Lenskart acquires majority stake in eyewear brand Owndays in $400 million deal

India’s Lenskart is buying a majority stake in Japan’s Owndays, the two firms said, creating one of Asia’s biggest online retailers of eyewear. The firms did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but a person familiar with the matter said the merger values 32-year business Owndays at $400 million.

The 12-year-old Bengaluru-headquartered startup is buying Owndays’ shares from L Catterton, Mitsui and Principal Investments, the two firms said. Owndays co-founders Shuji Tanaka Take Umiyama will continue to be shareholders and lead the management team at the Japanese firm.

The deal will extend the merged entity’s reach to 13 Asian markets, including India, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan, the two said.

“The way people buy eyewear is changing rapidly and at Lenskart it is our mission to drive this transformation globally. In today’s age, the customer wants great products, great prices, and delightful experiences all the time. With Owndays we move a step closer to democratizing eyewear,” said Peyush Bansal, co-founder and group chief executive of Lenskart, adding that he has known Shuji-san and Take-san for over five years.

The development comes at a time when Lenskart, backed by SoftBank and Premji Invest, is finalizing a new round of funding at over $4.5 billion valuation, according to people familiar with the matter.

Founded in 1989, Tokyo-based Owndays designs and manufactures optical eyewear. The company operates over 350 shops across Asia in locations including Japan, Singapore, Australia, India and Hong Kong. It sells over 2.5 million pairs of glasses a year.

The firm, which received backing from L Catterton Asia and Mitsui in 2018, never disclosed how much money it had raised, but it was in conversation with private equity firms Longreach and Navis Capital to sell the business, Bloomberg reported early this month.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/HO48ik6

Realme GT Neo 3 150W Thor: Love and Thunder launching on July 7

Realme is continuing its collaboration with Marvel Studios with a special Thor: Love and Thunder edition of the Realme GT Neo 3 150W smartphone. Realme VP Madhav Sheth teased the new device in a tweet and Realme India also confirmed the launch is scheduled for July 7. The teasers show out the phone’s back will feature Thor’s hammer. The other teaser image shows out the phone’s blue color and blue charging cable. The Thor: Love and Thunder edition Realme GT Neo 3 150W will be sold via realme.com and offline retailers in India. This would be the second Realme x Marvel phone...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/DrWCUoP

NFT giant OpenSea reports major email data breach

OpenSea, the popular NFT marketplace that hit a colossal $13 billion valuation in January, is warning users of email phishing after a data breach.

A staff at Customer.io, an email vendor contracted by OpenSea, misused their employee access to download and share email addresses of OpenSea’s users and newsletter subscribers with an unauthorized external party, the world’s largest NFT marketplace said Wednesday night.

The scale of the security breach appears massive. “If you have shared your email with OpenSea in the past, you should assume you were impacted,” the company said, adding that it’s working with Customer.io in an ongoing investigation and has reported the incident to law enforcement.

More than 1.8 million users have made at least one purchase through the Ethereum network on OpenSea, according to data collected by Dune Analytics, an open-source crypto analytics platform.

We have reached out to OpenSea for more information.

Crypto startups have emerged as a target for cyberattacks as the industry sees explosive growth and money pouring in. Blockchain-based, decentralized networks promise to provide better security, but the average users today lean towards centralized services like OpenSea for their convenience.

Case in point, in March, a data breach at HubSpot, a customer relations management software firm, led to data breaches at BlockFi, Circle, and others. Fractal, an NFT platform started by Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, had a rocky debut in December after a scammer hacked the announcement bot to pocket $150,000.

One of the biggest crypto heists to date has been the $625 million theft from Ronin, a blockchain network connected to the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity.

Growing at a breakneck rate, these platforms are subject to similar if not greater security risks as the established web services that use centralized cloud services — rather than distributed ledger technologies like blockchain which is believed to be better at preventing cyberattacks.

Making sense of OpenSea at a $13B valuation

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/eHAjOm3

Motorola reveals unusual focal lengths for X30 Pro’s triple camera

Motorola posted a teaser for its upcoming X30 Pro flagship smartphone. This is the same smartphone expected to come equipped with the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset and a 200MP main camera sensor. Motorola may launch the X30 Pro as the Motorola Frontier in markets outside of China. The teaser reveals that the Moto X30 Pro will use three different focal lengths on its camera system in what is an unusual setup in the smartphone realm. 35mm is the widest it goes, matching the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra's main camera that we really liked in our review. You then get 50mm telephoto, which would be about 2x...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/nWksUAO

Black Swan analyzes social media to predict which products will be successful

Consumer packaged goods companies — think PepsiCo or Nabisco — face steep challenges from the rising cost of living and distribution. As inflation continues unabated, consumers’ disposable income isn’t going as far as it used to while products are becoming more expensive to ship. The pressure is on businesses to place their bets on the right innovations, then. That’s true during less chaotic times, but the stakes are higher at the moment.

While founded long before the pandemic, Steve King says that Black Swan Data, the data science and tech company that he helped co-launch in 2011, is well-suited to the current environment. Black Swan taps into data from conversations on social media and analyzes the data to map “growth opportunities” for companies, attempting to identify trend signals more accurately than traditional market research approaches.

Prior to co-founding Black Swan, King was a technical director at creative agency Digital Jigsaw. Black Swan’s other co-founder, Hugo Amos, was a digital marketing strategy manager at PepsiCo.

“One night in a Toronto bar, Amos and I had our ‘eureka’ moment to connect seemingly disparate data sets to predict consumer behavior,” King told TechCrunch in an email interview. “Having scribbled the idea down on the back of a beer mat (which is now hanging in the London HQ office reception area), Hugo and I returned to the U.K. to start Black Swan. We felt there had to be a better way for businesses and brands to make use of the mass of data available to them; data is largely irrelevant unless you can harness its power effectively.”

Black Swan claims to leverage published research out of Stanford, University College London, Meta and others to try to predict social trends and sales data months into the future. To conduct market research, the platform looks at billions of tweets, posts, discussion forum threads, reviews and blog posts over a two-year period and then filters for roughly 400,000 distinct concepts (e.g. “Themes,” “Ingredients,” “Brands,” “Product types,” “Benefits & needs”) in the data, for example when people discuss food that’s healthy for children to eat after school. From this, Black Swan finds the relationships between concepts to extract insights that — hopefully — help guide a company’s product development.

“Embracing AI gives users the ability to glimpse the future — using predictive algorithms to skate to where the puck is going rather than where it is today,” King said. “Black Swan is akin to the world’s largest focus group. It continuously analyses this data to map growth opportunities and identify emerging trend signals earlier, and more accurately, than traditional market research approaches. This capability is bringing a more scientific and comprehensive approach to the new product innovation process, helping brands to de-risk decision making in uncertain times when consumer behaviour is rapidly shifting.”

It’s true that product development is risky. According to one source, 95% of the more than 30,000 new products introduced every year fail. The failure rate of new grocery store products alone is estimated at between 70% to 80%.

But can AI predict success? The answer isn’t clear. Black Swan claims it can, as do startups like the similarly named Black Crow AI, which sells a service that projects which products e-commerce customers will buy, and Turing Labs, which uses AI to formulate CPG products for mass-market appeal. Just because an algorithm is accurate today, however, doesn’t guarantee that it’ll be accurate tomorrow. As the data shifts, the predictions can shift off course, in the worst case giving a false sense of security.

