterday giving us a quick glimpse of the device. And today, a full set of official-looking press renders of the handset surfaced, showing the phone from multiple angles, in several colors too. The Xperia 2 looks similar to the Xperia 1, except for the triple camera setup at the back which is now placed in the top-left corner of the device, as opposed to being along the central axis. On the left side of the Xperia 2 is the SIM card slot, and on the right side is the fingerprint scanner flanked by the...
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The Google Play Store recently got a blindingly white redesign, and starting next month, you may find it a bit more annoying. Why? Because it will start playing promo videos in the app listings automatically. Google says the videos in the app listings will be played automatically "to help more users discover your content at a glance". However, this decision may not go well with some app developers as the Internet search giant has said that developers will have to disable monetization in these videos which are pulled from YouTube. The developers have time until October 31, 2019 to...
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Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the week’s noteworthy startups and venture capital news. Before I jump into today’s topic, let’s catch up a bit. Last week, I wrote about a new e-commerce startup, Pietra. Before that, I wrote about the flurry of IPO filings.
Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter @KateClarkTweets. If you don’t subscribe to Startups Weekly yet, you can do that here.
What’s new?
Pelotonrevealed its S-1 this week, taking a big step toward an IPO expected later this year. The filing was packed with interesting tidbits, including that the company, which manufacturers internet-connected stationary bikes and sells an affiliated subscription to its growing library of on-demand fitness content, is raking in more than $900 million in annual revenue. Sure, it’s not profitable, and it’s losing an increasing amount of money to sales and marketing efforts, but for a company that many people wrote off from the very beginning, it’s an impressive feat.
Despite being a hardware, media, interactive software, product design, social connection, apparel and logistics company, according to its S-1, the future of Peloton relies on its talent. Not the employees developing the bikes and software but the 29 instructors teaching its digital fitness courses. Ally Love, Alex Toussaint and the 27 other teachers have developed cult followings, fans who will happily pay Peloton’s steep $39 per month content subscription to get their daily dose of Ben or Christine.
“To create Peloton, we needed to build what we believed to be the best indoor bike on the market, recruit the best instructors in the world, and engineer a state-of-the-art software platform to tie it all together,” founder and CEO John Foley writes in the IPO prospectus. “Against prevailing conventional wisdom, and despite countless investor conference rooms full of very smart skeptics, we were determined for Peloton to build a vertically integrated platform to deliver a seamless end-to-end experience as physically rewarding and addictive as attending a live, in-studio class.”
Peloton succeeded in poaching the best of the best. The question is, can they keep them? Will competition in the fast-growing fitness technology sector swoop in and scoop Peloton’s stars?
In other news
Last week I published a long feature on the state of seed investing in the Bay Area. The TL;DR? Mega-funds are increasingly battling seed-stage investors for access to the hottest companies. As a result, seed investors are getting a little more creative about how they source deals. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and everyone wants a stake in The Next Big Thing. Read the story here.
Don’t miss out on our flagship Disrupt, which takes place October 2-4. It’s the quintessential tech conference for anyone focused on early-stage startups. Join more than 10,000 attendees — including over 1,200 exhibiting startups — for three jam-packed days of programming. We’re talking four different stages with interactive workshops, Q&A sessions and interviews with some of the industry’s top tech titans, founders, investors, movers and shakers. Check out our list of speakers and the Disrupt agenda. I will be there interviewing a bunch of tech leaders, including Bastian Lehmann and Charles Hudson. Buy tickets here.
Listen
This week on Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, we had Floodgate’s Iris Choi on to discuss Peloton’s upcoming IPO. You can listen to it here. Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast and Spotify.
Learn
We published a number of new deep dives on Extra Crunch, our paid subscription product, this week. Here’s a quick look at the top stories:
Yesterday we saw what appeared to be a promo poster of the Samsung Galaxy A90 5G which confirmed the phone's design. Today, we are looking at the retail box of the Galaxy A90 5G which corroborates yesterday's leak and gives us our best look yet at the phone. Samsung Galaxy A90 5G retail box The retail box also reveals key specifications of the Galaxy A90 5G like 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, and an octa-core processor which in all likelihood is the Snapdragon 855 SoC. The smartphone will flaunt a FullHD+ Infinity-U Super AMOLED display measuring 170.3 mm diagonally which translates to...
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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's own Twitter account was hacked yesterday, allowing the perpetrators to post a total of 17 offensive tweets. The tweets were up for no more than 10 minutes and a little over an hour after the issue was noticed the account was already secure. In a statement, the Company points the finger at the carrier, assuring Twitter systems have not been compromised. The phone number associated with the account was compromised due to a security oversight by the mobile provider. This allowed an unauthorized person to compose and send tweets via text message from the phone number....
