As is commonly the case, datasets used inside companies almost always come from diverse sources and in different, unstructured formats. Connecting them up can lead to a be a very large headache. But if it can be done, there are all sorts of benefits, especially in finance, such as fraud detection, KYC/AML checks etc. This is a problem particularly faced by financial firms, but it could also be useful in the areas of Covid contact tracing or general business intelligence.
The main platforms used at this point include Neo4j, Senzing, or Neptune from AWS. Alternatively, companies try to build their own solutions using Elasticsearch. But it remains a big problem to solve.
Now a new Berlin startup, which has tested its theories after being spun out from a larger corporate, is poised to tackle this thorny problem.
Tilo’s data infrastructure tool TiloRes says it helps companies match data points from different sources and formats, by being both serverless and doing it in near real-time and at scale, claims the company.
Tilo has now raised €1,200,000 in pre-Seed funding led by European VC Peak Capital which put in €640,000). The funding round was joined by Berlin-based Tiny VC (Philipp Moehring), First Momentum Ventures, Enduring Ventures and Angel Investors including the founder of Algolia and the former CMO of Contentful to name a few.
Peak’s investments include global auction marketplace Catawiki, headless content management system GraphCMS, and omnichannel communications platform Trengo.
As well as applications for KYC/AML, Tilo plans to offer its solution for free to anybody working in Covid contact tracing.
Founded in November 2021, Tilo has started pilot projects together corporates and startups. As its business model, Tilo charges a license fee based on the volume of data companies are processing through TiloRes. Because its serverless, the costs scale with the usage, making it cheaper than server-based solutions.
The market Tilo is taking on is large, and worth approximately $65 Billion according to Gartner.
Steven Renwick, Tilo CEO, said: “Our biggest advantage is that searching, matching and evaluating data (e.g. when checking for fraudulent behaviour in an online payment process) happens in near real-time, no matter how much data is added, or how complicated the entities become. This is important for modern needs, which nearly always demand real-time response rates.”
Tilo’s founding team, Renwick (CEO), Hendrik Nehnes (CTO), and Stefan Berkner (Chief Development Officer), were formerly the technology team at Regis24, a German consumer credit bureau. However, Regis24 agreed to spin out their solution and take a strategic stake in the startup.
Madeline Lawrence, Head of DACH Peak commented: “To be really honest, I didn’t grasp what Tilo was solving at first. Then I realized: we struggle with data matching ourselves. If CRM duplicates and spelling differences cause us such a headache, imagine the pain when the stakes are higher, the need is real-time, and the data in question is an order of magnitude larger.”
A new, unannounced Honor smartphone made an appearance on Geekbench's database with model number GIA-AN00 and it is believed to be the Honor 60 SE. Information regarding this handset is rather scarce so the Geekbench listing is more than welcome. The device is running MediaTek's Dimensity 900 chipset and at least one of the memory configurations will offer 8GB of RAM. The sheet also suggests that the phone will ship with Android 12 out of the box. Aside from those basic specs, the Geekbench result suggests that the Honor 60 SE, if that's really the marketing name, should arrive...
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In his latest newsletter, Mark Gurman details Apple’s 2022 iMac Pro refresh which is said to come with Cupertino’s current-gen M1 Pro and Max chipsets. The upcoming all-in-one desktop will reportedly come with a similar design to the current M1 iMac but with a larger screen diagonal - probably 27-inches. Apple previously discontinued its old Intel-powered iMac Pro back in March of last year. In addition to the iMac Pro rumor, Gurman details that AirPods Pro 2 will bring a stemless design that should look like the Beats Studio Buds that launched last summer. Beats Studio Buds...
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To buy a share in Amazon, you’d have to fork out almost $3,000. It’s a luxury very few can afford and despite the prospects of the trillion-dollar company or returns from its share price, it’ll take some contemplating to pay that full price for those who can afford to.
But with fractional investing, pioneered by Robinhood, access to these securities are democratized and people can own smaller shares in big companies.
There are many Robinhood-esque platforms globally because of a growing need to invest in U.S. stocks in different parts of the world.Bamboo, launched in January 2020, is one of such in Nigeria. Following two years of significant growth and raising $2.4 million to facilitate it, the investment firm is announcing that it has raised $15 million in a new financing round.
U.S.-based Greycroft and Tiger Global co-led the Series A round (it’s the second Tiger Global-led investment announced this month after Ghanaian fintech Float). Motley Fool Ventures, Saison Capital, Chrysalis Capital and Y-Combinator CEO Michael Seibel are some of the other investors in Bamboo’s round, per a statement seen by TechCrunch.
The average Nigerian only has a handful of ways to save and invest. The nation’s currency, the naira, experiences devaluation every other year against the dollar and currently runs on an almost 16% inflation rate.Building a portfolio of stocks, particularly U.S. stocks, is one way they can hedge against inflation and currency devaluation.
The S&P 500, for instance, has an average annualized return of 10.5% from 1957 through 2021.But Nigerians that could access such services, up until a few years ago, were HNIs with resources to open brokerage accounts and consult asset managers.
For the average Nigerian, it’s an expensive and tedious process that takes weeks. But Bamboo simplifies all that. As a brokerage and retail investment app via its partnership with DriveWealth LLC, it lets Nigerians set up an account in minutes and buy and trade U.S. stocks in real-time.
“What we essentially want to do is to make investing in the global stock market easy for Africans,” said Richmond Bassey, who founded the company with COO Yanmo Omorogbe.
“In accessing investment options, especially in capital markets, both locally and globally, we want to make that easy for Africans because we’re driven to help Africans create and preserve wealth by owning shares in the world’s most successful companies.”
Stock investing is relatively nascent in Nigeria, but Bamboo has managed to rack up impressive numbers quickly, showing expertise in user acquisition and retention. The company said it has more than 300,000 users; of that number, about 20% are active daily traders, while 75% never traded stocks before using the platform. In 2021, repeat depositors made up 85% of deposits on the Bamboo platform.
These users are charged a commission of 1.5% per transaction and about ₦45 (~$0.1) to $45 withdrawals for users with naira or dollar bank accounts, respectively.