That’s perhaps why King is careful to note Black Swan doesn’t replace human judgement. Rather, it’s meant to help companies see product categories through the eyes of a consumer, he said, while accounting for individual tastes and preferences.

In any case, Black Swan has done quite well for itself as of late, growing its customer base to 50 companies, including PepsiCo, J&J, Kraft Heinz, SC Johnson and P&G. (PepsiCo has been open about the partnership, crediting Black Swan’s platform with its new line of Propel sports drinks infused with immunity ingredients.) Annual recurring revenue stands at $10 million, and Black Swan — which today announced that it raised $17 million — plans to expand its 170-person workforce to more than 200 by the end of the year. Among other areas of focus in the near term will be growing the startup’s U.S. market share and supporting product development, according to King.

Oxx led Black Swan’s latest funding round, with participation from AlbionVC. It brings the company’s total raised to $18.5 million.

“Black Swan was founded on a belief that brands can make better use of what people are talking about publicly online to help understand their behaviour, anticipate moments, and mold them to their advantage,” King said. “The adoption of tech-driven market-research solutions, and in particular AI-driven observational research and predictive analytics, has accelerated dramatically, and this is reflected in the growth of Black Swan … The benefit of this entire paradigm shift is that Black Swan sees the market from the consumers’ perspective and finds new and emerging trends earlier — enabling users to be more consumer-centric and stay ahead of the curve in their innovation strategies.”

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/I7J2NUq

iQOO 10 Pro appears on TENAA with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset

The iQOO 10 series is expected to arrive soon, and reports are at least one of the phones will have a Dimensity 9000+ chipset. We assume this is the vanilla version, because the Pro was just certified by TENAA with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset. The listing revealed a bunch of other specs so let's dig in. vivo iQOO 10 Pro alleged renders The iQOO 10 Pro will inherit the 6.78” AMOLED with 1440p resolution from its predecessor. The vivo brand certified the phone with four RAM options - 6/8/12/16GB, and three memory choices - 128/256/512GB. There are two 50MP cameras on the back...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/G3JsDfz

Huawei launches MateBook D16, 16s, and Freebuds Pro 2 in Europe

Huawei is bringing its Freebuds Pro 2 wireless earbuds with active noise cancellation, and two MateBook laptops to the European market. All three devices have been out and about on other shores, but this is their move west. The Huawei Freebuds Pro 2 is the company's flagship TWS pair. Each bud has dual drivers, which achieve what Huawei calls a Hi-Res Dual sound system. The buds can detail sound from 14kHz all the way to 48kHz. For noise canceling, the Freebuds Pro 2 can suppress up to 48dB, up from the 40dB of their predecessor. The Freebuds Pro 2, like most earphones, can pick...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/juefaDS

Tecno Pova 3 is an affordable smartphone with 7,000 mAh battery and 33W fast charging

Tecno is now selling the Pova 3 - a midranger with a huge battery and some gaming-oriented features. The phone is powered by a Helio G88 chipset and brings expandable RAM for both memory options. It is already up for sale on Amazon with a starting price of INR 11,499. The front panel of the Pova 3 is a 6.9” LCD with Full HD+ resolution and 90 Hz refresh rate in some scenarios. There is a single punch hole for an 8 MP selfie camera. There is also a thin dual LED flash in the top bezel for better pictures in a dark environment. The trio on the back has a 50 MP main camera, but Tecno...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/Gm4Cpch

Kukua, creators of “Super Sema,” raises $6 million, led by Alchimia and Tencent

Kukua, a Nairobi- and London-based educational entertainment company and the creators of “Super Sema,” the first African animated superhero franchise, has raised $6 million in its latest round of investment.

Tencent, which made its first African edtech bet in Nigeria’s uLesson last December, co-led this Series A round with Italy-based VC Alchimia. Other investors include EchoVC, firstminute Capital and Auxxo Female Catalyst.

Kukua says the investment will support its goal to continue building an IP-centric kids’ “edutainment” universe with new Super Sema original content, licensing, merchandise and publishing offerings.

Lucrezia Bisignani founded Kukua in 2018, but it wasn’t until three years later that the team put out the first version of Super Sema. The idea to create an animated superhero franchise for kids, especially those in Africa, was because there was a lack of such shows, co-founder and CEO Bisignani told TechCrunch on a call.

“When I started this, we saw there were no African characters, and very few that were just Black,” she said. So, we thought this was a much-needed space, not only for kids in Africa but globally. It’s for kids to feel represented and to grow up with cartoons that are not only white but also to understand different cultures and themes.”

Though white and raised in Italy, Bisignani travelled widely in Africa when she was young. She visited most countries on the continent with her parents and cultivated a “global mindset and appreciation for everything” that was different from her and her upbringing.

Despite her background and demand for such content, securing funding for Kukua’s first project wasn’t easy as investors were unconvinced of its global appeal. Until “Black Panther.” The movie was released to commercial and critical acclaim in 2018, and its success helped similar projects like Kukua secure investments. The company raised $2.5 million seed from Africa-focused venture capital firm EchoVC and other investors that year.

“We’ve always seen our target audience as global. We wanted this to be a mega success in Africa and the rest of the world. So similarly to ‘Black Panther,’ which attracted the most diverse audience ever for being an all-African story and cast, our mission is really on both fronts,” the CEO said. “We want to showcase the beauty and a different narrative coming from Africa to the rest of the world. And of course, for all the kids here in the continent to see themselves represented.”

Super Sema is the story of a 10-year-old African girl — a superhero — with the powers of creativity, determination and team skills. She uses science, tech, engineering, arts and math to create inventions from her secret lab to fight this evil robot villain — her town’s ruler — and his minions.

Bisignani said the show was made to “empower” a generation of kids to have positive female African role models and “inspire” them with team skills by making a fun, exciting series that creates an avenue for STEAM learning.

The Kukua team

YouTube picked up Super Sema’s first season, acquired its distribution rights and launched the series on its YouTube Originals channel in March 2021. It was a constant hit. Since its launch, Super Sema’s YouTube Channel has attracted more than 40 million views. The show — executive produced by Lupita Nyong’o — received an NAACP Image Awards nomination for Outstanding Animated Series this January. The Oscar-winning actress is also a shareholder in the company. Other members of the Super Sema team include COO Vanessa Ford, CFO Giovanni Bisignani and four-times BAFTA winner Claudia Lloyd (producer and creative director).

The show’s second season was greenlit by YouTube Originals and has premiered this month. Super Sema’s target audience is between the ages of 4 to 8, and being on YouTube Originals, 60% of its audience comes from the U.S. The U.K. and Kenya round up the top three countries where Super Sema is most watched. In addition to being on YouTube Originals, Super Sema also airs on major linear TV networks in Africa, like Citizen TV in Kenya and SABC in South Africa. Bisignani said the company is getting more rights to air the show on more TV stations across the continent.