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The Motorola One Zoom has leaked a few times before so we already know what it will look like. We also know a few of its specifications, but the latest leak completes the picture, leaving very little to the imagination. The One Zoom will be powered by the Snapdragon 675 SoC paired with 4GB RAM. It will have 128GB storage and run Android Pie out of the box. But, do note that it won't be a part of the Android One program and will come with deep Alexa integration. The One Zoom will flaunt a 6.4" 19:9 FHD+ Super AMOLED display with a fingerprint reader embedded in it. The screen will...
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Apple is unveiling the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max at a special event on September 10. But that's the announcement. You may be wondering exactly when you'll be able to purchase one of the new devices. Well, wonder no more. According to a source working at a major US carrier, pre-orders for the trio are set to start on September 13. That's the Friday after the announcement, and it comes as no surprise that Apple would start taking pre-orders then - because it's been doing the same thing for years. Exactly as unsurprising is the rumored release date of the three...
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A few days ago a couple of chats with Google support reps surfaced telling us to expect the official release of Android 10 to Pixels to happen on September 3. And today a slip-up by Canadian carrier Rogers has seemingly confirmed the rollout's date. For a short while, Rogers' public OS upgrade schedule included the lines you can see screenshotted below. Apparently this carrier didn't get the memo of Android 10 being the official name of the release formerly known as Android Q, but other than that, it's all there, black on white. Realizing the mistake of making such information...
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So your aluminum Series 2 or Series 3 Apple Watch is suddenly cracking around the edges… but you don’t remember bumping it on anything, or being particularly rough with it.
Surprise! It might not be your fault at all.
Apple says that they’ve determined that “under very rare circumstances”, the displays on aluminum Series 2 and 3 Watches are developing cracks that can wrap along the rounded edges.
The good news? If Apple determines your display crack is caused by this newly discovered issue, they’ll replace the screen for free. The bad news? It’s not the kind of thing they can fix at the Genius Bar, so getting it patched up means shipping the Watch to Apple and being without it for 5+ days.
(It sounds like the kind of cracks they’re looking for are pretty specific — they’re looking for cracks that developed around the rounded edges, as pictured above. So if you really just dropped something on the watch and the display got obliterated, you probably aren’t gonna be able to pull a fast one here.)
As spotted by MacRumors, Apple has a full list of watches that are going to be covered under this new screen replacement program here. The company says that all eligible aluminum Series 2 and 3 watches will be covered under this new screen replacement program for 3 years from its original retail purchase date, or one year from today — whichever is longer.
After many months of rumors, purported leaks, and speculation, Apple will finally make the new trio of iPhones official on September 10. And today out of China comes a new report that seems to leak all of the new devices' specs. Before we go into the actual information, don't forget to take all of this with a healthy serving of salt - it's just an unconfirmed rumor at this point. That said, a lot of the stuff in it lines up with what we've heard in the past, and the rest is at least plausible. iPhone 11 This is the successor to the iPhone XR, and hence Apple's entry-level option for...
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Happy (almost) Labor Day to all the hardworking members of the early-startup community — entrepreneurs, founders, investors, engineers and everyone in between. We know how hard you work to build your dream, so we’re cutting you a break and extending our early-bird pricing on passes to Disrupt San Francisco 2019 through 11:59 p.m. (PST) onSeptember 6. One extra week to save up to $1,300.
Don’t fritter away this absolute last opportunity to save big bucks on our flagship event, where you’ll find more than 10,000 attendees, 400 media outlets and a passel of eager investors. Get your early-bird tickets now.
Disrupt events always feature incredible speakers, and we’ve got an amazing agenda lined up for you this year. Let’s take a look at just some of the discussions and interviews you’ll enjoy over the course of three Disruptive days.
Reigniting the Space Race: Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith intends to return the U.S. to crewed spaceflight, with a goal of doing so this year with its first suborbital trips. Hopefully, we can also get Smith to tell us the ticket price for a trip, once it begins taking on paying customers.
Could the U.S. Government Be Your Next Investor: No founder likes dilution, which is why the U.S. government is becoming an increasingly popular source for early-stage, ambitious venture capital. Hear from Steve Isakowitz (The Aerospace Corporation) along with other VC leaders and founders who have navigated the process to discover your next source of non-dilutive capital.
