Hands-on: Honor Magic5

So, you saw Honor Magic4’s awesome cameras but wished the company made a smaller flagship this year? Wish granted! Although you really should have been more specific with your wish – the Honor Magic5 is smaller but only just. Last year’s Magic4 was almost exactly the same size as its Pro sibling. This year the Magic5 has a screen that’s 0.08” smaller and the phone itself is shorter, narrower and thinner by about a millimeter. So, while it’s technically smaller, it’s hard to quantify the difference even when you have both the vanilla and the Pro phones in your hand. One thing you will...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/rN6pOFX

Xiaomi 13 Lite review

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/9ykP7p6

For Bain Capital Ventures, ‘it is 2021 all over again’ (well, almost)

Bain Capital Ventures is doubling down on what works, literally. The venture firm, one of Bain’s 11 financial divisions, has raised $1.9 billion across two funds, one for seed to growth-stage startups that hovers around $1.4 billion, and one for later-stage opportunities that closed around a third of that, at $493 million.

The capital total is a staggering 46% increase from its last set of funds, closed in May 2021 at $1.3 billion. Additionally, Bain Capital Crypto closed a $500 million fund in March 2022, and the firm announced a $2.4 billion Tech Opportunities fund earlier this month.

With BCV’s total funds under management now at $12 billion, there’s a lot going on for the firm. It continues to back startups in the fintech, infrastructure, apps and commerce-tech space. Luckily, explains partner Kevin Zhang, BCV may need the extra capital considering the way prices are trending.

Zhang explained that the early-stage venture landscape has been “unseasonably warm,” with multiple seed deals for pre-product or pre-commercial teams in the $30 to $40 million post-money valuation range.

“It’s 2021 all over again,” he said. Zhang thinks that other VCs are returning to investing after taking the second half of 2021 off, adding that “there’s a bit of a flight to quality, so most of the pedigree investments, whether they were the right investments, there’s fewer of them in the market so the other companies are just getting bid up very aggressively.” For context, 90% of the deals that BCV did last year were in seed stage or Series A companies.

Merritt Hummer, BCV partner, added that there’s also been more activity in the late-stage world in the last few weeks than there was in most of 2022.

While some aspects of fund building are warming up, others are slowing down or staying consistent. Hummer explained that the firm is enjoying the longer due diligence cycles, and that taking more time to make decisions is “going to be the biggest change in terms of how we deploy these funds.”

In its last fund, Bain Capital Ventures previously committed between $20 million to $30 million in capital to emerging seed fund managers. To date, BCV has backed more than 80 seed funds. Despite today’s increase in fund size across these two new vehicles, the amount of capital that is being dedicated to the program will remain consistent, a spokesperson tells TechCrunch.

“We do suspect that [emerging fund] manager fundraising will decline,” Zhang said, saying he knows several managers who have opted to raise smaller debut or follow-on funds. “So we think even a constant dollar commitment will end up representing a large portion of ecosystem LP dollars.”

Outsized seed rounds, neobanks and spicy M&A? Well hello, 2023

For Bain Capital Ventures, ‘it is 2021 all over again’ (well, almost) by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/QXWnTHm

Samsung Galaxy A14 4G goes official with 50MP camera and 5,000 mAh battery

Samsung introduced the Galaxy A14 5G earlier last month, which comes with Exynos 1330 or Dimensity 700 SoC depending on the market. Now the company has unveiled its 4G version, which looks similar to the Galaxy A14 5G but packs different hardware. For starters, the Samsung Galaxy A14 4G is expectedly powered by a different chip. Samsung hasn't mentioned the name on its official website, but it could be the Helio G80 SoC. The screen refresh rate has also come down from 90Hz to 60Hz. While the Samsung Galaxy A14 4G sports a 13MP selfie camera like its 5G counterpart, its triple camera...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/uc3jtPq

ZTE to launch nubia Z50 Ultra with under-display camera on March 7

The nubia Z50 Ultra smartphone is set to arrive with a 4th-gen under-display camera, and now we know the official launch date. The brand will introduce the device on March 7 with a UDC technology called Neovision. The device will have a stacked 16 MP selfie camera with a 6P lens, 2.24 µm pixel size, and f/2.0 aperture under the 6.8” AMOLED panel. The official teasers confirmed leaked schematics from before - flat sides all around and an alert slider on the right, above the power key and the volume rocker. There is a tiny sliver between the screen and the top for the earpiece, which...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/OPqh2dv

Going private: A guide to PE tech acquisitions

Jeff Laborde Contributor

Jeff Laborde, CFO of JAGGAER, has more than 25 years of technology finance experience, including heavy involvement in both running private equity-backed software companies and transacting with PE firms in technology M&A.

Private equity (PE) firms spent a record $226.5 billion on take-private transactions globally in the first half of 2022, which is 39% higher than the same period in 2021. While overall mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity slowed significantly in the second half of last year with equity market volatility, the volume of large acquisitions by PE firms looking to capitalize on a period of lowered valuation expectations is rebounding as a result of bottoming valuations and a large supply of public company targets.

When public companies underperform, PE firms in pursuit of equity value creation opportunities are eager to purchase and take these organizations private.

Despite economic cycle peaks and troughs, these types of transactions represent a large and growing share of overall M&A activity. With this growth in the volume of PE-backed transactions, it’s increasingly important to understand the basics of these transactions and the potential implications on key stakeholders, including customers, partners and employees of the acquired company, in particular, those who are left to wonder how the acquisition will affect them.

Why do PE firms purchase publicly traded companies to take them private?

PE firms are investment funds that specialize in buying underperforming businesses with the goal of fixing performance and selling the business later for a profit. While PE firms can also buy private companies or take minority ownership stakes in businesses, their traditional approach has most often been to acquire publicly traded companies and take them private.

The software industry has seen significant take-private activity in the last year — Coupa, Citrix, Anaplan, Zendesk, Duck Creek and more — and the volume of such transactions is likely to increase given many newly public software companies (those listed in the last three to four years) are trading below their IPO valuations.