Bamboo has competitors in the Nigerian retail investment space such as Chaka, Rise and Trove. They differ in the type and class of securities they offer; for instance, Bamboo gives access to U.S. stocks, ETFs and ADRs, while Chaka deals with stocks and ETFs trading on local and foreign capital markets, but all have collectively been subjected to regulatory issues at home.
Then in August, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) accused them of operating without licenses as asset management companies and “utilizing F.X. sourced from the Nigerian F.X. market for purchasing foreign bonds/shares.” A court order to freeze their accounts for six months pending CBN’s investigation followed. According to findings released by the CBN, the four fintechs had a total of ₦15 billion (~$30 million) turnover from January 2019 to April 2021.
It’s unclear where Bamboo stands with the first directive, but Bassey confirmed to TechCrunch that the company received a court order to unfreeze its accounts. Operating in a tight regulatory space has somewhat stood in the way of other features Robinhood and other investment platforms offer freely, yet Bamboo cannot, for now, such as crypto.
“Stocks and selling stocks is a regulated business and currently, we are only live in Nigeria. Working very closely with regulators in Nigeria, we have to work within the ambit of what they are comfortable with and what they allow.
“That’s the extent to which we are offering our services. Perhaps if we launched in other markets and regulators there have a different relationship with a certain asset class, we would also work within the ambit of what they are comfortable with,” said the CEO. He also stated that Bamboo is waiting for approvals from regulators to start offering Nigerian stocks before Q2 this year so Africans and those in the diaspora can tap into investment opportunities on the continent.
The next market for Bamboo is Ghana. Over 50,000 users have joined its waitlist since it announced intentions to launch in the neighbouring West African country, the company said. Similarly, there has been some demand from Kenya and South Africa, so Bamboo will look to move into those countries soon with this new funding.
Part of the funding will be used to scale the company’s tech infrastructure for smoother processes and faster withdrawals. The company also intends to introduce new offerings to add to its B2B product, allowing asset managers and fintech companies to integrate Bamboo into their offerings for their customers and trademark stock-trading product.
Bamboo’s round at this stage is akin to Robinhood’s Series A eight years ago, in terms of size. It’ll be unfair to assume that Bamboo can replicate the U.S. fintech giant’s growth trajectory over the years. Still, there’s no denying that with the backing of Tiger Global and Greycroft, who have backed successful retail platforms over the years (Robinhood and Public, respectively), the two-year-old Nigerian company is poised to reach mass scale across Africa in the following couple of years.
“These are very early days. If you think about it with the kind of technology that we’ve put together, the kind of brand that we’ve created, the access that we do both locally and globally, then we’ve come far, we are a unique team that incept a vision to say we want to get 1 million or 2 million Africans to invest in over the next 18 months and have a great shot at making it happen. We’re one of the few teams that can do that on the continent today, so the future is bright for us,” the chief executive remarked.
Samsung has already confirmed February 9 as an official announcement date for the Galaxy S22 series and the numerous detailed leaks from the past couple of months revealed pretty much everything there is to know about the upcoming trio. So Netflix adding support for Samsung's flagship SoC merely serves as another confirmation that the Galaxy S22 family will be running the Exynos 2200 in some countries. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 versions will still be distributed in the US, China and India. As for Netflix' list of supported devices and chipsets, it's a list that shows HD and HDR video...
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A new entry-level phone from TCL has made its way to Europe. TCL 305 is an Android 11 (Go Edition) device that packs a Helio A22 chipset, 6.52-inch LCD and a 5,000 mAh battery. It comes in Space Gray and Atlantic Blue colors and brings a €205 ($228) price tag. TCL 305 sports a 6.52-inch IPS LCD with HD+ resolution and a waterdrop notch up top for its 5MP selfie cam. The back houses a 13MP primary camera alongside a 2MP macro shooter and a 2MP depth helper. There’s a capacitive fingerprint scanner too. TCL 305 in Space Gray and Atlantic Blue The handset comes with just 2GB...
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Niklas Adalberth’s Norrsken Foundation is in the news again barely two months after opening its Norrsken House in Kigali, Rwanda, which plans to accommodate thousands of entrepreneurs by next year.
This time, the foundation has teamed up with thirty unicorn founders and a couple of seasoned venture capital and private equity investors to launch a $200 million fund targeted at African startups.
The fund, dubbed the Norrsken22 African Tech Growth Fund, has reached its first close of $110 million, per a statement seen by TechCrunch. It’s the latest fund launched by Norrsken after closing €125 million impact fundfor European startups last March.
Hans Otterling, a partner at Northzone, a U.K.-based early VC firm that led the investment in Adalberth’s previous company Klarna, is Norrsken’s founding partner alongside the Klarna co-founder.
Making up the firm’s investment are the general partners Natalie Kolbe, the ex-global head of private equity at Actis, a private equity fund investing in emerging markets; her colleague, Ngetha Waithaka; and Lexi Novitske, the ex-managing partner at Acuity Ventures Platform.Novitske told TechCrunch on a call that the firm is speaking to a few DFIs to reach a final close later this year.
Before Acuity, Novitske was principal at Singularity Investments. Portfolio companies across both firms include API fintechs such as Mono and OnePipe; and exited companies like Flutterwave, Paystack and mPharma.
Africa VC funding reached an all-time high in 2021 at over $4 billion, more than what startups in the continent raised in the two previous years combined. Growth and late-stage deals such as $100 million-plus rounds from unicorns Andela, Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, OPay and Wave and other companies largely propelled this growth. Nevertheless, they were relatively fewer than early-stage deals, per insights from Briter Bridges and The Big Deal.
There’s another issue besides the shortage of growth and late-stage checks. Most of these large deals are often financed by international VCs as local investors tend to focus on pre-seed to Series A rounds with micro to medium-sized funds.
“What’s happening is, and we’ve seen this in our Acuity portfolio, is that our founders, as they grow and want to scale, have to take time away from their business and spend it with Silicon Valley-based investors who they have to educate on the Africa growth story,” said Novitske on a call with TechCrunch.
“These investors are coming with their capital, which is valuable, of course, but they’re not coming with the local knowledge to help those companies scale across the continent. And that’s the missing middle that we’re looking to unlock with this fund.”