According to Bisignani, Kukua has some methods to make the show more interactive in its pipeline. Immediate plans include launching a U.S. toy line in the fall with toy company Just Play and “Let’s Technovate with Super Sema,” a companion vlog series with real science and DIY experiments children can do at home scheduled to premiere in 2022. Kukua also plans to expand Super Sema’s North American Publishing and Licensing program with the signing of Penguin Random House, Bendon and Bentex, category leaders in publishing and apparel.

However, an upcoming version might see Kukua take Super Sema to the metaverse. “One of the goals is to have kids enter Super Sema story world and do that in a Roblox experience, somewhere they can just go from online to offline and continuously play and learn with their favourite characters in this very engaging story world,” Bisignani said. “We want to be the Disney of learning and leverage all the latest media and technologies to create engaging experiences for our users.”

To this effect, the company appointed Matthew Ball — a venture partner at Makers Fund, the world’s largest gaming venture fund by AUM — to its board. The company said Ball’s support will be critical as it expands its Super Sema IP and story world into interactive and immersive educational experiences for kids.

Speaking on the investment, Paolo Barletta, partner at Alchimia, said, “Kukua is one of those companies in the world that everyone wants to see succeed. We have been part of their growth journey from the first day and are thrilled to continue to support their world-class team, inspired by the positive impact we can have on an entire generation of kids.”

African edtech startup uLesson raises $15M, backed by Nielsen Ventures and Tencent

Kibo School gets $2M to offer online STEM degrees to students in Africa

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/PNRzQn7

Xiaomi Black Shark 5S series specs tipped

After the Black Shark 5 series made it to global markets earlier this month we turn our attention to the next members in the gaming phone series. The Black Shark 5S and 5S Pro are next in line and reliable tipsterDigital Chat Station shared some preliminary specs for the two devices. Black Shark 5S and 5S Pro will feature pressure-sensitive 6.67-inch OLED displays with FHD+ resolution and a centered punch hole. The refresh rate is not explicitly mentioned but rumors suggest it will match the 144Hz of the Black Shark 5 series. Both phones will pack the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/wcYDtzn

FCC Commissioner writes to Apple and Google about removing TikTok

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote to Apple and Google on Tuesday, requesting the companies to remove TikTok from their app stores for “its pattern of surreptitious data practices.” This comes after BuzzFeed News reported last week that TikTok’s staff in China had access to US-based users’ data up until January.

“As you know TikTok is an app that is available to millions of Americans through your app stores, and it collects vast troves of sensitive data about those US users. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance — an organization that is beholden to the Communist Party of China and required by the Chinese law to comply with PRC’s surveillance demands,” Carr said in a letter addressed to Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook.

“It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting being combined with Beijing’s apparently unchecked access to that sensitive data.”

TikTok is not just another video app.
That’s the sheep’s clothing.

It harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing.

I’ve called on @Apple & @Google to remove TikTok from their app stores for its pattern of surreptitious data practices. pic.twitter.com/Le01fBpNjn

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) June 28, 2022

After BuzzFeed News published its report, TikTok quickly went on the defense and announced that it is moving all US users’ data to Oracle servers situated in the country. It specified that the company still uses its own US and Singapore-based servers for backup. But in the future, it expects to “delete U.S. users’ private data from our own data centers and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the U.S.”

“We’re also making operational changes in line with this work – including the new department we recently established, with US-based leadership, to solely manage US user data for TikTok,” the company added.

TikTok’s user data practices have come under suspicion many times. In 2020, India banned TikTok over national security concerns, and both former President Donald Trump and the current president Joe Biden have raised questions about the short video app’s relations with China and how it affects US users’ data. While Trump proposed an outright ban on TikTok or an option of selling its US business to a local buyer, Biden proposed new rules that will give more oversight on apps with ties to “jurisdiction of foreign adversaries” that may pose national security risks.

We have reached out to TikTok, Apple, and Google for a comment.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/UcFYtrh

Xiaomi 12S Ultra will have 1-inch Sony IMX989 camera sensor

Xiaomi will introduce the 12S series on July 4, and today it confirmed the trio of phones that will appear. We expect a small vanilla Xiaomi 12S, Xiaomi 12S Pro flagship and a Xiaomi 12S Ultra camera beast. The company revealed the latter will have a completely new 1” camera sensor by Sony, called IMX989. However, rumors are the global market is not going to see them as Xiaomi intends to make the 12S lineup exclusive to China. Xiaomi 12S Ultra will have 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor Xiaomi advertised the new IMX989 to be 1” from one corner to another but this is misleading...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/VteLBuQ

Infinix teases 180W Thunder Charge system

Last year we tested a concept phone from Infinix with a 160W fast charging system. The company has continued working on battery tech since then and has pushed the charge rate even higher. Here is a quick teaser video posted by CEO Benjamin Jiang. Infinix calls this new system “Thunder Charge” and based on the onscreen label, it has a peak power rating of 180W. The clip is only around 10 seconds long but the battery indicator goes up by nearly a full percentage point. So, how fast is Thunder Charge? We don’t know yet. The goal for last year’s 160W system was to completely...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/rpsOPGb

Google launches Advanced API Security to protect APIs from growing threats

Google today announced a preview of Advanced API Security, a new product headed to Google Cloud that’s designed to detect security threats as they relate to APIs. Built on Apigee, Google’s platform for API management, the company says that customers can request access starting today.

Short for “application programming interface,” APIs are documented connections between computers or between computer programs. API usage is on the rise, with one survey finding that more than 61.6% of developers relied on APIs more in 2021 than in 2020. But they’re also increasingly becoming the target of attacks. According to a 2018 report commissioned by cybersecurity vendor Imperva, two-thirds of organizations are exposing unsecured APIs to the public and partners.

Advanced API Security specializes in two tasks: identifying API misconfigurations and detecting bots. The service regularly assesses managed APIs and provides recommended actions when it detects configuration issues, and it uses preconfigured rules to provide a way to identify malicious bots within API traffic. Each rule represents a different type of unusual traffic from a single IP address; if an API traffic pattern meets any of the rules, Advanced API Security reports it as a bot.

“Misconfigured APIs are one of the leading reasons for API security incidents. While identifying and resolving API misconfigurations is a top priority for many organizations, the configuration management process is time consuming and requires considerable resources,” Vikas Ananda, head of product at Google Cloud, said in a blog post shared with TechCrunch ahead of the announcement. “Advanced API Security makes it easier for API teams to identify API proxies that do not conform to security standards. . . . Additionally, Advanced API Security speeds up the process of identifying data breaches by identifying bots that successfully resulted in the HTTP 200 OK success status response code.”

With the launch of Advanced API Security, Google is evidently seeking to bolster its security offerings under Apigee, which it acquired in 2016 for over half a billion dollars. But the company is also responding to increased competition in the API security segment. Startups delivering API-focused cybersecurity products include Salt Security, Noname Security and Neosec. Many established vendors have expanded their offerings in recent years, too, including Barracuda, Akamai, 42Crunch, Traceable, Ping Identity and Signal Sciences.

In March, Cloudflare launched a new gateway aimed at boosting API security. And in May, Imperva acquired API security company CloudVector.