There are many reasons a PE firm chooses to buy a publicly traded company. The most common return on investment drivers (which by no means are mutually exclusive) are to significantly improve cash flows from operations, fix the company’s business operations and take advantage of untapped growth opportunities.

What happens after an acquisition is announced?

After the buyout agreement is signed and publicly announced, typically a deal will go into a multimonth pre-closing period while regulatory approvals are processed, debt financing is raised and closing conditions are satisfied. During this pre-closing period, the management of the acquired business generally freezes new investments, which often includes reduced hiring and the transition to near-term cost-rationalization.

The new PE owner will use this time to firm up its plans to shift short and long-term focus, including weighing the depth and breadth of cost cuts, changes to business practices and operations and defining new strategic priorities. Unfortunately, these pauses and changes create significant uncertainty and disruption for key stakeholders, especially employees and customers.

What happens after the multimonth pre-closing period?

Once all approvals and closing conditions are satisfied, the acquisition will close. The company will be de-listed and the PE firm officially owns the company. Most PE firms have a playbook for optimizing the operations of newly acquired companies and will begin to rapidly implement those strategies. Common changes include new leadership and corporate strategy reflective of the PE firm’s long-term experience managing through economic cycles and industry-specific market nuances.

Going private: A guide to PE tech acquisitions by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/SqHsD3v

Anthropic begins supplying its text-generating AI models to select startups

Anthropic, a buzzy AI startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI employees, has begun offering partners access to its AI text-generating models.

The first commercial venture to announce that it’s integrating Anthropic models is Robin AI, a legal tech startup that’s raised over $13 million from investors including Plural, Episode 1 and the Google Black Founders Fund. Quora’s experimental chatbot app for iOS and Android, Poe, uses Anthropic models, but it’s not currently monetized.

Robin CEO Richard Robinson disclosed few details regarding the Anthropic relationship, but told TechCrunch that Robin worked to fine-tune an Anthropic model on a data set of legal text to draft and negotiate contracts.

“We are very fortunate to be Anthropic’s launch partner for the legal sector — the team’s focus on AI safety aligns with our ‘lawyer-in-the-loop’ software-as-a-service product — deliberately designed to manage the risk of even the most advanced models ‘hallucinating,'” Robinson said in a statement.

Robin AI is one of the first commercial ventures to use Anthropic models.

Anthropic has been relatively quiet about its plans to productize its work in the generative text AI space, preferring instead to focus on academic research. But late last year, the company launched a closed beta for an AI system, called Claude, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT that appeared to improve upon the original in key ways. Claude was created using a technique Anthropic developed called “constitutional AI,” which aims to provide a “principle-based” approach to aligning AI systems with human intentions — letting AI similar to ChatGPT respond to questions using a simple set of principles (e.g. avoid giving harmful advice) as a guide.

Preliminary impressions of Claude were good. But like ChatGPT, the system suffered from limitations, like giving dangerous answers to questions (e.g. how to make meth at home) and making inconsistent, factually wrong statements.

It’s unclear whether the model Robin’s using is Claude or some derivative — neither Robin nor Anthropic would say. And even after repeated prodding, Anthropic wouldn’t reveal how many partners it’s currently working (or how they came to work with them) with and how many models it plans to open up to commercial usage.

But no doubt, Anthropic is feeling some sort of pressure from investors to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars that’ve been put toward its AI tech.

Most recently, Google pledged $300 million in Anthropic for a 10% stake in the startup. Under the terms of the deal, which was first reported by the Financial Times, Anthropic agreed to make Google Cloud its “preferred cloud provider” with the companies “co-develop[ing] AI computing systems.”

Anthropic wasn’t founded with a profit-driven mission, curiously. Dario Amodei, the former VP of research at OpenAI, launched the company in 2021 as a public benefit corporation, taking with him a number of OpenAI employees including OpenAI’s former public policy lead Jack Clark. Amodei split from OpenAI after a disagreement over the company’s direction, namely the startup’s increasingly commercial focus.

But AI systems are expensive to develop and maintain. Ballooning costs led Anthropic to pursue outside backing, including a $580 million tranche from a group of investors including disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison, Jim McClave, Nishad Singh, Jaan Tallinn and the Center for Emerging Risk Research.

Whether startup partnerships — and Big Tech investments — denote a shift in Anthropic’s priorities isn’t yet clear. But what is clear is that the company believes its technology is differentiated to compete with rivals like OpenAI, Cohere and AI21 Labs, all of which offer paid access to their text-generating AI via APIs.

Anthropic begins supplying its text-generating AI models to select startups by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/ZqsOS9l

CollX raises $5.5M to scan and evaluate value of trading cards

Card collectors often dispute how much their cards are worth. New Jersey-based CollX provides a free iOS and Android app to card enthusiasts that allows them to scan their trading cards and get value in return.

Launched in January last year, the app has now more than 600,000 users who have scanned more than 100 million cards. CEO Ted Mann told TechCrunch over a call that the company has made a proprietary database of more than 20 million cards ranging from Pokemon to sports that helps the CollX app to determine a card’s value.

The idea came from the time when Mann’s son Charlie started collecting cards during the pandemic but found it hard to determine their value. The father-son duo tried many tools and forums including eBay to determine the prices of these cards but felt that it was a tedious task and decided to build an app.

CollX has raised a seed round of $5.5 million led by Brand Foundry Ventures with participation from Next Coast Ventures, FJ Labs, 114 Ventures, Ben Franklin Technology Partners, and Morrison Seger Venture Capital Partners. The company has had a long list of angel investors including Nat Turner, DJ Skee, David Adelman, Darren Lachtman, Brad Stadler, Ryan Schinman, and Robert J. Moore.

Image Credits: CollX

The startup aims to build a marketplace to facilitate trades between card dealers. Currently, the app helps two collectors connect and have a conversation over a potential deal. But they have to exchange the address details and exchange money manually. CollX wants to help facilitate those transactions, and in turn, take a cut as well.