How to Build a Sex Tech Startup: As the old adage goes, sex sells. Cyan Banister (Founders Fund), Cindy Gallop (MakeLoveNotPorn) and Lora Haddock (Lora DiCarlo) will discuss the opportunities — and challenges — of building a successful sex tech startup, and how to capitalize on a market that’s projected to be worth more than $123 billion by 2026.
The Grass Is Greener: The cannabis industry is projected to reach $50 billion in 10 years. Keith McCarty (Wayv) and Bharat Vasan (Pax Labs) represent two of the biggest names in the market. Hear the duo talk about an industry with undeniable potential, but plenty of red tape to deal with, too.
Quite the appetizer, no? Then there’s the big event that everyone wants to watch — Startup Battlefield. Which awesome startup will outshine the rest and take home $100,000?
Want to meet and greet even more top early-stage startups? Be sure to stop by Startup Alley and connect with the TC Top Picks — and hundreds of other cool startups. This year, our editors hand-picked 45 companies that represent the very best in their tech categories. Check the list of winners right here so you can see which ones you want to meet IRL.
Disrupt San Francisco 2019 takes place October 2-4. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend, but be sure to take advantage of the one-week early-bird price extension. Buy your passes to Disrupt SF and save up to $1,300 — but only if you beat the new deadline: September 6 at 11:59 p.m. (PST).
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt San Francisco 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team byfilling out this form.
Nobody likes them, but price hikes happen, people. Price hikes happen. And the early-bird price for passes to Disrupt San Francisco 2019 disappears tonight, August 30 at11:59 p.m. (PST). Avoid the pain of paying more and enjoy saving up to $1,300. You have only a few hours left. Buy your Disrupt SF passes right now.
Why attend Disrupt SF? It’s simply the place to be for members of the early-stage startup ecosystem — no matter what your role. Take it from Luke Heron, CEO of TestCard Diagnostics. His company exhibited in Startup Alley at Disrupt SF ’17 and again at Disrupt Berlin ’18 — and recently closed on $1.7 million in funding.
“If you’re a startup founder or an entrepreneur,” said Heron, “attending Disrupt is a no-brainer.”
Need more reasons? Okay, we’ll break it down for you.
Programming across four stages, workshops, Q&A Sessions, panel discussions and a roster of speakers representing a veritable who’s who of tech leaders, icons, makers and doers. Check out the Disrupt agenda.
Startup Battlefield, where 15-30 outstanding early-stage startups launch on a world stage and vie for a $100,000 cash prize.
Startup Alley, featuring more than 1,000 early-stage startups — and don’t forget to meet our hand-picked TC Top Picks — 45 incredible startups made the cut this year.
Networking — especially but not exclusively in Startup Alley — is practically a contact sport at Disrupt events. And by that we mean you’ll find plenty of contacts to help drive your business forward. We even have a tool to help you… read the next bullet.
CrunchMatch, a free, business match-making service that can help you cut through the thousands of people to find and connect with founders and investors who share similar business goals.
The TC Hackathon, where up to 800 talented makers will compete for a $10,000 top prize, plus thousands more in cash and prizes from sponsored contests.
Sony is rumored to announce a successor to its Xperia 1 flagship soon and it looks like that will happen next week at IFA Berlin. Several shots of the alleged Xperia 2 appeared online and give us a good look at the upcoming device. Visually it retains most of the design characteristics of its predecessor with the exception of the rear camera placement which has been moved to the top left corner. Xperia 2 front and back Looking around the sides of the phone we see Sony kept the button placement intact with the volume, power and camera buttons all on the right side alongside the...
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Kid-friendly YouTube content now has its own website, youtubekids.com. The website will offer a similar experience to the existing YouTube Kids mobile app, where parents will be able to direct their child to videos that are age-appropriate, as well as track their child’s watch history and flag content missed by YouTube’s filters. At launch, the site won’t offer a sign-in option, but that will roll out at a later date, the company says.
The website’s imminent launch was quietly disclosed earlier this week by YouTube, and comes ahead of the official announcement of an FTC settlement which is said to include a multi-million dollar penalty against the Google-owned video platform for its violations of U.S. children’s privacy laws, COPPA.
The FTC ruling, when announced, will not be without precedent.
The FTC’s YouTube ruling will likely also require the same sort of age-gate, designed to redirect children under the age of 13 to a kid-safe, COPPA-compliant YouTube website where children’s personal information isn’t collected without parental consent.
The new website is only one of several changes YouTube has made in recent days, ahead of the FTC announcement.