According to her, Norrsken22 intends to be that growth-stage local-based firm that will enable startups to unlock significant partnerships to grow revenue, find the best talent and facilitate expansion plans across Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
The firm, with offices in the countries above, is the latest big-sized Africa-focused VC fund that includes the likes of TLcom Capital which recently closed nearly half of its new $150 million fund; Novastar Ventures, a $200 million fund; and Partech Ventures, a $143 million fund.
While the others seldomly invest above Series B rounds, Norrsken22 is willing to go beyond that stage. Waithaka, speaking on the fund’s strategy, said Norrsken22 plans to invest 40% of its capital, about $80 million in Series A and B companies and the rest in follow-on rounds from Series C up until exit.
The firm will make 20 investments at an average ticket size of $10 million and may go as high as $60 million, including follow-on rounds in some portfolio companies, he continued.
“I think that reserve capital pool is really important because we do want to have the ability to support companies through their entire lifecycle,” said Kolbe picking up from where Waithaka left off in the conversation. “Innovation is uncertain, and it doesn’t happen overnight, so we want to be sure to be able to support the top winners in the company so they can be the champions in the tech ecosystem.”
Per sectors, Norrsken22 will rely on its general partners’ years of experience and investment philosophies to back startups in fintech, medtech, edtech and market-enabling solutions such as B2B marketplaces and inventory management businesses.
Kolbe, whose previous firm Actis backed Egyptian fintech giant Fawry in 2019 as it prepared to go public, said Norrsken would look at Egypt’ opportunistically.’ Deals from the country that may be of interest to the firm will be those planning an expansion into the four markets Norrsken22 is keen on right now: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.
Of the $110 million first close reached by Norrsken22, $65 million comes from a group of unicorn founders globally. Some of them include Flutterwave co-founder Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola; Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström; iZettle co-founder, Jacob de Geer; Delivery Hero co-founder Niklas Ă–stberg. Others include Carl Manneh, co-founder Mojang; Sebastian Knutsson, co-founder King; and Willard Ahdritz, founder of Kobalt Music.
Asides from the capital, the unicorn founders will help founders understand what it takes to bring their companies from series A to billion-dollar companies, said the founding partners. The Norrsken22 African Tech Growth Fund is also supported by a local advisory council board, which according to the partners, will help portfolio startups navigate business challenges across the continent.
Nonkululeko Nyembezi, the chairman of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), is a member of this board. Arnold Ekpe, the ex-group chief executive at pan-African bank Ecobank; Phuthuma Nhleko, an ex-chief executive at telecoms giant MTN; and Shingai Mutasa, founder and chief executive at Harare-based investment firm Masawara are the others.
As an anchor shareholder, the Norrsken Foundation intends to re-invest 22% of its carry into projects across the continent, including the Kigali House.
The Huawei Watch GT 3 is one of the best smartwatches on the market, and the company recently announced a new version called Watch GT Runner. The new device has a lot of similarities with the GT 3, but there are also some differences that need testing. The Huawei Watch GT Runner feels quite light, and has a bit sportier design with the cool stripes on the rubber strap. Another major change is the antenna design - it claims improved communication with the L1 and L5 satellites. The looks might be different, but the core functionality is largely unchanged. The Watch GT Runner is...
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The Samsung Galaxy S22 series was the hottest topic this past week. The three phones are officially coming on February 9 alongside the Galaxy Tab S8. We saw high-res renders of all models in all colors, got detailed specs and even prices. To recap the Galaxy S22 will have a 6.1-inch 1080p AMOLED of up to 120Hz variable refresh rate. On the back we'll see 50MP main camera alongside 12MP ultrawide, and 10MP 3x telephoto units. The battery capacity is going to be 3,700mAh. The Galaxy S22+ adds a bigger 6.6-inch display and 4,500mAh battery. The Galaxy S22 Ultra will have a 6.8-inch display...
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The new Redmi Note 11 series was unveiled earlier this week and it already went through a limited sale (an early bird deal with $20-30 worth of discounts). Did you get one? Will you get one once the phones become widely available and which one? That’s what we want to know this week. The Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G fills a 5G-shaped hole in the Note series. There was a Note 10 5G last year, but that was more of a mid-range offering and not a Pro. Anyway, the Note 11 Pro 5G is mostly identical to its 4G-only sibling with the key difference being the Snapdragon 695 chipset. Redmi Note 11 Pro...
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Welcome to my new weekly fintech-focused column. It’s an incredible time to be a financial technology journalist. Besides the fact that over 20% of all venture dollars last year went intofintech startups, I am particularly excited about the many ways that this technology is helping boost inclusion all over the world. While this pandemic has sucked on 100 different levels, one good thing to have come out of it is that consumers and businesses have forced more fintech to exist, and that’s a good thing.
There has been plenty of drama at online mortgage lender Better.com over the last couple of months and it appears that just because its infamous CEO Vishal Garg isback at the helm, there is still no shortage of controversy surrounding the company. Earlier this week, Axios’ Dan Primack revealed that investorSoftBank, “in its apparent zeal to back the company,” promised to give Garg the 1.9% voting rights tied to its original investment, “contingent on the final settlement of certain legal proceedings (which has not yet occurred).” For those who haven’t been following this saga, Garg has received a ton of negative press for his unfeeling way oflaying off 900 people over Zoom, berating his own investors over email and accusing employees of being “lazy” and “dumb dolphins.”
We’ve all been wonderinghow this man can still be running the showand perhaps SoftBank’s conditions help explain it. Meanwhile, one former staffer tells me that Better employees are so upset that Garg is back, that they are leaving the company in droves. Reportedly, employees at every level – from loan officers to senior executives (some of whom are believed to be leaving potentially millions of dollars in equity on the table). As the employee told me, “It’s an astonishing fall from grace. It would not be a stretch to say that the top talent and hundreds from every department have fled in the wake of Zoomgate.”
Image Credits: Better.com CEO Vishal Garg / LinkedIn
But that’s not all. Now that Garg is back, he is apparently paranoid about things being leaked to the media and according to one employee, he and the rest of the execs still there “have put everything on lockdown.”