While the jury’s out on just how well these products perform comparatively, the threat of API-borne attacks is very real. Companies like Peloton, Parler and even LinkedIn have fallen victim to API-driven attacks within the last few months. They’re not the only ones. According to a recent study by Cloudentity, 44% of companies have experienced “substantial” API authorization issues pertaining to privacy, data leakage and object property exposure with internal and external-facing APIs.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/l6XxcYR

HTC Desire 22 Pro announced with Snapdragon 695 and Viverse compatibility

HTC finally released a new phone - the Desire 22 Pro is the latest offering from the storied Taiwanese maker which has shifted its focus on VR in the past years. Desire 22 Pro is a midrange phone with a 6.6-inch 120Hz LCD, Snapdragon 695 chipset and 4,520 mAh battery. It’s compatible with HTC’s Viverse ecosystem and HTC VR products like the HTC Vive Flow headset. The Viverse compatibility is the main selling factor here, letting you access virtual content from the Metaverse via the phone and a connected HTC VR headset. HTC is also bringing its Viverse Wallet to help you manage digital...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/j0TM9im

Nothing to price the phone (1) between $400 and $450

Nothing is launching its first phone, simply called phone (1), on July 12. We expect a midranger with a Snapdragon 778G+ chipset, and the latest leak claimed the price will start from INR31,000 in India. This is just south of $400 for an 8/128 GB version. The Nothing phone (1) is also said to have an 8/256 GB version for INR32,000, which is around $420. A third, even more powerful variant, with 12 GB RAM and 256 GB storage is expected to cost INR36,000, which translates to $450. Specs are scarce at this moment, but we already saw the device get certified with 45W fast charging with...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/zqZ02TH

Speechmatics raises $62M for its inclusive approach to speech-to-text AI

Last week I wrote about an AI startup that’s building technology that can alter, in real time, the accent of someone’s speech. But what if the AI goal instead is to make it possible for people speaking in whatever way they do, to be understood just as they are, and to remove some of the bias inherent in a lot of AI systems in the process? There’s a major need for that, too, and now a UK startup called Speechmatics — which has built AI to translate speech to text, regardless of the accent or how the person speaks — is announcing $62 million in funding to expand its business.

Susquehanna Growth Equity out of the U.S. led the round with UK investors AlbionVC and IQ Capital also participating. This is Series B is a big step up for Speechmatics. The company was originally spun out back in 2006 of AI research in Cambridge by founder Dr. Tony Robinson, and prior to this had only raised around $10 million (Albion and IQ are among those past backers, along with the CIA-backed In-Q-Tel and others).

In the interim it has built up a customer base of some 170 — it only sells B2B, to power consumer-facing or business-facing services — and while it doesn’t disclose the full list, some of the names include what3words, 3Play Media, Veritone, Deloitte UK, and Vonage, which variously use the tech not just for making transcriptions in the traditional sense; but for taking in spoken words to help other aspects of an app function, such as automatic captioning, or to power wider accessibility features.

Its engine today is able to translate speech to text in 34 languages, and in addition to using the funding both to continue improving the accuracy there, and for business development, it will also be adding in more languages and looking at different use cases, such as building speech to text that can be used in the more tricky environment of motor vehicles (where motor noise and vibrations impact how AIs can ingest the sounds).

“What we have done is gather millions of hours of data in our effort to tackle AI bias. Our goal is to understand any and every voice, in multiple languages,” said Katy Wigdahl, the CEO of the startup (a title she co-held with Robinson, who has since stepped back from an executive role recently).

This manifests in the company’s product focus as well as its mission, and that’s something it’s also looking to expand.

“The way we look at language is global,” Wigdahl said. “Google will have a different pack for every version of English but our one pack will understand every one.” It initially only made its tech available by way of a private API that it sold to customers; now in an effort to bring in more users and potentially more paying users, it’s also offering more open API tools to developers to play with the tech, and a drag-and-drop sampler on its site.

And indeed, if one of Speechmatics’ challenges is in training AI to be more human in its understanding of how people speak, the other is to carve out a name for itself against other major providers of speech-to-text technology.

Wigdahl said company today competes against “big tech” — that is, major companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft (which now has Nuance) that have build speech recognition engines and provide the tech as a service to third parties.

But it says it consistently scores better than these in tests for being able to comprehend when languages are spoken in the many ways that they are. (One test it cited to me was Stanford’s ‘Racial Disparities in Speech Recognition’ study, where it recorded “an overall accuracy of 82.8% for African American voices compared to Google (68.6%) and Amazon (68.6).” It said that “equates to a 45% reduction in speech recognition errors — the equivalent of three words in an average sentence. It also provided TC with a “competitor weighted average”: 

Image Credits: speechmatics (opens in a new window)

There is indeed a massive opportunity here, though, when you consider that between smaller developers and massive, outsized technology giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon there are hundreds of giant companies that might not be quite at the level (or interest) of building in-house AI for this purpose, but if you take for example a company like Spotify, are definitely are interested in it, and definitely would prefer not to be reliant on those huge companies, which are also sometimes their competitors, and sometimes their outright foils. (To be clear, Wigdahl did not tell me Spotify was a customer, but said that that is a typical example of the kind of size and situation in which someone might knock on Speechmatics’ door.)

That too has been partly why investors are so keen to fund this company. Susquehanna has a history of backing companies that look like they might give the power players a run for their money (it was an early and big backer of Tik Tok).

“The Speechmatics team are undoubtedly a different pedigree of technologists,” said Jonathan Klahr, MD of Susquehanna Growth Equity, in a statement. “We started tracking Speechmatics when our portfolio companies told us that again and again Speechmatics win on accuracy against all the other options including those coming from ‘Big Tech’ players. We are primed to work with the team to ensure that more companies can get exposed to and adopt this superior technology.” Klahr is joining the board with this round.

Indeed, as tech becomes more naturalized and those making it look for more ways to reduce any and all friction that there might be around usage of that tech, voice has emerged as a major opportunity point, as well as a pain point. So having tech that works in “reading” and understanding all kinds of voices can potentially get applied in all kinds of ways.

“Our view is voice will become the increasingly dominant human-machine interface and Speechmatics are the category leaders in applying deep learning to speech, with category defining accuracy and understanding across industry use-case and requirements,” added Robert Whitby-Smith, a partner at AlbionVC. “We have witnessed the impressive growth of the team and product over the last few years since our Series A investment in 2019 and as responsible investors we are delighted to support the company’s inclusive mission to understand every voice globally.” 

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/QXtTlUD

Qualcomm accidentally reveals Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 launch date

Qualcomm usually unveils its new flagship chipset on the first weekend of December but this year we expect it two weeks earlier. The official website of the San Diego chip company scheduled a Snapdragon Summit for November 14-17, which is likely when we’ll see the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Screenshot from Qualcomm's website The event was later taken down from the website, and while it could be a false flag, we are keen to believe the chip is really coming in November. That would allow makers like Xiaomi and Motorola to get into the race of being the first maker to launch a phone with...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/SZQu5lr

Incredibuild powers up with $35M to boost its distributed, faster approach to games and software development

Incredibuild, an Israeli startup that has picked up a lot of traction in the worlds of gaming and software development for a platform that drastically speeds up (and reduces the cost of) the shipment of code and related collateral during building and testing — has raised some capital to speed up its own development. The company has picked up $35 million in a Series B round of funding — money that it will be using for product development, as well as to strengthen its ecosystem with more investment into community, developer relations and cloud programs across more markets.