The company also this week introduced new age groupings on YouTube Kids to now include a “Preschool” filter for those age 4 and under, in addition to a “Younger” group for ages 5 to 7, and an “Older” group for kids over 7.
YouTube Kids (“Older” age group)
And last week, the company expanded its child safety policies to remove — instead of only restrict, as it did before — any misleading family content, including videos that target younger minors and their families, those that contain sexual themes, violence, obscene, or other mature themes not suitable for younger audiences.
For example, videos of popular kids’ cartoon characters like Peppa Pig drinking bleach or getting her teeth violently yanked were showing up when children sought out Peppa Pig videos. These sorts of issues had been going on for years, in fact, but YouTube only addressed the situation by age-restricting the videos, after receiving high-profile press coverage. It also cut off monetization to some videos.
The bigger problem with YouTube, as consumer advocacy groups have argued, isn’t just that YouTube can be inappropriate for kids — it’s breaking the law.
YouTube Kids (“preschool” age group)
Organizations like the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) had asked the FTC to investigate YouTube, claiming that the company has been collecting personal information from nearly 25 million U.S. children for years, and then using this data to engage in “very sophisticated marketing techniques.”
The groups said YouTube hides behinds its terms of service which say its site is only meant for those 13 and up, while doing nothing from preventing younger users from gaining entry. (And clearly, younger users are on YouTube — after all, that’s why YouTube was able to spin out a subset of its content into its own YouTube Kids app in the first place.)
With the YouTube Kids website in place, now it’s only a matter of waiting for the FTC’s official ruling.
It also remains to be seen is whether the kid-safe content will actually be pulled from YouTube.com and placed on YouTube Kids alone, as the advocacy groups believe would be best.
Apple isn’t the only smartphone manufacturer planning a big September launch. Huawei’s got a big event on the books as well, set for September 18 in Munich, just over a week after the new iPhones are unveiled. For Huawei, however, the Mate 30 announcement is about more than just smartphones.
The event is effectively the first big handset launch since the embattled Chinese manufacturer was added to the U.S. trade blacklist. The move had seemingly been a long time coming, after years of allegations ranging from spying to sanctions violations, but with the ban in place, the move will mark a key moment of truth for a company that has so far been dependent on offerings from U.S. companies like Google.
The Mate 30, which also marks a push into 5G, could potentially launch without Google apps. The recent U.S. government reprieve only applied to already announced products, according to a statement Google gave to Reuters. Trump has suggested that ban on Huawei products could be lifted with a new U.S.-China trade deal, further clouding the suggestion that the move made purely out of concerns for security.
The smartphone maker gave its own comment to Reuters, noting, “Huawei will continue to use the Android OS and ecosystem if the U.S. government allows us to do so. Otherwise, we will continue to develop our own operating system and ecosystem.”
That last bit is a clear allusion to HarmonyOS. The recently unveiled operating is largely limited to low end handsets and IoT device, but Huawei is also certainly readying itself for a longterm life after Google.
Meanwhile, CNBC is citing a source that suggests the phone will launch with or without Google apps, depending on how things shake out over the next few weeks. That would likely amount to a minor nuisance, requiring users to download them after purchase, while a full out Android brand would prove far more harmful to its bottom line.
It seems quite unlikely at the moment, however, that the company would attempt to launch such a high end device with its own partially baked operation system.
Didi Chuxing will begin picking up ride-hailing passengers with self-driving cars in Shanghai in just a few months, according to company CTO Zhang Bo (via Reuters). The plan is to roll out autonomous pick-ups in Shanghai first, starting in one district of the city, and then expand the program from there – finally culminating in the deployment of self-driving vehicles outside of China by 2021.
Like Uber’s autonomous test vehicles, Didi’s cars will be staffed with a human driver on board during the initial launch period, which awaits a few remaining licenses before it can actually begin serving human passengers. Self-driving rides will be free for customers, and Zhang said that more than 30 different vehicles will be offered for self-driving trips as part of the pilot.
After its initial pilot launch in Shanghai, Didi will look to expand its offerings to Beijing and Shenzhen as well, with hopes to be live in all three cities by 2020.
Didi is the largest ride-hailing company in China, and beat out an attempt by Uber to establish a presence in the market, resulting in Uber selling its Chinese business to Didi and exiting the market in 2016 (in exchange for a minority stake). We spoke to Didi’s CTO (who asked to be identified by as ‘Bob’ at the time, hence the lower-third in the video below) later that same year about why the company believes it has an advantage when it comes to data-driven technology development relative to Uber and other ride-hailing companies.