For example, engineering managers were said to have had an AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Garg and only in-person workers were allowed to attend. Those employees had to sign NDAs and place phones in paper bags, and there were even metal detectors to make sure no one had recording devices. Also, the company has reportedly disabled sharing of Google documents internally and they’ve blocked access to all companywide dashboards – likely because business has probably suffered dramatically. As the employee put it: “There’s no transparency into anything. Vishal doesn’t trust anyone.”
Now let’s talk about payments
Small businesses might soon be able to accept payments using their iPhones without the need for extra hardware, according tothis piece, which cites Bloomberg. This is interesting because if true, Apple could be viewed as taking on Square in the contactless payments space. I found all this particularly intriguing because in October, I wrote about a startup namedMagicCube– which is backed by the likes of Visa – that is building technology that will impact Android users.
Image Credits: MagicCube
That company’s software-based tech gives merchants a way to accept card payments on any consumer device with no reader or extra hardware required. CEO and co-founder Sam Shawki told me in October that he believed his startup “will be the dominant party on the Android side, which is 85% of the universe.”
Last week, Shawki told me he has an even greater vision when it comes to contactless payments:
Apple’s entry into the payments’ acceptance market will ignite the space for sure. But there is an even better vision of softPOS acceptance that goes beyond Apple’s: one that is built on an open platform, where all devices and all card networks are welcome, payment data is truly secured to the highest standards, and platforms are easily scalable. A broad ecosystem of technology pioneers, payments networks, issuers, and acquirersare developing a softPOS solutionthat extends beyond any company’s walled garden.
In this vision, merchants own their own data. On any device and operating system, softPOS is easy to implement, and requires no certifications. Expensive, dedicated devices become obsolete.. As these technologies proliferate in everyday life, we’ll witness the advent of theInternet of Payments…Together, sooner than you might think, the newcomers will unseat the incumbents. The meteor is about to hit. And we’ll all be better off for it.
The fact that more companies are making it easier to pay without contact is not surprising and welcome as that spells security and convenience for users. It will be exciting to watch how this all plays out.
Notable rounds and a new fund
Our Nigeria-based startups reporter, TageKene-Okafore last weekwrote about Esusu, a New York-based fintech company that targets immigrant and minority groups and provides rent reporting and data solutions for credit building, thatraised $130 millionin a Series B round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The investment gave four-year-old Esusu a valuation of $1 billion, making it one of the very few black-owned unicorns in the U.S. and globally (love to see this list growing!). Esusu co-founders and co-CEOs Nigerian-born AmericanAbbey Wemimoand Indian AmericanSamir Goelcome from immigrant homes and say they experienced firsthand financial exclusion. That led them to start Esusu in 2018 in an effort to build the credit scores of immigrants and African-Americans and “leverage data to bridge the racial wealth gap” via rental payments.
Esusu
Tage also covered NALA, a Tanzanian cross-border payments company that recently pivoted from local to international money transfers, and its recent $10 million seed raise. The startup’s mission is to build the “Revolut for Africa.” You can read all about ithere.
Besides Esusu, last week saw yet another fintech unicorn being born. CaptivateIQ, whichclaims to automate commission workflows using AI, raised its third round in 20 months.Less than 10 months after raising its $46 million Series B, CaptivateIQraised $100 million in a Series C roundat a $1.25 billion valuation. The San Francisco-based startup, which has developed a no-code SaaS platform to help companies design customized sales commission plans, says it “more than tripled” its revenue compared to the year prior, although it declined to provide hard revenue figures. A trio of firms co-led CaptivateIQ’s latest investment, including ICONIQ Growth and existing backers Sequoia and Accel.
In M&A activity, investment banking firm UBS picked up financial robot-advisor Wealthfront for $1.4 billion in an all-cash deal. Alex unpacked the deal for ushere.
Unsurprisingly, Latin America continues to be a hotbed of fintech activity. I covered Brazilian lender Creditas’s$260 million Series F fundingthat valued the company at $4.8 billion. That’s up from the fintech’s $1.75 billion valuation at the time of its $255 million raise in December 2020. Fidelity Management led the latest round. One of the most interesting things about this company, besides all the cool services it provides (including offering Latin Americans a way to borrow money at a MUCH lower interest rate than traditional banks offer) is share all its financials! Seriously, the extent at which this company shares the details of its finances is something to be admired and we wish all startups would follow suit.
Image Credits: Creditas
Impressively, in the third quarter of 2021, Creditas says it notched US$46.8 million in revenue – up 233% from $14 million in the 2020 third quarter. It has been focused on growth, so it is still reporting a loss. But founder and CEO Sergio Furio told me that he projects annualized revenue of about $200 million for 2021. Not bad at all! I’m excited to watch this one keep growing.
I also covered a new fintech fund started by a true fintech influencer and all-around nice person, Nik Milanović. For over two years, Nik has been putting out a newsletter called This Week In Fintech, working at Google Pay and angel investing. Most importantly, he’s been building a true community of fintech enthusiasts all around the world. Now he’s putting his money where his mouth is and launching his own venture fund, called simplyThe Fintech Fund. Nik is trying to raise $10 million for his fund, which has a bunch of cool LPs including investors who put money in fintech startups through other vehicles (such as Bain Capital, Better Tomorrow Ventures and Cowboy Ventures’ Jillian Williams) and a several founders including NerdWallet co-founder Jake Gibson and The Block’s Mike Dudas. Also, I love the fact that the fund has an explicit target of over 25% or more of its dollars and total number of investments going to founders from underrepresented backgrounds. I mentioned inclusion up top and it’s worth noting that Nik is big on it too. GO NIK!
Image Credits: Founder Nik Milanovic / The Fintech Fund
That’s it for now. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it. Now, go enjoy what’s left of this weekend!
The selfie-centric vivo's V23 series is out, and we already have reviews of both the vanilla and the Pro version. But the focus of our latest video review is on the vivo V23 5G - a slick midranger with innovative glass Fluorite AG Glass that changes colors. Despite the notch on the front, the handset features a trendy design. It also packs some pretty balanced hardware with excellent battery life and 44W fast charging. The solid 50MP selfie camera coupled with a secondary ultra-wide and 2 front-facing LED lights is another standout feature that puts the V23 ahead of the...