This all-equity round is being led by Hiro Capital, with past backer Insight Partners also participating. We understand from sources close to the startup that the money is coming with a doubling of its valuation: when Incredibuild last raised funds — $140 million in March 2021 led by Insight, which took a big stake in the company at the time — it was at a valuation of $300 to $400 million. The company has doubled its ARR in the last year, and although it doesn’t disclose the actual figure, this round likely puts its current valuation at close to $800 million.

If it sounds odd that a Series B would be so much smaller than the Series A, that’s in part because that previous round was a mix of debt and equity: the company had raised very little since being founded in 2000 and was profitable.

These more recent rounds have been to give the business — which counts companies like Epic, EA, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Adobe and Citibank among its 1,000 customers — capital to build new products on top of those that were already doing well. (Hiro is a VC that focuses on gaming, creator platforms and metaverse technology; and so it can potentially help on that front.)

One example of how Incredibuild has been evolving its product is the company’s deeper move into the cloud. Incredibuild’s first iterations, and still one of the biggest use-cases, were aimed at helping organizations distribute compute across their own on-premise machines.

In a concept not unlike (but not exactly like) peer-to-peer networking, the idea is that there is idle CPU in organizations’ network at any given time, and so Incredibuild has built a way both to identify those idle gaps, and to effectively divide up heavy code and distribute it to run across those CPUs in real time, and to then be reintegrated at a final end point. Over time, that also incorporated cloud compute.

“It’s a flavor of grid computing,” Tami Mazel Shachar, the CEO, in an interview, “but the secret sauce is Incredibuild’s approach to parallelization and virtualization. Nothing needs to be installed on the remote computer.”

And most recently, in the last year, following what some of its customers are doing, it has made an even deeper move into cloud: it has now inked partnerships with AWS and Microsoft integrating the Incredibuild tech directly into gaming stacks run in those companies’ respective cloud platforms, the idea being that using many pieces of small compute in the cloud simultaneously works out to be cheaper and now faster than simply running a process over a platform’s biggest single compute platform. 

“If I have a heavy process, millions of lines of code, that would take a 64-core machine to process, it’s considered expensive and will run 10 hours,” said Shachar. “But if I take 400 4-core machines and run that for five minutes it is cheaper, shorter and running in less time.”

She added that it has yet to provide tools to companies to run compute over different cloud providers, and has yet to build a similar deep integration with Google’s cloud platform: the demand from customers for either of those use cases is not there (not yet, at least).

And although cloud is growing in use, the real story still seems to be a lot of motivation to get the most out of on-premise equipment.

“Most of our users are on-prem and then burst to cloud when they have a peak or need,” she said.

The bigger picture for why Incredibuild has been growing well is because its product addresses three key factors in the market today, Shachar said.

The first is that, if you believe that “the metaverse” is more than just a marketing concept, it will require significantly more compute power, and as many organizations are coming to realize, the solution to that will not rely on hardware alone, but also software that can intelligently optimize the usage of existing hardware.

That is related to the second factor, which is that it’s going to be hard to continue relying on hardware because of the chip shortage.

The third factor is that the growing drive for more media-heavy code and more digitized services overall is seeing a massive strain in terms of human capital: there are not enough software developers out there. That is driving a market for more software automation, to take out some of the busy work.

Interestingly, the other big theme in distributed computing has been the big push around decentralization in finance, specifically in areas like cryptocurrency. This is not something that Incredibuild has really touched yet, but I asked if its cheaper and more efficient approach to distribution could ever be applied there, given what a bad rap crypto mining has had for the energy and other resources that it consumes.

“The idea of crypto has been looked at,” Shachar said. “It’s not in our near future, but definitely an option. It’s a question of focus.”

The fact that its focus so far has gotten Incredibuild to a pretty good place as a startup and cash-generating business is an indication that it could well be on the right track.

“Games companies are feeling the squeeze in developer capacity. Incredibuild gives developers back precious time by accelerating build compilation,” said Cherry Freeman, co-funding partner at Hiro Capital, in a statement. “Amazing games companies like Tencent, Take Two, EA, Konami, Nintendo, Capcom, and WB Games are already reaping the benefits of Incredibuild and our hope is that more companies will discover and take advantage of their brilliant technology. As always, Games are the cutting edge for technological advancement, and we envisage a future where Incredibuild will be the de facto distributed supercomputer on every machine in every company.”

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/iacnskR

Samsung Galaxy A23 5G spotted at Geekbench with Snapdragon 695

The Samsung Galaxy A23 launched in March, a 4G phone powered by the Snapdragon 680. A couple of months later the first clues of a 5G model appeared and now the phone has been spotted at Geekbench. The phone, SM-A236U, seems to be a US version. There should also be a European version as well, at least that is what the initial report from May claimed. The Galaxy A23 5G is powered by the Snapdragon 695, an upgraded version of the SD 690 chip with mmWave 5G support, 15% higher CPU performance and 30% faster GPU (thanks to upgraded Kryo 660 cores and Adreno 619). The mmWave connectivity (if...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/zSC3o8m

UK’s Magical Mushroom Company uses Mycelium to replace plastic packaging

Global plastic waste has more than doubled, and 40 percent of that waste comes from packaging. Luckily there are no shortage of sustainable packaging startups in Europe. Just take a look: Circleback (Germany), Recup (Germany), Sourceful (UK), one • five (Germany), Shellworks (UK), Woola (Estonia), Papkot (France), Biotic (Israel), FunCell (France) and Traceless (Germany).

The latest to join those ranks is Magical Mushroom Company (MMC). It’s now raised a £3m Seed round led by Ecovative Design LLC with participation by Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity – a green energy company in the UK; Robert Del Naja (activist); and Marcus Watson, co-founder of Adoreum Partners, who brought 30 other investors.

The investment will be used to fund the opening of its first raw material production plant.

MMC’s solution is a direct replacement for plastic-based packaging such as polystyrene and cardboard. It does this by combining agricultural waste with mycelium – the root structure of a mushroom. The result, claims the company, is biodegradable (in 45 days), durable and comparable in price to traditional packaging derived from fossil fuels like polystyrene.

Launched in 2019, MMC’s clients include Raymarine, BA Components, Castrads,  Ffern, Selfridges, Lush, Seedlip and ID Watch among many others.  
  
Paul Gilligan, CEO & founder at Magical Mushroom Company, said in a statement: “We have just eight years to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and businesses have a crucial role to play – but they need viable and cost-effective solutions that significantly reduce the carbon footprint across their entire supply chain. We’re proud to be creating value from waste and unlocking the potential of mycelium.”