Aside from a general sense in the industry that autonomy is a likely, if not inevitable end goal for ride-hailing and other mobility services with a technological focus, Didi is also likely motivated by a need for drivers to meet demand – and drivers who can provide a safe and secure experience for passengers. The company revealed in July that it had proved over 300,000 drivers that didn’t meet up to its safety standards after overhauling those standards last year.
The Volocopter 2X air taxi vehicle is now the first electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) craft to fly at an international airport, fully integrated into the same airspace as other commercial passenger craft. It performed this key milestone flight at Helsinki International Airport, in a demonstration mission that showed it successfully integrated with both traditional air traffic management, and air traffic management systems designed specifically for aircraft with no pilot on board controlling the vehicle manually.
The test is intended to show that air traffic management systems which are designed for both traditional piloted flight and autonomous aircraft, including air robotaxis, can operate in concert with one another, even in areas with dense sky traffic – including over cities in future.
Volocopter, which recently unveiled a new version of its eVTOL which it intends to be the version that goes into commercial service once it launches for paying customers, ran tests at Helsinki airport along with AirMap, Altitude Angel and Unifly, all providers of air traffic management services for unpiloted aerial craft. Through the test, they determined that the Volocopter systems work well with each provider, which is a key step towards gaining certification for commercial flight.
The German startup will be flying its 2X vehicle at an event in Stuttgart on September 14, but its next major milestone will be unveiling the new VoloCity commercial craft and its prototype VoloPort take-off and landing facility in Singapore later this year.
The direct-to-consumer trend in fashion has been one of the most interesting evolutions in e-commerce in the last several years, and today one of the trailblazers in the world of footwear is picking up some money from a list of illustrious backers to bring its concept to the masses.
Atoms, makers of sleek sneakers that are minimalist in style — “We will make only one shoe design a year, but we want to make that really well,” said CEO Sidra Qasim — but not in substance — carefully crafted with comfort and durability in mind, sizes come in quarter increments and you can buy different measurements for each foot if your feet are among the millions that are not exactly the same size — has raised $8.1 million.
The company plans to use the funding to invest in further development of its shoes, and to expand its retail and marketing presence. To date, the company has been selling directly to consumers in the US via its website — which at one point had a waiting list of nearly 40,000 people — and the idea will be to fold in other experiences including selling in physical spaces in the future.
This Series A speaks to a number of interesting investors flocking to the company.
It is being led by Initialized Capital, the investment firm started by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan (both had first encountered Atoms and its co-founders, Qasim and Waqas Ali — as mentors when the Pakistani husband and wife team were going through Y-Combinator with their previous high-end shoe startup, Markhor); with other backers including Kleiner Perkins, Dollar Shave Club CEO Michael Dubin, Acumen founder and CEO Jacqueline Novograts, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, TED curator Chris Anderson, the rapper Chamillionaire and previous backers Aatif Awan and Shrug Capital.
Investors have come to the company by way of being customers. “The thing that I love about Atoms is that it isn’t just a different look, it’s a different feel,” said Ohanian in a statement. “When I put on a pair for the first time, it was a totally unique experience. Atoms are more comfortable by an order of magnitude than any other shoe I’ve tried, and they quickly became the go-to shoe in my rotation whenever I was stepping out. That wouldn’t mean anything if the shoes didn’t look great. Luckily, that’s not a problem, I wear my Atoms all the time and even my fashion designer wife is a fan.”
Even before today’s achievement of closing a Series A, the startup has come a long way on a relative shoestring: with just around $560,000 in seed funding and some of the founders’ own savings, Atoms built a supply chain of companies that would make the materials and shoes that it wanted, and developed a gradual but strong marketing pipeline with influential people in tech, fashion and design. (That success no doubt played a big role in securing the Series A to double down and continue to build the company.)
Within the bigger trend of direct-to-consumer retail — where smaller brands are leveraging advances in e-commerce, social media and wider internet usage to build vertically-integrated businesses that bypass traditional retailers and bigger e-commerce storefronts to source their customers and sales more directly — there has been a secondary trend disrupting the very products that are being sold by using technology and advances in manufacturing. Third Love is another example in this category: the company has built a huge business selling bras and other undergarments to women by completely rethinking how they are sized, and specifically by focusing on creating as wide a range of sizes as possible.
So while companies like Allbirds — which itself is very well capitalised — may look like direct competitors to Atoms, the company currently stands apart from the pack because of its own very distinctive approach to building a mass-market business, but one that aims to make its product as individualised as possible.