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A couple of days ago, some OnePlus Nord 2T specs leaked in the wild and now we have an expected price range for all of the handset's memory configurations along with a supposed release time frame. The same source tries to guess the rumored Nord 2 CE's price as well. Starting with the Nord 2T, which should replace the current Nord 2, 91mobiles believes that the device will be priced between INR 30,000 and INR 40,000. This range probably covers all configurations. In Euros, it's between €360 and €480. However, we believe that the European prices will be a tad higher due to import taxes. The...
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5G phones are now widely available, but the same can’t be said of 5G networks. Last week’s poll shows that the greatest barrier to adoption is that some countries still haven’t launched their 5G networks. The second most common issue is that many users don’t have a 5G-capable phone yet (about a quarter of voters). Not really surprising, if they don’t live in an area with 5G coverage. Of course, that hasn’t stopped makers from selling 5G phones in those regions – they frame it as future-proofing. And they do put in the work, e.g. Airtel in India was using phones from Apple, Realme,...
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Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.
The app industry continues to grow, with a record number of downloads and consumer spending across both the iOS and Google Play stores combined in 2021, according to the latest year-end reports. App Annie says global spending across iOS, Google Play and third-party Android app stores in China grew 19% in 2021 to reach $170 billion. Downloads of apps also grew by 5% reaching 230 billion in 2021 and mobile ad spend grew 23% year-over-year to reach $295 billion.
In addition, consumers are spending more time in apps than ever before — even topping the time they spend watching TV, in some cases. The average American watches 3.1 hours of TV per day, for example, but in 2021, they spent 4.1 hours on their mobile device. And they’re not even the world’s heaviest mobile users. In markets like Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea, users surpassed five hours per day in mobile apps in 2021.
Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours, either. They can grow to become huge businesses. In 2021, 233 apps and games generated more than $100 million in consumer spend, and 13 topped $1 billion in revenue, App Annie noted. This was up 20% from 2020, when 193 apps and games topped $100 million in annual consumer spend, and just eight apps topped $1 billion.
This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too.
There was a time when developers were too scared to say anything bad about Apple’s App Store for fear of repercussions to their own apps. That time has long since passed. Apple is under regulatory scrutiny, facing investigations and engaged in lawsuits over its App Store and its alleged antitrust practices, according to some authorities. Meanwhile, because more are open to pointing out when the App Store makes mistakes, it seems as if those issues are more common and frequent. In reality, Apple may have made just as many mistakes in the past, but they were only discussed in backchannels, not publicly on the web and social media. For the developer community, the stories that emerge from this closer look into the day-to-day goings-on of the App Store can be disheartening. Every week, it’s something new.
This week, for example, one story highlighted how Apple approved what was described as a shameless clone of the popular game “Unpacking,” even allowing the clone (“Unpacking Master”) to reach the top of the App Store’s free charts before its removal. The developer has since apologized, but this latest event comes only days after a number of developers tried to game the App Store with clones of the popular web game Wordle. These incidents seem to convey a message to the community that if you don’t have an iOS version of your app or game, you’re going to get knocked off — and your brand could suffer.
Elsewhere, another developer called Fanhouse decided that it would now punish its own iOS users by jacking up subscription prices by 50% in order to cover its App Store commissions. An outspoken critic of the commission structure, the company, of course, wants to collect fees through its own website, but isn’t allowed to point to that option on iOS. This is also the type of incident that would have never been heard of in such a public fashion years ago. The changing regulatory climate has allowed smaller developers to speak out about how they want altogether different rules, not just a price cut for registering as a small business.
Apple’s new plan for contactless payments
Is Apple preparing to more directly take on Square and other companies that help small businesses process payments? That’s the latest report from Bloomberg this week, which claims Apple has been working on a new feature since 2020 (following its Mobeewave acquisition) that would turn the iPhone itself into a payment terminal. The feature would involve NFC technology — meaning customers could tap their credit card to the iPhone to pay, instead of using an additional piece of hardware, like a payment terminal or simpler card reader. There are questions as to how this feature would operate. If Apple were to allow third parties to tap into the feature via an API, for example, it could boost the entire iOS mobile payments ecosystem. If, however, Apple decides these payments must only flow through Apple Pay, then it will be setting itself up as a competitor to existing payment providers and businesses serving the small business market — but at the risk of further regulation.
Apple didn’t respond to comments, Bloomberg’s report noted — and of course, we won’t know anything for sure until it’s officially announced. The timing is ripe for such a shift, as the pandemic has prompted increased adoption of contactless mobile payments in markets that had been slow to make the transition, such as the U.S.
App Store Upgrades
The App Store got a number of notable updates this week to APIs and Search Ads and more (see below). But one new feature stands out as a much bigger improvement: Apple has launched a new App Store feature that will allow developers to distribute “unlisted” apps within the App Store.
To be clear, this is not really meant for distributing betas for testing purposes, which will continue on TestFlight. Nor is it meant for widescale enterprise distribution of apps to an employee base. Instead, the feature can be used to publish unlisted apps, including consumer-facing apps, that are meant for more limited distribution. This could include those apps intended for a limited audience, says Apple, like those for “specific organizations, special events, or research studies.” The feature could also be used to distribute apps to employee-owned devices that can’t be managed through Apple’s School Manager or Business Manager platforms, which would aid organizations that have BYOD policies or lack enterprise distribution infrastructure.
Unlike public apps, the unlisted apps won’t appear on the App Store in category listings, recommendations, charts, search results, or, really, anywhere. Instead, the only way to get to the app’s download page will be with a direct link. It will be interesting to see how this feature ends up being used by businesses and other organizations, and how strict Apple will be when determining whether or not an app is eligible for unlisted distribution — a process that requires approval. There are many cases where developers want to test an app with a wider audience but bump up against TestFlight’s limit of 10,000 external testers. Will Apple finally allow these broader tests to have App Store distribution, too? Time will tell.
Weekly News
Platforms: Apple
Image Credits: Apple
Apple upgraded Search Ads to support custom product pages. Now developers can create up to 35 additional versions of App Store product pages in order to showcase different app features, content or promotions for given search terms. These pages can also be integrated with Apple’s Search Ads, so they can be used as ads that appear at the top of search results on the App Store.