“85 million American adults own trading cards, but most have no idea what they’re worth. We launched CollX with a simple utility to scratch the what’s-it-worth itch. That’s become a gateway to helping folks digitize their collections, do millions of dollars in deals, learn how to grade cards, and much more. We’re just getting started,” Mann said in a statement.

At the moment, the startup earns money from Card Dealer Pro, a startup it acquired last year, which helps card shops quickly scan and upload their inventory. Mann said that there are thousands of shops in the US that have a large card collection and this software helps them digitize and keep track of those cards better than creating a spreadsheet.

Mann mentioned that he also wants to help these shops list their collection on CollX. So eventually users will have exposure to a bigger collection for potential purchases. In the long run, the startup wants to onboard other collectibles like coins and stamps on CollX as well.

In the past few years, collectibles like cards have emerged as an alternative asset class with multiple startups getting notable funding. Collectible trading platform Alt has raised more than $300 million to date from investors like Jeff Fagnan and Naval Ravikant-led Spearhead and Seven Seven Six Capital. Last year, entrepreneur Brian Lee and Baseball legend Derek Jeter launched a sports card-focused startup with $9 million backing from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Defy.vc and BAM Ventures. At the same time, eBay acquired trading card marketplace TGCPlayer for $295 million.

“CollX has grown to become a force in the hobby in a very short period of time. The secondary market for cards is big, but we see an opportunity for it to grow 2-3x. And CollX will be at the center of that, helping collectors level up in the hobby,” Wesley Gottesman of Brand Foundry said in a statement.

CollX raises $5.5M to scan and evaluate value of trading cards by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/OLIzXEk

Watch the Honor Magic5 series launch live

Honor is having a launch party today, and we will see the announcement of the Magic5 series, as well as the global debut of the Magic Vs foldable. The company is hosting the event as part of MWC in Barcelona, and it will begin at 1:30 PM CET. The company provided a live stream which we embedded below. The broadcast will begin 30 minutes earlier. The Magic5 series is expected to bring at least two devices at launch - a vanilla Honor Magic5 and a proper flagship called Magic5 Pro. There may or may not be a Magic5 Ultimate with even mightier cameras than the Pro, although last year,...

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

Xiaomi 13 review

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

Xiaomi’s 13 Pro flagship has a 1-inch sensor

The Xiaomi 13 Pro flagship made a global debut today at Mobile World Congress (MWC)  in Barcelona. With this device — which was launched in China in December — the company is banking on a one-inch main sensor, Leica lenses and 120W fast charging. This is, in essence, a Samsung Galaxy S series competitor.

Cameras have long been a major differentiating factor in today’s flagships. Xiaomi is using a massive one-inch Sony IMX989 50-megapixel sensor with f/1.9 aperture to get the best and brightest photos in all lighting conditions. A couple of phone manufacturers including Vivo and Sharp have already included this sensor in a few devices. The camera is capable of video recording in 8K resolution — 4K resolution at 60 fps if recording in Dolby Vision.

There’s also a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with a “floating lens” element, which results in a 3.2x lossless zoom. Plus, the device has another 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor. The 13 Pro has a 32-megapixel front camera with a night mode and dual-framing (0.8x and 1x) modes.

All those cameras and their Leica lenses are placed in a massive square housing on the back. While we’ve seen plenty of square camera bumps, the size really makes this one stand out.

Apart from the camera system, the Xiaomi 13 Pro’s spec sheet standard fare for a 2023 Android flagship. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, 6.73-inch WQHD+ AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and 1,900 nits of peak brightness, support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HLG HDR standards, 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and USF 4.0 storage.

Xiaomi’s latest flagship has a 4,820 mAh battery that can be charged in minutes through a proprietary 120W charger. However, these charging bricks are huge and bulky. The device supports also 50W wireless charging with compatible charging pucks along with 10W reverse charging if you quickly want to top up your earbuds.

The 13 Pro will be available in ceramic white and ceramic black colorways with 256GB and 512GB storage variants. It will be available in Europe from March 8, starting  at €1,200 ($1,373). Along with the new flagship, the company also launched the Xiaomi 13, with a starting price of €999 ($1,056) and the Xiaomi 13 Lite with a starting price of €499 ($527).

At present, Xiaomi is in a peculiar spot, globally. The company has fallen behind Apple, Oppo, Vivo, and Honor in China. India, where the phone maker has dominated the phone shipment ranking for the past few years, has conceded the top position to Samsung in the last quarter. It has also faced challenges in the South Asian country with the departure of top executives, anti-china sentiment, and tax investigations from regulatory bodies. Amid all this, Xiaomi really wants to deliver a winner.

Xiaomi’s 13 Pro flagship has a 1-inch sensor by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3LFmJ6S

Xiaomi 13, Xiaomi 13 Pro go international at MWC

The Xiaomi 13 and Xiaomi 13 Pro were launched in China last year, and today at MWC, the company finally brought the flagships to the international scene. At a glamorous event, the two phones with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipsets and Leica cameras began their global rollout. The Xiaomi 13 comes with a 6.36” compact OLED with Full HD+ resolution and up to 1,900 nits advertised maximum brightness. The camera setup on the back should have processing tuned with the know-how provided by Leica. We have a 50MP main sensor with OIS, a 3x telephoto camera with a 10MP sensor and OIS, and a 12MP...

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

Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz invested more in fintech than any other sector in 2022

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. — Mary Ann

Storied venture firms Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) invested more in fintech than any other category in 2022, according to research from CB Insights. I’m not going to lie — upon learning this, my fintech-loving ears perked up.

Sequoia apparently was fairly active overall last year despite the global downturn, with over 100 investments. And fintech represented nearly a quarter of the firm’s deals.

We saw a similar trend at a16z. According to CB Insights, of the 206 deals that a16z participated in last year, almost a quarter went to fintech companies — more than any other industry. Sixty percent of these fintech investments closed in the first half of 2022, with the remainder closing in the second half of the year.