You might think that approaching shoe manufacturers with the idea of creating smaller size increments and manufacturing shoes as single items rather than pairs would have been a formidable task, but as it turned out, Atoms seemed to come along at the right place and the right time.
“We thought it would be challenging, and it wasn’t unchallenging, but the good thing was that many manufacturers were already starting to think about this,” Ali said. “Think about it, there has been almost no innovation in shoe making in the last thirty or forty years.” He said they were happy to talk to Atoms because “we were the first and only company looking at shoes this way.” That helped encourage him and Qasim, he added. “We knew we would be able to figure it all out.”
Nevertheless, the pair admit that the upfront costs have been very high (they would not say how high), but given the principle of economies of scale, the more shoes that Atoms sells, the better the economics.
Currently the shoes sell for $179 a pair, which is not cheap and puts them at the high end of the market, so it will be interesting to see how and if price points evolve as it matures as a business, and competitors big and small begin to catch onto the idea of selling their own footwear at a wider range of sizes.
My colleague Josh, who first wrote about Atoms when they launched, is our own in-house tester, and as someone who could have easily moved on to another pair of kicks after he hit publish, he remains a fan:
“My Atoms have held up incredibly well from daily wear for 14 months,” he said. “They’re still my comfiest shoes and make Nikes feel uncomfortable when I try them again. They’ve sustained a tiny bit of wear on the front of the foam sole (the toe just below the fabric) while the bottoms have worn down a little like any shoes.
“The mesh fabric can pick up dirt or dust if you take them in the wilderness, and the sole isn’t hard enough that you won’t feel point rocks. But throwing them in the wash or a rub with a brush and they practically look new. The elastic laces are incredibly convenient.
“I’ve probably tied them 4 times since first lacing them up. And for a cleaner, more professional look you can tuck the bow of your laces behind the tongue. Their biggest problem is they’re porous and can let water through if you wear them in the rain or puddles.
“Overall, I’ve found them to be my best travel shoes because they’re so versatile. I can walk all day in them, but then go to a fancy dinner or nightclub. I can hike or even hit the gym with them if necessary, and they pack quite flat. With the quarter-sizing and different use cases, they make Allbirds look like restrictive outdoor slippers. For adults who still want to wear sneakers, the monochromatic color schemes and brandless, simple styles make Atoms feel as mature and reliable as you can get.”
Ali said that among those who buy one pair, some 85% have returned and purchased more, and that’s before it has even gone outside the US. Qasim said there has been a lot of interest in other regions, but for now it’s still following its original formula of keeping the organisation and business small and tight, with no plans to expand to further countries for the moment.
While we're still awaiting more details on the Samsung Galaxy A70s which will bring some minor improvements over the Galaxy A70 a new device believed to be Galaxy A71 made its way to Geekbench and revealed some of its key specs. The A71 comes bearing the SM-A715F model number and the listing tells us it features the same Snapdragon 675 chipset from the A70 paired with 8GB RAM. Geekbench has been known to mix up processor names in the past so it's not certain that the A71 will ship with the same SoC as its predecessor. Either way, the phone managed to push out 2540 points on the...
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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week we were back in the SF studio, with Kate and Alex on hand to chat venture, business, startups, and IPOs with Iris Choi. Choi is a partner at Floodgate, and one of the very few folks who have ever been invited back on the show.
Despite Floodgate being an early-stage firm, Choi was more than willing to dig into the week’s later-stage topics, starting with the Peloton IPO filing. Kate was stoked about the offering (her piece here, Alex’s notes here). Peloton, a fitness, media, hardware (and more) company, is a lot different than your run-of-the-mill enterprise SaaS exits.
Next Alex ran the team through a list of impending IPOs that we care about. There are a number of venture-backed companies looking to go public before the stock market falls apart. More on each when they price.
After the S-1 march, we turned to personnel news, namely that Instacart’s CFO is leaving the firm after about four years with the company. Ravi Gupta is joining Sequoia Capital. We’ll tell you why.
Next, we touched on two rounds. First, a Kleiner deal into Consider, an app that brings power-tooling to email. And then we chatted about Inkitt, another Kleiner deal. Why the pair of early-stage rounds? Because Alex recently went to Kleiner to chat with its new partner team about where they’ll deploy capital in the future.
And that took us comfortably overtime. A big thanks to Choi for joining us, again, and you for sticking with the show. More next week!
Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Downcast and all the casts.