Apple extended the in-app purchase exemption for developers impacted by the pandemic, in select apps. Specifically, Apple will continue to defer its App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1, which requires apps offering “paid online group services” to do so via in-app purchases. The impacted developers — whose original business models were built around in-person events, not virtual ones — have been able to forgo Apple’s requirement to use its in-app purchase system during the pandemic. This includes one-to-few and one-to-many services, like online seminars or group yoga classes.
Apple updated the App Store Connect API with more capabilities around automating and customizing workflows in apps. Now, developers can create and submit in-app events, custom product pages and product page optimization tests. The release also includes support for the updated App Store submission experience, which lets you submit multiple items, submit without a new app version and retrieve submission statuses.
Apple released iOS 15.3, iPadOS 15.3, watchOS 8.4 and tvOS 15.3. Notably, iOS 15.3 patches 10 major security flaws affecting Safari, root privileges and more. One of the iPhone flaws being addressed with the update was being “actively exploited” — a vulnerability (CVE-2022-22587) that could have led to kernel code execution. It also released the first developer betas of iOS 15.4, iPadOS 15.4, tvOS 15.4 and watchOS 8.5.
Apple fixed an iCloud server issue that was causing sync issues for developers. The problem had prevented apps from properly syncing across platforms and had been going on for at least a couple of months. As Apple fights to retain platform fees for its App Store, it’s a bad look to have major, breaking issues unaddressed for months.
One interesting iOS 15.4 feature is an update to Face ID that would allow it to work with a mask, but without Apple Watch authentication, by recognizing the “unique features around the eye.” Meanwhile, Universal Control was spotted in the iPadOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3 betas.
Apple earnings: The company reported Q1 revenue of $123.9 billion, up 11% year-over-year, net income of $34.6 billion and “services” sales of $19.5 billion. Apple has 785 million paying subscribers across its suite of paid services in the quarter, and over 1.8 billion active devices worldwide, a new record.
Platforms: Google
Google released Android Studio Bumblebee (2021.1.1) and Android Gradle plugin (AGP) 7.1.0; the latest versions of Android official IDE and build system. The releases include improved functionality across the developer workflow in areas like Build and Deploy, Profiling and Inspection, and Design. Notable additions include a unified test execution between Android Studio and your continuous integration (CI) server; pairing flows to support ADB over Wi-Fi; improved Profiler tools to help identify and analyze your app; and new ways to preview animations and UI interactions without deploying your app to a device.
Google updatedits recently released final unit of itsAndroid Basics in Kotlinself-paced programming course, in response to feedback from educators and learners. The company added new projects that allow developers to apply their learnings as well as new topics to prepare students for more advanced material.
Android apps are coming to Windows 11 next month as part of the operating system’s next big update, Microsoft noted in a blog post this week. The company had already previewed its plans to bring mobile apps to Windows. They’ll initially launch as a “public preview” (beta) to allow further testing.
The Google Play Store dropped Verizon from its carrier billing program. Verizon subscribers were emailed about the change, which will go into effect next month.
Google Play also added a new Offers tab to showcase deals on its games and apps. These sorts of deals were previously features throughout the Play Store, but now have a centralized location in the app. The tab will roll out first to the U.S., India and Indonesia.
Augmented Reality
Image Credits: Snap
Snapchat upgraded its AR Shopping experience with updates to both the Shopping Lenses inside and the analytics shared with Snap’s brand and retail partners. For consumers, the AR shopping feature will now display key product information, updated in real-time, like the current product pricing and color details, alongside product descriptions and unique links to make purchases on new Lens Product Cards that appear as users virtually try on products. For brands, the updates are focused on providing more data about how their AR shopping features are performing.
Fintech
Coinbase added a new tax center feature to its app that will help U.S. customers understand how much they may owe the IRS in cryptocurrency transactions.
Personal finance expert Tori Dunlap, the founder of Seattle-based Her First $100K, partnered with the startup Treasuryto launch her own app teaching users investing basics via paid courses and workshops, followed by live investing and Q&As.
Trading app Robinhood reported Q4 revenue of $363 million, up 14% year-over-year, and total 2021 revenue of $1.82 billion, up 89% year-over-year. MAUs are also up to 17.3 million, but the stock dropped 10% due to weaker Q1 2022 guidance.
Social
Reddit had begun quietly testing a feature that would allow users to set their NFTs as their profile photo on the social network, similar to Twitter’s new feature. The company said the test was a small, internal experiment but had already demonstrated interest in NFTs following last year’s release of its first digital assets, called CryptoSnoos.
Twitter is testing an experimental “Flock” feature that will let you share your tweets with your closest friends only, instead of the wider, public network.
A well-liked third-party Twitter app, Tweetbot,got a big upgrade that added support for three new widgets, four custom icons, an iCloud sync status display option and more.
TikTok is testing a number of new features, including Bitmoji-like avatars, live audio streams, screen sharing features, filtering for the For You page, and other new creator tools, like subscriptions. The app is always experimenting with new features, but rarely announces any of its tests officially, which would allow it to gain broader feedback.
TikTok surpassed YouTube as the third-most-popular influencer platform among U.S. marketers in 2021, according to Insider Intelligence (previously, eMarketer) data. In 2022, the firm expects 45.7% of U.S. marketers from companies with 100 or more employees to use TikTok for influencer marketing versus 42.5% for YouTube.
A report by the FTC found that U.S. consumers lost $770 million in social media scams in 2021, up 18x from 2017. Much of the scam activity took place on Facebook and Instagram’s apps, the report found, including newer scams involved online shopping and cryptocurrency investments.
Photos
Photo sharing platform Flickr (yep, it’s still around) teamed up with Picscart to offer its Flickr Pros members a free trial to the Picsart creative platform. The tie-up is an interesting way to pair online photo hosting with photo editing, giving Flickr Pros access to a community with more than 150 million MAUs.
Messaging
WhatsApp added support for iOS Focus modes and a new voice-recording feature, which will allow users to pause and resume while recording messages, among other, smaller updates that were previously in testing.