Sequoia backed 25 companies in the financial services space last year. Its top three fintech targets, as identified by CB Insights, were capital markets, payments and payroll and benefits — with each category representing 16% of its investments.

A16z backed 49 companies in the fintech space last year and its top three fintech targets were payments (28%), blockchain (22%) and digital lending (12%).

Three out of Sequoia’s four deals in the capital markets space were follow-on investments, a reflection of the firm’s “faith in the future of capital markets tech,” noted CB Insights. Deals it participated in included Citadel Securities’ $1.2 billion round; Capitolis’ $110 million Series D; Watershed’s $70 million Series B; and Ledgy’s $22 million Series B.

More than a quarter (28%) of a16z’s fintech investments in 2022 went to the payments category. For example, it participated in SpotOn’s $300 million Series F; Jeeves’ $180 million Series C; and Tally Technologies’ $80 million Series C.

Meanwhile, Sequoia’s investments in payments tech companies spanned both consumer and business payments and operate in four distinct markets: buy now, pay later (BNPL), expense management, peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, and online payments acceptance. Two of the four deals are at the seed stage. Specifically, Sequoia participated in Klarna’s $800 million financing; Yokoy’s $80 million Series B; Telda’s $20 million seed round; and Cococart’s $4 million seed financing.

While blockchain and crypto arguably fall under the fintech category, I usually leave analysis of those segments to our crypto team, so I won’t go into a16z’s blockchain investments. But a16z’s third most popular fintech category in 2022 was digital lending companies, with the firm having participated in Point Digital Finance’s $115 million Series C; Valon’s $60 million Series B; and Vesta’s $30 million Series A.

Sequoia’s third most popular category was payroll and benefits, with the firm having backed four such companies — all at later stages — and participating in CaptivateIQ’s $100 million Series C; Rippling’s $250 million Series D; Remote’s $300 million Series C; and Truework’s $50 million Series C.

Now, we know that investments in fintech companies were far lower in 2022 compared to 2021. But wasn’t that true for every sector? Sequoia’s and a16z’s continued bets in the space are just one indication that fintech may be down, but definitely not out.

Weekly News

I interviewed Klarna CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski about the Swedish payment giant’s momentum in the U.S. Highlights of the interview, which you can read about in more detail here, include (1) the fact that the U.S. has overtaken Germany as Klarna’s largest market by revenue, (2) the company’s fastest-growing revenue stream is actually marketing, not BNPL and (3) Sebastian really views Klarna and Affirm as being “very different” companies in terms of loan duration and amount. On the topic of Klarna and Affirm, I also spoke this past week with Tyson Hendricksen, CEO and founder of a new company called Notice that tracks secondary market trade activity in the private markets. He told me that based on secondary market activity, Klarna appears to be currently valued at around $7.5 billion, which is actually higher than the $6.7 billion it was valued at last July, but also still significantly lower than the $45 billion it was valued at in 2021. By comparison, Affirm is currently valued at $3.84 billion. Below is a chart Hendricksen provided that illustrates trading activity at the two companies. Affirm is public so the chart shows share price as recorded in the public markets. It also shows a composite price for Klarna that takes into  account secondary market trades and open bids and offers. Says Hendricksen: “Think of it as an approximation of the current stock price and valuation using multiple private market data sets.”

To view it more interactively, click here.

Image Credits: Notice

Reports Tage Kene-Okafor: “African cross-border payments platform Chipper Cash conducted a second round of layoffs…just 10 weeks after it cut approximately 12.5% of its workforce (affecting its engineering team the most). The company’s VP of revenue shared the news on LinkedIn, saying “all areas” across Chipper Cash’s markets were impacted this time. “Friday was a sad day for Chipper Cash, as many talented people were let go,” his post read. More here.

Reports Manish Singh: “India and Singapore have linked their digital payments systems, UPI and PayNow, to enable instant and low-cost fund transfers in a major push to disrupt the cross-border flow of money between the two nations that amounts to more than $1 billion each year.” More here.

Reports Ingrid Lunden: “Stripe, the payments and financial services upstart, made waves in the world of mobile commerce last year when it became Apple’s first payment partner for “Tap to Pay,” the iPhone giant’s move to turn any iOS device into a payment-making or payment-taking terminal. Now, Stripe is expanding that business by a factor of googol. From today, businesses that use Stripe Terminal to take in-person payments now will be able to carry out Tap to Pay transactions on NFC-equipped Android devices, too.” More on that here.

MagicCube co-founder Sam Shawki points out in an email interview with me that Stripe is actually not the only payments company providing Tap to Pay on Android currently. He says that his startup, MagicCube, was first to market with Tap to Pay on Android devices in 2021 in the U.K., which has been transacting for a while now. Adds Shawki: “Since then we have many deployments around the world and a few new deployments in the US coming up shortly with major processors in the US, Canada and EMEA that are using Apple on iOS and MagicCube on Android.…We welcome Stripe to the market as it confirms our vision and lights the fire under other processors, merchant acquirers, and financial institutions to more quickly move to adoption in order to maintain their market share. We believe that this year will be the year of massive shift to using our product on Android and on Apple’s iOS to capture the $140 billion a year opportunity of Tap to Phone.” I wrote about MagicCube in 2021 here.

Samantha “Sam” Eisler has joined Lightspeed Venture Partners’ NYC fintech team. Prior to Lightspeed, which she joined in late 2022, Eisler was an investor at Tusk Venture Partners, where she focused on investments in fintech and digital health. Prior to that, she spent five years at Google, working on go-to-market strategies for the company’s machine-learning-driven ad solutions, as well as helping to build an accelerator program for startups in emerging markets. More here.

Reports Bloomberg: “JPMorgan Chase & Co. has curbed its staff’s use of the ChatGPT chatbot, according to a person familiar with the matter. The artificial intelligence software is currently restricted, the person said, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The move, which impacts employees across the firm, wasn’t triggered by any specific incident.”