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/JB7KMOm

Huawei nova 10 and 10 Pro listed in China ahead of launch

Following a major leak over the weekend, Huawei now confirmed its ready to launch its nova 10 series on July 4. Ahead of the big unveiling both nova 10 and nova 10 Pro are already listed for reservation on JD.com revealing the official images and colorways. Huawei nova 10 Huawei nova 10 will be available in silver, purple, green and black colors in 128GB and 256GB storage trims. The nova 10 Pro will sport the exact same color options and storage trims. Design-wise both phones feature curved displays with the nova 10 getting a 60MP punch hole cutout selfie camera while the 10...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/7sPipIz

TLcom Capital appoints Eloho Omame as partner to back more pre-seed and female-led startups

Africa-focused venture capital firm TLcom Capital has appointed Eloho Omame as a partner six months after announcing the first close of TIDE Africa Fund II, its $150 million second fund (it expects to reach a second close later this year, according to its partners). appoints

TLcom Capital is known for investing from seed to Series B. Some of the deals from its portfolio in this category include uLesson, Ajua, Ilara Health, Kobo360 and Twiga. However, the venture capital firm has been flexible with its deal-making processes, registering a few later stages deals in Andela’s Series C and much earlier stages like Autochek’s pre-seed deal.

Taking a more proactive approach, the firm, which has offices in Lagos, London and Nairobi, intends to place more emphasis on the pre-seed stage and Omame’s appointment is critical to this objective. She is the co-founder and general partner of FirstCheck Africa, an early-stage firm that invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups with at least one female founder or co-founder. Before FirstCheck Africa, Omame was the founding managing director of Endeavor Nigeria, leading a community of high-impact founders on the continent.

It’s still very early in the African tech ecosystem. However, some say it reached an inflection point last year as startups received over $5 billion in venture capital funding. Though foreign capital from global investors in the U.S. and Europe has driven much of this growth, local and Africa-focused investors are pulling their weights, raising small to medium-sized funds to support innovation.

Only a handful of these firms have an arsenal of over $100 million to deploy in Africa and they have typically made bets from seed to Series C for years. But firms like TLcom Capital are increasing their appetite for much earlier deals—it’s identical to how firms that back IPO-ready companies such as Tiger Global and Softbank move for seed deals as valuations of later-stage companies take a beating and IPO stalls.

TLcom Capital realizes that to access or generate deal flow, it needs to catch founders early in their journies. And from a diversity perspective, the firm is also keen on backing more female-led companies at this stage (an example is its sole investment in Okra’s $1 million pre-seed round). According to partner Ido Sum, the Africa-focused firm is dedicating “a few million dollars” from its fund to these two early-stage strategies. The first is to back gender-neutral startups early with small check sizes and a low-touch approach and create a pipeline to later stages. The other is a $2 million co-investment commitment for female-led startups at the pre-seed stage, managed by FirstCheck Africa.

Omame’s background and hands-on experience are suited to handle these strategies, said the partners. “We’re doing this not to alter our investment strategy, but to make sure that our deal flow generation strategy covers all the possibilities,” commented Maurizio Caio, the general partner at TLcom Capital, during a TechCrunch interview with the partners. “We chose Eloho because when we interacted with her on different occasions, her background and way of thinking about entrepreneurs made her a great fit.”

On the call, Omame said she hopes to embed herself more deeply into Africa’s startup ecosystem even as she shares her time between the firms. As a TLcom partner, Omame will be responsible for following entrepreneurs early in their journeys (specifically at pre-seed) through later stages. As a general partner at FirstCheck Africa, she is raising a dedicated pool of capital (a $10 million debut fund) for female founders on better terms.

These investors want to back ‘ridiculously early’ female-led African startups

A debut fund of $10 million is an ambitious pursuit considering FirstCheck Africa only launched last January. It’s unclear where the firm is currently in its fundraising journey but the VC firm—led by Omame and Odunayo Eweniyi, the co-founder and COO of Piggyvest, a Nigerian fintech startup—has made impressive progress with resources at its disposal. So far, it has backed eight startups, most of which have at least one female founder—and others with female CEOs like Jumba and Healthtracka.

Omame, who has always been vocal about female representation in the startup and VC worlds, said FirstCheck Africa’s co-investment opportunity with TLcom is exciting for female founders. Less than 1% of all VC dollars went toward startups with one or more women founders last year, according to The Big Deal, which details investments in Africa. From the female founders’ perspective, they benefit from a female-first investor committed to their long-term success plus more capital than would have been made available under its initial target.

“TLcom runs the most credible, super well attended and organized female founder summit every year,” said Omame referencing the pan-African VC’s summit for female founders. “So there’s always been that commitment and in my view, what’s happening here is how the firm wants to step that up a notch. Part of that is in committing actual and meaningful amounts of capital to be co-invested by FirstCheck Africa and saying how do we then connect that to a broader pipeline and strategies around the ecosystem as a whole? So in many ways, there’s lots of synergy happening here.”

More from the gender-lens perspective, TLcom Capital is one of the very few VC firms with more female partners on the team. With the new addition, TLcom’s senior leadership is now 60% female (Eloho, Omobola Johnson and Andreata Muforo).

Eloho’s track record in early-stage investing will prove vital as TLcom plans to expand its current portfolio from 13 companies to 30 with ticket sizes ranging from $500,000 to $15 million. The firm, which has made most of its investments in West and East Africa (Nigeria and Kenya to be precise), also intends to start backing companies in North Africa.

FirstCheck Africa, on the other hand, can now make more investments due to this co-investment plan. The firm—which manages both pools of capital and makes all the investment decisions—plans to invest up to $250,000, including follow-ons largely tied to TLcom Capital’s deal flow. “We’re allocating this pool and intend to generate a fairly wide pipeline in terms of a spectrum of business models,” said Sum. “I also think we are fully aligned on the sectors and verticals we would like to support for follow-on rounds.”

6 African women CEOs discuss how they raised more than $1M in 2021

How fintech and serial founders drove African pre-seed investing to new heights in 2020

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/BO2hpAF

OnePlus confirms Nord 2T arrival in India

OnePlus Nord 2T is selling in Continental Europe and the United Kingdom but the phone was missing from another major market until now - India. This injustice is finally going to be fixed, as the company confirmed the Nord 2T will arrive in the Pacific-Asian country as well. OnePlus set up a landing page on its own website and at Amazon in preparation for the arrival that is “coming soon”. The Nord 2T will arrive in its full power - 80W fast-charging, 50 MP camera with Sony IMX766 sensor, OxygenOS 12.1 out of the box. It is also the first phone on the market with Dimensity 1300...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/Ug9yoi6

Why LFP batteries are poised to bring down entry-level EV prices

An older, cheaper and safer battery technology already dominating China’s electric vehicle industry is now poised to reshape battery manufacturing worldwide and boost EV sales in the United States — if the global lithium supply remains stable.

A slew of patents for lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) chemistries due to expire in 2022 could shift the face of battery production in the U.S. and Europe.

China has owned the market for nearly a decade due to an agreement with patent holders — a consortium of universities in the U.S. and Canada — that let Chinese manufacturers use them to supply local markets. Meanwhile, manufacturers outside China have focused on developing other lithium-ion chemistries to power their EVs because their higher energy density translates into longer range on the road.

LFP already comprises 17% of the global EV market and represents a potential path for the mass market, according to the AlixPartners 2022 Global Automotive Outlook released Wednesday.

That’s because universal access to patents, coupled with the escalating prices of raw battery materials, is driving many automakers to home in on the advantages of iron-based batteries. To start, they cost less, don’t use scarce raw materials like cobalt and nickel, and are less likely to catch fire.