Messenger upgraded its end-to-end encrypted chat experience. Although default end-to-end encryption won’t fully arrive on Facebook Messenger until sometime in 2023, the company said its feature offering end-to-end encrypted group chats and calls in Messenger is now fully rolled out. In addition, Messenger is adding another security feature with the launch of screenshot notifications in end-to-end encrypted chats, similar to Snapchat, that will alert you if someone snaps a photo from Messenger’s disappearing messages. Users will also now be able to add GIFs, stickers and reactions to their encrypted chats.
Meta has started a marketing campaign to push for increased WhatsApp adoption in the U.S. The campaign will tout WhatsApp’s encrypted messaging as its advantage. In an interview with The Verge, Meta’s head of WhatsApp Will Cathcart said WhatsApp has no intention of adding RCS compatibility, however.
Dating
Tinder updated its approach to handling reports of serious abuse and harassment in its app. As a result of its ongoing partnership with nonprofit and anti-sexual assault organization RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), Tinder rolled out a handful of product improvements to make reporting easier as well as training for internal teams at the dating app maker designed to better support survivors of abuse and harassment. Soon, Tinder also says its members will have access to background checks on their matches through Garbo, a nonprofit the dating app maker invested in last spring.
Muslim dating app Muzmatch is engaged in a lawsuit with dating giant Match. The smaller app maker claims to have been repeatedly approached for a buyout but declined, and was then sued by Match over trademark claims (e.g. its use of “match” in its name and branding). Muzmatch, however, had previously settled another lawsuit with Match over copying Tinder’s swipe feature. The company didn’t admit guilt but removed the gesture as a result. It was also accused of using similar branding involving the way its heart icon looked in its logo, which it defended but then also changed.
Streaming & Entertainment
NBCUniversal and TikTok announced an advertising partnership for the Winter Olympics that will feature a new creative ad experience of some sort. It will also see NBC posting content across its TikTok accounts, including daily posts of highlights and trends and three livestreams hosted by a TikTok creator.
Gaming
Crypto games come to App Annie’s Game IQ service. The app intelligence firm said it’s adding a “play-to-earn” (P2E) tag to its categorization system in Game IQ, to better track these games which are beginning to find their way to mobile. Said App Annie: “…we are seeing nascent indications of mobile publishers beginning to leverage similar P2E features on mobile. Released in November 2021, Thetan Arena, an Action > Brawl game includes Play-to-Earn features amidst Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) gameplay. In less than 3 months, the game has amassed 10 million downloads worldwide.”
Netflix’s lineup of 13 mobile games have been downloaded more than 8 million times since the first games launched on November 3, 2021, reported Apptopia. (Some had also been previously available on the app stores.) Apple’s rules require each game to be downloadable individually so as not to compete with its own App Store app as a games distributor. To run the games, however, users will need a Netflix login.
Image Credits: Apptopia
Productivity/Utilities
Google Assistant’s Android app on the Play Store — a shortcut for launching the Assistant that’s built-in to Android phones — recently topped over 1 billion installs, according to Play Store data. Users don’t actually need to install the app to use Assistant, but many don’t realize this. Around seven months ago, the app had hit 500,000 installs.
Family tracking and communication app Life360 said it will stop selling precise location data following an investigation that found it was selling to a dozen data brokers.
Government & Policy
Apple was fined $5.6 million for noncompliance with a Dutch order that required it to allow local dating apps to use third-party payments tech. Apple’s rules have required apps to use its own in-app payments API, ban alternative payment systems and ban references to other payment methods inside apps. But the order would change that. Apple, however, was delayed on the implementation. Apple has planned to create a system where apps using third-party payments would still have to pay Apple platform fees which were only slightly reduced from before, when they used third-party payments. It’s unclear how that will fly with the regulator.
Google was sued by Washington, D.C., Texas, Washington state and Indiana AG’s for deceiving users by collecting their location data when users thought they had tracking disabled. Google’s support page informed users they could turn off Location History any time to disable the storing of their location data. But even with the setting paused, some Google apps were still storing time-stamped location data without asking.
TikTok got in trouble for “stealth marketing” in Japan for posting videos to Twitter without informing the audience the posts were sponsored content, violating industry guidelines in the country. The app maker had secretly paid influencers to boost content for around two years.
India contemplates making its own OS to compete with iOS and Android, according to The Economic Times. Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Monday the government is planning to come up with a policy that would allow the industry to create its own OS. In other words, the talk and the future reality are still quite far apart.
WhatsApp was quizzed over consumer protection concerns in the E.U. The complaint about how WhatsApp tried to get its users to accept terms of service changes has now evolved into a formal investigation.
Microsoft, the DOJ, and 35 U.S. states are now supporting Epic Games through amicus briefs in the Epic Games vs. Apple lawsuit filed in the Ninth Circuit appeals court. While it’s good to have friends, that doesn’t mean Epic’s legal battle will be any easier given that a prior court already examined the case and declared Apple to not be a monopolist.
Funding and M&A
Weather forecast company and popular app maker AccuWeather acquired French startup Plume Labs, which offers an app that tracks air pollution. Ahead of this deal, AccuWeather had been integrating Plume Labs’ data into its own forecasting products. Deal terms weren’t disclosed.
Singapore-based mental health startup Intellect raised $10 million in Series A funding led by HOF Capital. The company offers online wellness and therapy sessions both as an employee benefit and through a consumer app.
Crime-tracking app Citizen acquired Harbor, a disaster prep app, for an undisclosed sum. Harbor, which is Citizen’s first acquisition, helps users prep for crises like fires and earthquakes by assigning them preparedness tasks on a rolling basis to make getting prepped less overwhelming.
Indian social investment app StockGro raised $32 million led by Bitkraft Ventures, General Catalyst and Lightricks co-founder Itai Tsiddon, in a round that’s a mix of primary and secondary funding (and some early backers have exited). The app offers a gamified interface that helps users discover trading strategies, as well as compete and interact with other users.
Indian food delivery app Swiggy raised $700 million in a Series K (?!!) round of financing that values the seven-year-old Bengaluru-based startup at $10.7 billion. The round, led by Invesco, raised $1.25 billion just six months ago.