Varo Bank announced the appointment of Wook Chung as chief product officer. A statement from a spokesperson said that Chung will lead Varo’s product vision and strategy initiatives and will play a key role in the expansion of Varo Tech, the innovation arm of the company, “which meets at the intersection of product, technology, data, and design.” According to Varo, Chung has an “extensive background” in product management through roles at Facebook, Twitter, Google, and most recently SoFi. More here.

Across the sea, as reported by Silicon Canals, “Amsterdam-based challenger bank Bunq announced on Tuesday, February 21, that it has reached a pre-tax profit of €2.3M in the last quarter of 2022. In Q4 2022, Bunq’s net fee income grew by 37 per cent compared to Q4 2021, and user deposits grew by 64 per cent compared to €1.8B at the end of 2022.” More on Bunq here.

Mastercard has tapped five startups to participate in its Start Path Emerging Fintech program. Here are the five startups, as described by the credit card giant: EMERGE Esports (Singapore) provides its network of gaming content creators and brands across Southeast Asia with commercialization options through its talent database. Mintoak (India) provides a software-as-a-service platform that enables banks to expand their value proposition for merchants through payment acceptance and commerce enablement solutions. Optty (Singapore) offers a single integration and orchestration solution that connects merchants directly to buy now, pay later solutions; wallets; and other alternative payment methods globally. PayCaddy (Panama) offers an all-in-one banking-as-a-service solution for digital banking and express card issuance. Finally, Prosperas (United States) enables lenders to deliver credit opportunities directly to a mobile phone using anonymized, nonbiased data to match and prequalify consumers.

Rob Galtman, senior director of Fitch Ratings, noted that Block (formerly known as Square) had a “solid” Q4 despite macro- and recession-related fears. Via email, he added that the company is among other large tech players that have focused more on profitability in light of tougher capital market conditions, with management revealing slower hiring trends in 2023. Galman added: “Market concerns around BNPL are not evident to date, with loan loss rates remaining low. However, BNPL remains an area to focus on, given low-income consumers are especially pressured with inflation pressures. If a recession or macro pullback arrives, Block is well positioned given exposure to secular growth areas including digital payments and omnichannel commerce, as well as a strong balance sheet.”

Opendoor Technologies continues to face challenges. As reported by Barron’s: The real estate tech company “reported a narrower fourth-quarter loss than expected after the market closed on Thursday, February 23. The earnings beat caps a year of change in both the housing market and the company, which buys and sells houses. Opendoor (ticker: OPEN) said it lost 63 cents per share on revenue of about $2.9 billion in the quarter, beating consensus estimates…In full-year 2022, Opendoor lost $2.16 per share on revenue of about $15.6 billion. Consensus had anticipated a loss of $2.33 on sales of roughly $15.2 billion. While the fourth-quarter results beat estimates, they were down significantly from year-ago levels. The company lost 31 cents per share on sales of about $3.8 billion in the final quarter of 2021.”

Fundings and M&A

Seen on TechCrunch

YC-backed HR-payroll provider Workpay raises $2.7M to scale in Africa

Nestment raises $3.5M to help friends and family buy homes together

Trust & Will secures $15M after doubling revenue: Amex Ventures, USAA are among the digital estate planning startup’s new backers

Telecom giant Airtel eyes a stake in Paytm

And elsewhere

Marijuana fintech firm Green Check Verified raises $6 million

Mexican startups Minu and Plerk merge to strengthen the benefits market. TechCrunch covered Minu’s recent raise here.

Goldman Sachs’ One Million Black Women and Now®️ launch $225M credit facility to accelerate growth of small and historically underserved businesses. TechCrunch covered Now’s 2021 raise here.

Nuvei finalizes $1.3B Paya purchase

Fintechs that are hiring

The good news is that I was inundated with DMs and emails from people letting me know that their fintech company is hiring. The bad news is that there is no way I can include all of them in this week’s newsletter. So if you reached out and don’t see your company here, check out upcoming editions of The Interchange. I’m making my way down the list!

• Mesh Payments has about a dozen openings; the financial management startup announced a $60 million raise last September.
• Highnote, an embedded finance and payments technology company that emerged from stealth with $54 million in funding in September of 2021, is hiring for a head of customer success, senior core infrastructure engineer, senior data platform engineer, senior software engineer, and a technical writer. More details here.
• EarnIn is currently hiring across engineering, product, business development and finance among other departments in the U.S., LatAm, and Bangkok. It most recently raised a $125 million Series C.
• Branch, a full-stack home and auto insurer that leverages data and technology, currently has more than 30 open roles throughout the company. The company raised $147 million at a $1.05 billion valuation last June.
• Corporate spend management company Ramp, which was valued at $8.1 billion last year, is hiring for 30+ roles.
• NorthOne, a small business-focused neobank, is currently hiring for nine roles in product, engineering, marketing, and compliance. The company raised $67 million in Series B funding last October.
• Nova Credit, a consumer-permissioned credit bureau, has six open positions that are remote across engineering and marketing. In September, it received a $10 million investment from HSBC Ventures.
• Silicon Valley–based neobank Upgrade is hiring for over two dozen roles. The company raised $280 million at a $6 billion valuation in 2021 and says it offers “affordable and responsible” credit, mobile banking, and payment products to consumers.
• Prodigal, which has developed a cloud-based consumer finance intelligence solution that analyzes agent and customer conversations, is hiring for several roles across most of its departments, including for a VP of sales and chief of staff.
• Stake, a digital real estate investment platform in MENA that raised $8 million last August, has 13 current positions to fill between Dubai and Cairo. More details can be found on its careers page.
• Viva Wallet has a total of 188 openings across Europe. JPMorgan acquired a stake in the Athens-based SMB-focused fintech in early 2022.