A render of the Samsung Galaxy M30s that's rumored to go official next month has surfaced, showing the phone in a Blue-Green gradient. This image also corroborates previous leaks as you can see the back of the phone with a triple camera setup placed in the top-left corner inside a rectangular island which includes the flash as well. The rear cameras are joined by a fingerprint scanner and we can also see that the M30s has the power key and volume rocker on its right side, with the 3.5 mm headphone jack placed at the bottom. The Galaxy M30s is reportedly launching in India next...
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Ahead of IFA 2019 Lenovo just announced a pair of affordable tablets with the Tab M7 and Tab M8. Both are aimed as media consumption devices and offer Lenovo's Kid's Mode with a special child-friendly interface. The new tablets also feature thinner bezels compared to previous offerings from the company and are also offered with optional LTE support. Both devices are expected to go on sale in October. Lenovo Tab M8 The larger Tab M8 comes with an 8-inch IPS panel and is offered in both HD and FHD configurations. Under the hood we have the Helio A22 chipset paired with 2/3GB RAM and...
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Last week we saw live images of the Motorola Moto E6 Plus which revealed its design. Today, we are looking at its press renders which confirm the phone will come in at least three colors. From last week's images, we already know that Moto E6 Plus will have a notched display on the front and a dual camera at the back accompanied by a fingerprint scanner. And today's renders reveal that the smartphone will have a microUSB port at the bottom with the 3.5 mm headphone jack placed at the top. Moto E6 Plus As far as the specifications are concerned, the Moto E6 Plus is expected...
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Nubia unveiled the Red Magic 3 gaming smartphone in late April, and more than four months later, the company is all set to bring one more gamer-centric phone to the market - Red Magic 3S. The Red Magic 3S will be announced next week on September 5 at an event in China. The company hasn't revealed anything about the Red Magic 3S yet, but the phone is rumored to come with a Snapdragon 855+ SoC as opposed to the Snapdragon 855 that powers the Red Magic 3. The unveiling is less than a week away, but we may hear more about the Red Magic 3S in the days leading to the official...
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Die Zeit läuft ab, Leute translates very roughly to time is running out, people! You have only one week left to save a fat stack of euros on your pass to Disrupt Berlin 2019. Join us and startuppers from more than 50 countries on 11-12 December for the lowest possible price.
Our super early bird pricing comes to a grinding halt on 6 September at 11:59 p.m. (CEST). Buy your passes now and save up to €600.
If you want to have a uniquely thrilling experience at Disrupt Berlin, be sure to apply to one or all three major events taking place during the show. You can use this single application to apply to be considered for the TC Top Picks program and/or to compete in the mighty Startup Battlefield. Or, if the TC Hackathon is more your style, apply right here. Here’s more good news: all three programs are free. No application fees, no participation fees, no giving up equity.
If TechCrunch editors choose you to be a TC Top Pick, you’ll receive a free Startup Alley Exhibitor Package and an interview on the Showcase Stage with a TC editor. To qualify for consideration, your early-stage startup must fall into one of these categories: AI/Machine Learning, Biotech/Healthtech, Blockchain, Fintech, Mobility, Privacy/Security, Retail/E-commerce, Robotics/IoT/Hardware, CRM/Enterprise and Education.
Startup Battlefield has launched literally hundreds of startups to the world, and TechCrunch editors will select 15-20 startups to compete for $50,000 equity-free prize, serious bragging rights and a metric ton of investor and media attention.
Since 2007, 857 companies have launched at Startup Battlefield to great success. Collectively they’ve raised more than $8.9 billion in funding with 112 successful exits (IPOs or acquisitions). If you’re selected, you’ll join the ranks of this alumni community that includes Dropbox, GetAround, SirenCare, Fitbit, Mint.com, Vurb and more.
We’re accepting only 500 people to compete in the TC Hackathon — so don’t wait to apply. TechCrunch will award $5,000 for the best overall hack, and you’ll also compete for cash and prizes from our sponsored hacks — we’ll have more info on those challenges soon, so keep checking back.
There’s so much more to see and do at Disrupt Berlin — speakers, workshops, Q&A Sessions, plus hundreds of early-stage startups exhibiting in Startup Alley. Talk about a place to connect and network with people who can take your business to new heights.
Don’t miss your chance to save up to €600 on passes to Disrupt Berlin 2019. Our super early bird pricing disappears on 6 September at 11:59 p.m. (CEST). Buy your passes now and save up to €600. Die Zeit läuft ab, Leute!