Parthean, a personal finance monitoring and education app, raised $1.1 million at a $12 million valuation from Litani Ventures, Gaingels, Amino Capital and others. The app lets users integrate their finances via Plaid in order to show financial health metrics in real time.
Casual open world mobile game Rocky Road raised $2.5 million in a seed round led by Crowberry Capital and Sisu Game Ventures. The “casual MMO” hails from Icelandic serial entrepreneur and QuizUp founder Thor Fridriksson, but the game won’t be out for a year. Details are sparse, but Rocky Road will use real-world map data and will include mini-games that can be played on your own or with friends.
London-based grocery delivery app Zapp raised $200 million in Series B funding to fuel its expansion to other big cities. The round was co-led by Lightspeed, 468 Capital and BroadLight Capital.
Downloads
Pestle
Image Credits: Pestle
A newly launched recipe app called Pestle aims to do more than provide a place to save and organize your favorite recipes. The app, from indie developer Will Bishop, also helps you plan meals, create shopping lists, keep up with new recipes from creators and even cook hands-free or with friends and family remotely over Apple’s SharePlay feature for FaceTime. The result is a well-built recipe app that provides a better experience for the end user, and one which tries to respect the creator content it organizes by offering source links, tools to discover more recipes from the same creator as they’re published and a feature that encourages repeat visits to recipe sites. However, there are issues with the food publishers’ links not being quite as visible as they should be, which may cause concerns. But from the end user’s perspective, the app is handy, with features like automatically organized folders, a guided cooking experience where you can move through recipes step-by-step, hands-free voice controls, built-in shopping lists with Reminders integration and more. (Read more here on TechCrunch.)
Podcastle
Image Credits: Podcastle
Podcastle’s audio creation app has grown to 200,000 users in less than a year, backed by now $9 million in funding. The app allows users to schedule podcast interviews, invite guests, record podcasts in HD sound and access the final master files from the guest’s phone. Files are offered in locally uncompressed lossless WAV format. In addition to the support for a remote multitrack interview, the app also supports background noise removal, a text-to-speech converter, transcription features and A.I. technology to improve the sound of your voice, among other features. Projects can also be edited on the company’s web platform. The result is a podcast studio and rival to Spotify’s Anchor. The iOS app is a free download.
Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by thedaily TechCrunch+ columnwhere it gets its name.Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign uphere.
Hello my dear friends, here’s hoping that you are warm, safe, and happy today. Welcome to the weekend. Today’s Exchange note is somewhat brief, and, I hope, good fun. We’re talking gaming and competition, two of my very favorite things.
Notes on the gaming world
While the venture capital world loses its mind over crypto-based video games bringing fiscally focused activity to the “gaming” space, some builders are sticking to more traditional models.
One such company is Frost Giant, which announced a Series A this week worth $25 million, and is building a de novo RTS game. As a longtime fan of the genre, I am incredibly excited about this. As a business and technology journalist, I am curious as well.
I got on the phone the other day with its founders – the TwoTims – to chat through what they are building. Details are somewhat sparse at the moment because the company is still a ways from releasing its title. But! It will be a real-time strategy (RTS) game, a genre made famous by beloved entries like Age of Empires and Starcraft. It should feature, we learned, a campaign and multiplayer capabilities. And the group is talking to esports players as well so that it works out of the box for more competitive battles.
Per the company, it’s being built to be a game as a service of sorts, with a long shelf life. That’s a big goal. And to do so with new IP as the core is a big gamble. In a good way, I think; this is what venture capital is for – venturing into the unknown. Not just building more B2B SaaS.
For now, Frost Giant is staying mum on setting and anything more substantial about the game’s core elements, so we’ll be keeping an eye on what it’s building.
In a more nuts/bolts sense, Frost Giant raised a $4.7 million seed round after being founded in 2020, later adding another $5 million to that round. Kakao Games, a South Korean game developer, led the company’s Series A, which should provide its team of 25 full-timers and 12 contractors plenty of breathing room to get the game right.
And speaking of taking time to get the game right, let’s talk about Paradox. Paradox is a gaming studio based in Sweden, is the maker of so-called grand strategy games. They are real-time in a sense, but different from the traditional RTS genre in their complexity and length of play. You can K.O. someone in Starcraft 2 in 15 minutes if you know what you are doing. A play-through of Paradox title Crusader Kings 3 (CK3) could take you days and days of plugging away. Not that I am intimately aware of that fact or anything.
Anyhoo, Paradox is executing a natural experiment before our eyes with its first major expansion to CK3, called Royal Court. The company announced it ages ago, only telling fans last October that it would come out this February. The news was a bit of a surprise, but after some hiccups in expansions for some of its other titles, the CK3 player base appeared mostly cool with the later-than-anticipated launch, provided that the new code came out the gate solid as a rock.
February 8, the launch date for Royal Court, is just around the corner, and as Paradox is a public company, we’ll be able to see if its wager that making gamers wait – and perhaps lose interest? – for a big update pays out. I, for one, am buying the expansion, but don’t want to over-index on my own experiences.
In related CK3 news, Paradox just announced that it is bringing the title to consoles this week. I actually got invited to a press event with the company, and the studio it hired to help bring the game to a handset-powered environment. Why folks don’t just buy a damn gaming PC is beyond me, but I will say that I learned quite a lot about how games get ported to other platforms. It’s a lot of work to make a PC game work in a non keyboard/mouse environment, it turns out.
Everyone is fighting everyone
Wrapping on a tiny note, did you catch this story in The Information? At one point, Databricks (soon to be public, worth a bajillion dollars) and Snowflake (public, worth a bajillion dollars) were kinda friends. And if you asked, say, Databricks, about the other company, it might tell you that they were operating in different areas.
And maybe that was true for a while, but as The Information notes, it’s no longer the case.
Why do I bring this up? Simply to make another public request for the Databricks S-1 document? Well, yes, but more to note that startups of all sizes love to talk about how they aren’t really competing with one company or another. But as they grow, they tend to overlap more and more with a greater swath of the market.
So the next time a startup says that they aren’t competing with a similar entity or a major firm in their space, just set a timer. And wait.
Weather forecast company and popular app maker AccuWeather 
Singapore-based mental health startup Intellect 