It was a busy week in the world of fintech, so I’m looking forward to some downtime this weekend and hope you’re enjoying some, too! Let me end with a personal photo taken at the end of a walk the other day. Gotta admit that Austin sunsets are pretty breathtaking. Until next week, take good care. xoxoxo, Mary Ann

Image Credits: Mary Ann Azevedo / Austin sunset

Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz invested more in fintech than any other sector in 2022 by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/sTracHl

Watch the Xiaomi 13 series global debut live here

Xiaomi released its Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro handsets in China in December, and the duo is now about to make its global debut. Xiaomi chose this year's MWC in Barcelona to announce it and it's going to be live streamed, so you can follow it from the comfort of your home or office. The show starts at 3PM UTC. In addition to the duo, a 13 Lite is also expected along with wearables including the new Xiaomi Watch and the Xiaomi Buds 4 Pro. Should be a good one!

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/x9eaSlv

Don’t leave developers behind in the Section 230 debate

Shelley McKinley Contributor

Shelley McKinley is chief legal officer at GitHub, home to more than 100 million software developers.

Last week marked the first time the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. In oral arguments in the Gonzalez v. Google case, important questions were raised about platform responsibility and the risk of viral content.

As the court grapples with these questions, it is an opportunity to reflect on why 230 was created in the first place, how it fosters innovation and what we all stand to lose if the protections embedded within 230 are narrowed.

Nicknamed the “26 words that created the internet” by Jeff Kosseff, Section 230 established a liability shield for platforms that host third-party content. In the nascent days of the internet, 230 created favorable legal conditions for startups and entrepreneurs to flourish, cementing the United States as a world leader in software.

While today’s tech landscape is dramatically different from the fledgling internet of the ’90s, the reasoning behind Section 230 still holds true today. The architecture of law creates conditions for innovation and can also chill it.

Seemingly lost in arguments taking aim at the outsized influence of large social media platforms is an appreciation of how Section 230 supports the broader online ecosystem, especially software developers. Developers are at the heart of our online world and at the forefront of creating solutions for global challenges, working to make the software that underpins our digital infrastructure more secure, reliable and safe.

Policymakers should recognize the critical role of developers and work to support them, not stifle innovation.

Developers rely on 230 to collaborate on platforms like GitHub and to build and operate new platforms rethinking social media. Narrowing 230 protections could have far-reaching implications, introducing legal uncertainty into the important work of software developers, startups and platforms that provide them the tools to realize their vision. As policymakers consider how to address new frontiers of intermediary liability, it’s essential to center developers in decisions that will shape the future of the internet.

Software developers contribute significantly to the United States’ economic competitiveness and innovation and are important stakeholders in platform policy. GitHub counts 17 million American developers on our platform — more than any other country. Their open source activity alone contributes more than $100 billion to the U.S. economy annually.

These developers maintain the invisible but essential software infrastructure that powers our daily lives. Nearly all software — 97% — contains open source components, which are often developed and maintained on GitHub.

As the chief legal officer at GitHub, a global community of over 100 million software developers collaborating on code, I know firsthand the importance of keeping 230 intact. While GitHub is a far cry from a general-purpose social media platform, GitHub depends on 230 protections to both host third-party content and engage in good-faith content moderation.

That’s especially important when a platform has over 330 million software repositories. GitHub has been able to grow while maintaining platform health thanks to intermediary liability protections. GitHub has a robust, developer-first approach to content moderation to keep our platform safe, healthy and inclusive while tailoring our approach to the unique environment of code collaboration, where the takedown of a single project can have significant downstream effects for thousands or more software projects.

When it comes to the specifics of the Gonzalez v. Google case, which asks the court to consider whether Section 230’s liability protections ought to include third-party content recommended by algorithms, a ruling in favor of the petitioners could have unintended consequences for developers. Recommendation algorithms are used throughout software development in myriad ways that are distinct from general-purpose social media platforms.

GitHub’s contributions to Microsoft’s amicus brief in the case outline our concerns: Recommendations powered by algorithms on GitHub are used to connect users with similar interests, let them find relevant software projects and are even used to recommend ways to improve code and fix software vulnerabilities. One such example is GitHub’s CodeQL, a semantic code analysis engine that allows developers to discover vulnerabilities and errors in open source code.

Developers are using GitHub to maintain open source projects that employ algorithmic recommendations to block hate speech and remove malicious code. A decision by the court to narrow 230 to exclude protection for recommendation algorithms could quickly ensnare a variety of societally valuable services, including tools that maintain the quality and security of the software supply chain.

A ruling in Gonzalez v. Google that seeks to pull back protections benefiting social media platforms has the potential to impact a much broader community. In the lead-up to the court hearing the case, a host of amicus briefs emphasized its far-reaching implications: from nonprofits (Wikimedia Foundation) to community content moderation (Reddit and Reddit moderators) and small businesses and startups (Engine).

While calls to narrow 230 focus mainly on putting Big Tech in check, doing so would unintentionally curb competition and innovation while creating additional barriers to entry for the next generation of developers and emerging providers.

These concerns are not hyperbole: In “How Law Made Silicon Valley,” Anupam Chander examines how the U.S. legal system created favorable conditions for internet entrepreneurship in contrast to Europe, where “concerns about copyright violations and strict privacy protections hobbled internet startups,” and Asia, where “Asian web enterprises faced not only copyright and privacy constraints, but also strict intermediary liability rules.”

Narrowing 230 wouldn’t just harm the United States’ global competitiveness; it would impede tech progress within the U.S. While GitHub has gone a long way from our startup beginnings, we’re committed to leveling the playing field so anyone, anywhere, can be a developer.

As we await the court’s decision in Gonzalez v. Google, it’s important to note that whatever the result of the case, there will surely be more efforts to narrow 230, whether they are taking aim at algorithmic recommendations, AI or other innovations. While these new technologies raise important questions about the future of intermediary liability, policymakers must strive to chart a path forward that creates a legal environment that supports developers, startups, small businesses and nonprofits that power so many socially beneficial parts of the internet.