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LG is in full-on IFA 2019 mode already. After we saw the K50s and K40s getting official, next in line is LG Q70. The device was just unveiled by the company and it is the first device of the S. Korean manufacturer with a punch-hole design of the front panel that LG conveniently calls it Hole-In-Display. The screen of the Q70 is 6.4" in diagonal with Full HD+ resolution. The cutout made way for the 16 MP selfie shooter, while on the back there are three cameras - main 32 MP f/1.8, 13 MP ultra-wide-angle lens with 120-degree FoV, and 5 MP depth sensor. On the inside, there is a...
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Nigerian fintech firm Interswitch has been circulating in business news around a possible IPO on the London Stock Exchange.
Last month Bloomberg News ran a story—based on unnamed sources—reporting the financial services firm had hired investment banks to go public on the LSE later in 2019. The piece spurred additional aggregated press.
That Interswitch—which provides much of Nigeria’s digital banking infrastructure—could become one of Africa’s earliest tech companies to list on a global exchange isn’t exactly news.
It’s more deja vu of a story that began several years ago.
As TechCrunch reported, Interswitch was poised to launch on the LSE in 2016. CEO and founder Mitchell Elegbe confirmed “a dual-listing on the London and Lagos stock exchange is an option on the table,” in a January 2016 call.
Two additional sources wired into Nigeria’s tech market and close to Interswitch’s investors also said the public launch would happen by the end of that year.
The IPO would have made Interswitch Africa’s first tech company to go from startup to a billion-dollar plus unicorn valuation status. Of course, it didn’t happen in 2016.
In 2017, TechCrunch checked in with Interswitch on the delay and was told the company could not comment on its pending IPO. In other public interviews, executives Mitchell Elegbe and Divisional Chief Executive Officer Akeem Lawal named Nigeria’s recession as a reason for the delay and reaffirmed a likely dual Longon-Lagos listing by the end of 2019.
After the latest round of IPO buzz, TechCrunch asked Interswitch this week about the Bloomberg reporting and an imminent public stock listing. ““Interswitch does not comment on market speculation,” was the only info a public spokesperson could offer.
So, its tough to say if or when the company could list. There are still a few reasons why the company (and its possible IPO) are worth keeping an eye on.
One is Interswitch’s growing role as a nexus for payments and financial services infrastructure in Nigeria (home of Africa’s largest economy), across Africa, and between Africa and the world. Back in 2002, the company became the pioneer for creating infrastructure to digitize Nigeria’s then predominantly paper-ledger and cash-is-king based economy.
Interswitch has since moved into high-volume personal and business finance, with its Verve payment cards and Quickteller payment app. The Nigerian company (which is now well beyond startup phase) has expanded with physical presence in Uganda, Gambia, and Kenya—the latter being home-turf of M-Pesa and Safaricom, which are largely responsible for making Kenya the mobile-money capital of Africa.
Interswitch also sells its products in 23 African countries, through bank partnerships, and has presence abroad. Through its Verve Global Card product, the company’s cardholders can now make payments in the U.S., UK, and UAE. Interswitch launched a partnership this month for Verve cardholders to make payments on Discover’s global network. The first transaction for the partnership was placed in New York, with an advertisement for the Nigerian company’s payment product flashing across Times Square. Another facet to a possible Interswitch IPO is its potential to spark more corporate venture arm and acquisition activity in African fintech, which as a sector receives the bulk of the continent’s startup capital. Interswitch launched a venture arm in 2015—called its global ePayment Growth Fund—that made two investments, but then went largely quiet.
A windfall of IPO capital and increasing competition from fintech startups could spur Interswitch to fire up its venture investing activity again. Startups such as Flutterwave and TeamAPT (formed by a former Interswitch alum) have already entered some of Interswitch’s product territory. If a public listing led Interswitch to ramp up investing in (or even acquiring) startups, the net effect would be more capital and exits in Africa’s fintech sector.
And finally, if Interswitch does IPO on the London and Lagos stock exchanges, it could provide another benchmark for global investors to gauge Africa’s tech sector beyond Jumia. This spring the e-commerce company became the first big tech firm operating in Africa to launch on a major exchange, the NYSE.
So far, Jumia’s IPO has been an up and down affair. The company gained investor and analyst confidence out of the gate, but also came under a short-sell assault and share-price volatility.
Two successful global IPOs of tech companies from Africa would and could become the best-case scenario for the continent’s startup scene. But for that to be a possibility, Interswitch will have to confirm the speculation and finally list as a publicly traded fintech firm.
Another facet to a possible Interswitch IPO is its potential to spark more corporate venture arm and acquisition activity in African fintech, which as a sector receives the bulk of the continent’s startup capital. Interswitch launched a venture arm in 2015