There have been warnings that a looming lithium supply shortage could cut the global EV sales forecast in 2030 to 25 million EVs, down from a projected 40 million, according to a report Tuesday from the Advanced Propulsion Centre, a partnership between the U.K. government and automakers.

However, that hasn’t appeared to stop the momentum toward LFPs. Even if a lithium bottleneck slows production, the battery chemistry remains easier to produce than the NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) the industry currently favors, as those metals are in short supply, too.

The same organization forecast that a quarter of EVs built in Europe will use LFP. Industry analysts have also become bullish on the prospect of LFPs, projecting that the iron-based batteries will power entry-level and cheaper vehicles, while nickel-based cells will be used for higher-end and performance cars. 

LFP batteries could play a large role in the 250 battery-electric nameplates coming to the U.S. through 2030, according to Edgar Faler, senior industry analyst at the Center for Automotive Research. The chemistry is also well suited to the growing demand for light and medium commercial vehicles that can deliver goods in urban areas.

“For the foreseeable future, there’ll be a number of different chemistries competing to become the chemistry of choice,” Faler said.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/I1FJtV4

Fintech investors appear to be favoring later-stage deals as sector takes a hit, recent data shows

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. Let’s goooo! — Mary Ann

I was mostly off this past week, so this edition of The Interchange may be slightly less dense than normal. Some observations, though. We saw fewer layoffs, but also less fintech-related news in general. Things were generally pretty quiet and not filled with as much controversy as weeks past. Honestly, we’re really eager for this quarter to end so we can drill down into the numbers to see just how much the funding landscape has changed compared to 2021. Until then, we took a look at some recent numbers.

Fewer deals, larger rounds – but still way down

My dear friends and co-hosts on the Equity Podcast, Alex and Natasha, last week discussed the fintech funding market not once, but twice — here and here. Meanwhile, it felt like there was a bump in fintech-related funding announcements. That got me curious enough to reach out to my old friends at Crunchbase to get some data on just how much fintech startups have raised in recent weeks. (Keep in mind that it is preliminary and there is also a lag — so there will most certainly be more deals and dollars reported for the same time periods in the future.) I was mostly expecting to see a bump in numbers. And I did, sort of. Here is what the data showed: Globally, funding was up very slightly in terms of dollars raised, but deal volume was down significantly last week compared to the weeks prior. Specifically, Crunchbase found that fintech startups raised $1.5 billion from June 16 to June 23 across 39 deals — compared to $1.4 billion raised across 53 deals the week prior and $1.2 billion across 59 deals 2 weeks prior. This tells us that there were more earlier-stage deals closing earlier this month, while this past week, we saw far fewer deals but larger round sizes.

We saw a similar trend here in the U.S. According to Crunchbase, fintech startups in the United States raised $400 million across 10 deals from June 16 to June 23. That compared to $300 million raised across 14 deals the week prior, and $300 million raised across 17 deals 2 weeks prior.

But notably, and perhaps even more startling, is the difference between these numbers compared to June 2021. Globally, fintech startups raised a total of $8.2 billion across 272 deals from June 1-23, 2021. That compares to a total of $4.2 billion across 151 deals during the same time period this year. Meanwhile, U.S.-based startups raised $1.9 billion across 101 deals from June 1-23, 2021. That compares to a total of $1 billion across 41 deals during the same timeframe this year. Whoa. That’s like nearly half the dollars raised both globally and in the U.S. So while this is just a small snapshot in time, it is still indicative of what we all know is taking place — a global slowdown in funding, and proof that fintech is not immune.

For the record, Crunchbase defines fintech as companies that integrate technology in the financial services sector.

Takeaway: Fewer funding deals are closing in the fintech space, and during the month of June at least, investors seemed to be taking more bets on later-stage companies so dollars raised actually inched upward as the month wore on. This means it is likely getting tougher and tougher for earlier-stage companies to win over VCs, who are reportedly conducting more due diligence and asking for more traction than in the whirlwind that was 2021.

Photo: PM Images/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Weekly News

The buy now, pay later (BNPL) market, estimated to be worth $120 billion in 2021, has grown significantly over the last few years. But for most of its rise to virtual checkout prominence, BNPL largely targeted everyday consumer goods like clothes from Urban Outfitters or a Peloton. Now the credit method is moving beyond its e-commerce roots. In the past few months, large companies have joined the BNPL market, also hoping to quickly approve consumers for installment loans. Rebecca Szkutak digs in here.

Speaking of BNPL, Sweden’s Klarna has (finally) launched a new loyalty card feature in its app, which it says allows users to store and access all of their physical loyalty cards as digital versions, removing the need to carry physical cards while out shopping in-store. The company is clearly working to boost its number of users considering that its valuation has reportedly been slashed from $45 billion to $15 billion, a cut that our own Alex Wilhelm deems to be “sufficiently steep.”

Scoop: Three more senior executives of digital mortgage lender Better.com have resigned, I reported last week. Those three executives are Jillian White, general manager of Better’s affiliate businesses known as Better+, which consists of its title/settlement, insurance and home inspection departments; Megan Bellingham, who was senior vice president of sales and operations; and John Moffatt, who served as vice president of sales.

Brex issued a mea culpa this week after its shocking announcement from last week to stop working with SMBs. Pedro Franceschi, founder and co-CEO, addressed the stumble in a blog post titled simply “About last week’s announcement.” In the post, Franceschi expressed regret over the “poor job explaining this decision, which eroded some of the valuable trust” Brex had built over the years. He also outlined what criteria a business needs to meet to qualify to remain a Brex customer.

Speaking of Brex and SMBs, Tillful — a free business credit app built by VC-backed startup Flowcast — announced last week that it is launching a new feature for its users through a direct partnership with Experian in an effort to better inform business credit scoring in SMB/SME lending. The startup claims it is a “first-of-its kind partnership” between a fintech and a major credit reporting agency “in an effort to make credit risk assessment more ‘open.’” Flowcast has developed AI-based credit models for lenders and is backed by ING Ventures and BitRock Capital. Since Tillful was launched, it says that over 50,000 small businesses have signed up to help manage and build their business credit.

Here is where it gets even more interesting in light of Brex’s recent news: Flowcast’s latest move, a spokesperson told TechCrunch, reflects its “doubling down on SMBs.” Brex, that spokesperson added, was actually one of its partners but Flowcast hadn’t heard from them “in quite some time as they stopped engaging” with the company months ago: “We haven’t received any communication from them either as a long time Brex cardholder and lender partner but we are moving off of their platform and will be using our own card in lieu.”

Meanwhile, Mercury — a digital bank aimed at startups — claims that it has already seen hundreds of new accounts come to its platform in the wake of Brex’s announcement and that it is “seeing more everyday,” a spokesperson told TechCrunch on June 24.

Brazilian digital real estate broker QuintoAndar launched last week in Mexico City, the first time the startup has expanded out of its home country. It will operate in the country under the brand “Benvi,” which will be the proptech’s international name. Last August, QuintoAndar announced it had raised $120 million at a $5 billion valuation. In April, the company laid off 160 people, or 4% of its staff — making it one of a few highly valued Brazilian startups cutting jobs.