Policymakers concerned about reducing harmful content can look to how developers are leading the way in content moderation. Developers use GitHub to develop valuable software projects, including open source content moderation algorithms that reflect policymakers’ calls for algorithmic transparency on platforms, such as the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2022 and the Algorithmic Justice and Online Platform Transparency Act.

Platforms including Twitter, Bumble and Wikimedia have used GitHub to share the source code for algorithms that flag misinformation, filter lewd imagery and block spam, respectively. Open source is spurring innovation in content moderation while offering new models for community participation, oversight and transparency.

As we encounter new frontiers in intermediary liability, policymakers should recognize the critical role of developers and work to support — not stifle — innovation.

Don’t leave developers behind in the Section 230 debate by Walter Thompson originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/sLaeFo7

Weekly deals: the best smartphone deals from Germany, the UK, the US and India

This week in addition to the various deals on new smartphones, we also found quite a few refurbished devices – save the planet and save some cash, what’s not to like? Use the links below to jump to your country: USA Germany The UK India Germany Amazon has the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max with pretty solid discounts compared to what Apple’s official online store is charging. For example, the Pro Max is €170 down from its MSRP of €1,450. Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max 128GB ...

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

Biotech proved a surprisingly bright spot in 2022’s startup correction

No startup sector was entirely immune from the 2022’s market uncertainty — except maybe AI — but some proved more resilient than others. Biotech was one of the most fortunate.

The sector recorded 1,054 U.S.-based deals in 2022, worth a collective $30.7 billion, according to Pitchbook data. Those figures fell short of the 1,415 biotech deals struck in 2021 worth a total of $39 billion. But the declines were not the worst we found: Biotech showed a more modest year-over-year decline in investment volume (21%) than many other sectors including fintech (37.7%), consumer tech (53%) and enterprise tech (33%).

Comparing any sector’s results to 2021 is slightly specious, as that year was the peak of the last startup boom. Compared to 2020’s more conservative 1,143 biotech deals worth $29.6 billion, last year wrapped up on par.

U.S. biotech deals also set new records in 2022 for both median deal size, $33.5 million, and median valuation, $38 million.

Biotech investors told TechCrunch that while they definitely felt the squeeze of the overall economic conditions last year — and noticed tourist investors shying away from the category, similar to other sectors — many weren’t surprised that the category performed better than some of the other more buzzy industries for a few key reasons.

Biotech proved a surprisingly bright spot in 2022’s startup correction by Rebecca Szkutak originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/pPMxt3R

Bitcoin rewards and NFTs may help grow the blockchain

Welcome back to Chain Reaction, a podcast diving deep into the stories, backgrounds and latest news with the biggest names in crypto.

For this week’s episode, I interviewed Alex Adelman, the co-founder and CEO of Lolli. Founded in 2018, Lolli is a bitcoin rewards app that lets people earn bitcoin or cash back when they shop online or in-person at over 10,000 stores like McDonald’s, Starbucks, Dunkin’, CVS, Costco and so on. Adelman previously was on the team that built commerce gateway Cosmic, which was acquired by PopSugar in 2015 before ultimately folding into Ebates (now Rakuten) in 2017.

“I’ve been selling bitcoin to merchants since 2013,” Adelman said. “So it wasn’t a new sell — for better or for worse, I was the bitcoin guy for a lot of Fortune 500 merchants.”

Lolli has grown significantly over the past few years, from partnering with less than 500 stores in its first few months to more than 10,000 stores to date. Adelman dived into the rewards system in the crypto ecosystem and how it has evolved over the years — and what the future holds for Lolli.

“We’ve been talking about the future of loyalty and its involvement in crypto for a very long time,” Adelman said. “Now it’s coming to fruition.”

The episode also dived deep into the topic of Bitcoin NFTs and Ordinals, the latest craze for the community. We discussed whether Bitcoin NFTs are good for the ecosystem, how the technology can grow in the long term and possibilities for these digital inscriptions to potentially fit into Lolli’s business model.

“I’m a big believer the best NFTs are memes that are going to last forever and art that’s going to last forever,” Adelman said. “When things have utility it has a finite value to it, opposed to an infinite belief it can be the next Mona Lisa. That’s the differentiator: We’ve been intentional about what has value.”

In the future, Adelman also thinks more artists and projects will launch on Bitcoin. “I think you’ll start to see Lightning marketplaces emerge where you can buy and sell Bitcoin NFTs probably within the next few months,” Adelman added. “Artists want to build in ecosystems where there’s liquidity, where there’s people to buy, and there’s no better ecosystem than Bitcoin.”

Chain Reaction comes out every other Thursday at 12:00 p.m. PT, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

Bitcoin rewards and NFTs may help grow the blockchain by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/rplJ1tY

Nokia phonemaker HMD Global to move some manufacturing to Europe

HMD Global, the Finnish phonemaker and inheritor of the Nokia mobile phone brand, has revealed plans to transition some of its manufacturing to Europe.

The company said the move is designed to meet a “surge in customer demand” for locally-produced devices, due in part to security and sustainability concerns among both its corporate and consumer users.

The announcement, which was timed to coincide with the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 industry event in Barcelona, comes four years after HMD Global revealed it was moving its data centers to Europe to satisfy European Union (EU) data regulations such as GDPR. Moving manufacturing there, it seems, is a natural next-step.

“We already have our data centers in Europe — more specifically we have our data centers in Finland, to ensure the security of our devices,” HMD Global chief marketing officer Lars Silberbauer said in a press briefing earlier this week. “By starting this journey to bring manufacturing to Europe, we want to ensure that the critical part of the development of the devices are within Europe and within European legislations, which is quite important for a lot of our customers.”

So in many ways, the company is adopting a similar philosophy for manufacturing as the cloud computing industry has been doing for data with region-specific infrastructure — sovereignty is very much the name of the game, bringing the “product” closer to the customer, making it easier for all concerned to adhere to local laws and regulations.