While we’re on the topic of LatAm, Brazilian digital bank Neon has announced that it has hired a Silicon Valley tech veteran who has held stints at Google, Snap and Coinbase as its new chief technology officer. André Madeira is the former co-founder and CEO of Meemo, which was acquired by Coinbase last year.

Image Credits: Leaked meeting recording/Better.com (TechCrunch)

Fundings and M&A

Seen on TechCrunch

Ghana’s fintech Fido raises $30M to roll out new products and expand across Africa

Neobank Stashfin raises $270 million, tops $700 million valuation

Fintech Kasheesh wants financially strained customers to say ‘bye’ to BNPL

SumUp raises $624M at a $8.5B valuation, with its payments and business tech now used by 4M SMBs

And elsewhere

Agent-focused home insurer Openly closes $75 million funding round

UK-based B2B BNPL fintech Hokodo raises $40M in Series B funding round

Fintech giving access to earned wages Tapcheck scores $20M Series A

Deel enters into a public offer to acquire Australian-based payroll company PayGroup

Well, that’s it for this week. Once again, thank you for reading — enjoy the rest of your weekend! See you next time. xoxo, Mary Ann

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/HZazrLR

Red Sox CTO: Baseball teams need modern tech stack as much as any other biz

You know a modern Major League Baseball team like the Boston Red Sox is built on a steady diet of data and analytics — this is true on the field just as much as in the front office.

While the main focus of a professional baseball club is building a competitive team that takes advantage of the unique talents of each player, when you get down to it, the Red Sox are no different from most businesses when it comes to their tech stack.

They make choices about sales and marketing tools, data storage, analyst dashboards — everything any company needs to run a business these days. The Red Sox, like many companies, are part of a larger corporate entity — in this case, the Fenway Sports Group — so they need to understand when and how to share tech with other members of the corporate family when it makes sense.

There’s another wrinkle that most businesses don’t have to take into consideration: The Red Sox are also a part of Major League Baseball, which has its own technology priorities that it shares with individual clubs.

As an example, Vasanth Williams, MLB’s head of engineering and chief product officer, earlier this year told TechCrunch+ that the league has established a relationship with Google Cloud, which could impact each individual club’s cloud infrastructure decisions:

We created a base platform that all clubs can leverage. That’s one of the things we’ve done in the last few years that is both on the fan side as well as on the baseball data side. We wanted to bring all the data and make that accessible in an easy way. Back in the day, it was all on-premise and in different data centers. We put it all in the cloud and made it much easier for them to query and build analytics on.

To learn more about how the Boston Red Sox uses technology to run its business (and play the game), we spoke to Brian Shields, the club’s chief technology officer.

A look at the stack

Shields said his job is similar to that of a CTO at any large organization trying to define and drive the company’s technology strategy, but the requirements of a baseball club aren’t always the same.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3l82NI7

Weekly poll: Are the Poco X4 GT or Poco F4 tempting you?

The Poco F1 is a smartphone legend – it brought a flagship chipset and capable hardware all around at a price of just €300 after a small discount. Does the new Poco F4 embody the same spirit? Or is the Poco X4 GT a better successor? Let’s have a closer look. We’ll start with the Poco X4 GT. It brings the new and exciting Dimensity 8100 chipset and costs €300 for an 8/128GB unit with early bird discounts applied. This price will be valid from Monday (June 27) to July 7, after that it will go up to €380. The 8/256GB unit is €350 with the discount, €430 without it. Poco X4 GT early...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/z1mhxt6

Samsung Galaxy M53 in for review

The Samsung Galaxy M53 is the latest smartphone to land at our office for a full review. Our unit comes in blue color, but there are two more options - green and brown. The Galaxy M53 sports a 6.7" 120Hz FullHD+ Super AMOLED+ screen with a punch hole in the center for the 32MP selfie camera capable of recording 4K@30FPS videos. Generally, you'd expect an AMOLED panel to have a fingerprint reader underneath, but that's not the case here since it's embedded in the power button located on the M53's right-side frame. Around the back, we have a square-shaped camera island housing 108MP...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/IxVYZHF

Weekly poll results: most people are fine with 256GB storage on their phones

Last week we asked you how much storage you use on your phone. It turns out most can fit within 256GB total. “Total” because we also queried you about your thoughts on microSD slots on phones. Here’s the breakdown. Just over 40% of people can squeeze in 128GB or less. That said, 36% need at least 256GB. This means 128GB models are still viable, but you should be looking at a phone with more room if you want to keep it for a long time. A freshly set up phone is fairly lean, but cruft starts to accumulate pretty fast. Photos you snapped quickly and didn’t intend to keep, images coming...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/F87g9rW

Indian fintechs request central bank to treat full-KYC PPI same as bank account to survive crackdown

Payments giants and fintech startups in India on Saturday requested the central bank to treat widely used prepaid payment instruments on par with bank accounts for customers who have undertaken certain verifications, days after the monetary authority signalled industry-wide crackdown.

The Payments Council of India, a unit of influential industry body IAMAI, said in a letter to the Reserve Bank of India that by treating prepaid payment instruments — prepaid purchasing cards and wallets –- as bank accounts, regulated lenders will be able to disburse credit to customers who have performed their comprehensive know-your-customer verifications.

The Reserve Bank of India informed dozens of fintech startups earlier this week that it is barring the practice of loading non-bank prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) using credit lines, in a move that has prompted panic among — and existential threat to — many fintech startups, TechCrunch reported earlier.

Several startups including Slice, Jupiter, Uni and KreditBee have long used the PPI licenses to issue cards and then equip them with credit lines. Fintechs typically partner with banks to issue cards and then tie up with non-banking financial institutions or use their own NBFC unit to offer credit lines to consumers.

India’s central bank cracks down on fintech startups

The central bank has long expressed concerns about lenders who are charging exorbitant interest rates and requiring minimum know-your-customer details to onboard and coerce customers. The industry body appears to be drawing a line between startups that have acted responsibly and bad players. (Banks as well as RBI-backed Rupay have been disbursing loans to full-KYC PPI accounts for years.)

The Payments Council of India did not name any startup in its letter to the RBI – though it used many examples to explain the two popular PPI models and their applications – but it represents nearly all payments firms including Mastercard, Visa, Paytm, PayU, PhonePe, Razorpay, Slice, PayPal and Stripe.

Fintech startups are estimated to be issuing over 600,000 prepaid cards to Indians each month. They have provided access to credit to nearly 10 million Indians, most of whom otherwise are not deemed worthy of loans by banks.

The Payments Council of India has also requested the central bank to permit drawdown by the customer from a non-revolving credit line to be disbursed into a full-KYC PPI.

The lobby group explains PPI models to the RBI. (Image sourced by TechCrunch)

Two more industry bodies — Digital Lenders Association and FICCI — have been working on letters to the RBI in recent days. On a Zoom call on Thursday, dozens of fintech officials discussed the common grounds for what they should inform the RBI. Some of their pressing requests include extending the timeline for the new rule by six months and establishing to the central bank that fintech industry at large is “responsible and trying to do the right thing,” TechCrunch reported earlier this week, citing multiple people on the call.

The RBI and IAMAI did not respond to a request for comment.

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/h5bgoi0