Maker’s mark

Nokia 5.4 smartphone, released by HMD Global in December 2020 Image Credits: HMD Global

HMD Global emerged from the ashes of Microsoft’s ill-fated Nokia devices acquisition in 2013, a move that ultimately led to a $7 billion “good will” writedown after Satya Nadella entered the CEO hotseat and refocused the company’s efforts. Microsoft eventually offloaded the Nokia business entirely, with Nokia inking a brand-licensing deal with the newly-established HMD Global entity in 2016.

For the most part, HMD Global has focused on feature phones and budget smartphones, but that hasn’t stopped the Helsinki-based company from raising $330 million in venture capital (VC) funding, the lion’s share arriving in 2020 from big-name backers including Google, Qualcomm, and Nokia itself.

As with most mobile phone companies, HMD Global has hitherto relied on Asia for its manufacturing output, specifically China and India. And it’s clear that isn’t changing. But as part of its burgeoning ambitions in the enterprise realm specifically, which includes a suite of add-on subscription services for businesses, the company wants to further differentiate itself in a space that includes deep-pocketed incumbents such as Samsung, Google, and — of course — Apple.

Indeed, today’s news doesn’t signal the start of a major “lift and shift” effort to bring existing Nokia phone manufacturing to Europe. Silberbauer stressed that the company sees this as a means to attract new customers with very specific localization demands in the region. 

“We will not be taking production away from anywhere,” he said. “We see it as a growth opportunity for the European market.”

Silberbauer told TechCrunch that its European manufacturing endeavors will begin with a 5G smartphone aimed at “security conscious industries,” and will be offered purely as a B2B product. It expects manufacturing and shipping to begin as soon as the third-quarter of 2023, with plans to add at least one consumer-focused device to the mix in the future.

“It’s step-by-step that we are taking this journey towards manufacturing in Europe,” Silberbauer said.

HMD Enable Pro: An Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) service for centrally managing Nokia devices Image Credits: HMD Global

Address unknown

The big elephant in the room here, of course, is where — exactly — is HMD Global manufacturing its devices in Europe? Finland, perhaps, might be a good bet given that is where the company is headquartered. But despite repeated attempts to garner specifics around its manufacturing plans on the continent, Silberbauer cited security concerns as one reason why they couldn’t divulge the precise location of its factories.

“Unfortunately, due to our customers being in various security-conscious industries, we’re not allowed to tell anyone which countries we are producing these devices in, simply to keep it as secure as possible,” he said.

However, Silberbauer did spill some beans around what the manufacturing flow might look like at first, confirming that HMD Global will still be working closely with its existing partners in Asia.

“We cannot just flick a switch and then have a fully-functioning factory in Europe,” he said. “It needs to be taken step-by-step. So the first steps are basically that our current partner in China will collect the materials and conduct initial security, before they ship to our manufacturing partners in the EU. And from there, the partner in Europe will finish the assembly, calibrate and test the devices, test hardware, and specifically test the software for security.”

HMD Global is also using this new distributed manufacturing model to tout its sustainability credentials, with Silberbauer noting that this is one reason why it doesn’t make sense to move its existing manufacturing from its current location in Asia, where it already has a strong customer base.

“Manufacturing in Europe means that we will decrease the carbon footprints on those devices,” Silberbauer said. “It would not make sense to manufacture all of our phones in Europe, because all of our markets and consumers are not in Europe. It’s best from a sustainability point of view to keep the production in those areas where the consumers are.”

Nokia phonemaker HMD Global to move some manufacturing to Europe by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/AjPFCzk

Nokia G22 is official with focus on repairability and sustainability

Today, HMD announced the 4G Nokia G22 with a key focus on repairability and sustainability. Let's explore that first, then we'll lay down the specs. The Nokia G22 is for the smartphone owner that wants to hold onto his phone for the longest possible time. According to market research numbers the leading cause for people to change their phone is that it broke and that in most cases it was due to a broken display or a degraded battery, so HMD focused on making those as easy as to replace as possible. A battery replacement of the Nokia G22 takes around 5 minutes and all the tools you...

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

Will AI receive the same celebrity-fueled hype as crypto once did? It’s complicated

When the crypto world was at its latest peak, celebrities quickly joined the gold rush. Tom Brady started a buzzy NFT business for athletes and entertainers with backing from a16z and Kleiner Perkins, among others. Reese Witherspoon said crypto is here to stay, encouraging “more women to be a part of the conversation.” And Paris Hilton, a longtime crypto enthusiast, reportedly named two of her newest pets “Crypto Hilton” and “Ether Reum.”

As crypto has sputtered and struggled in recent months, the spotlight is now on AI. Will celebrities follow venture’s newest hype train? Buzzy products spun out from OpenAI, such as ChatGPT and GPT-3, are helping to land billions in VC interest. But core differences between AI and crypto may mean that influencers turned venture capitalists may not be as eager to jump.

But does AI even need celebrities touting its many applications?

Will AI receive the same celebrity-fueled hype as crypto once did? It’s complicated by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/WsjQRxc

Apple iPhone 15 Plus' CAD-based renders surface showing Dynamic Island and USB-C

Last week, CAD-based renders of the Apple iPhone 15 Pro surfaced, showing the phone's thinner bezels, curvier design, and USB-C port. And a few days ago, we saw the vanilla iPhone 15 with Dynamic Island. Now, we are looking at the CAD renders of the Plus model, which too features Dynamic Island. This means the entire iPhone lineup this year will sport Dynamic Island, which wasn't the case last year since the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus retained the notch. Like the vanilla and Pro models, the Apple iPhone 15 Plus has a new body design with slightly rounded edges and a USB-C port replacing...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/8SiYCDU

Apple gives iPad OLED order to Samsung and LG, no BOE in sight

Apple is expected to skip the announcement of new iPad Pro devices this year and will bring them in early 2024. The biggest change will be a switch from LCD to OLED, and according to Korean sources, Cupertino will place the orders for the panels with Samsung and LG. The deal between Apple and display maker BOE is still being negotiated, effectively putting the Chinese manufacturer out of the game, at least for the initial push. Apple’s flagship tablet product sold more than 70 million units during the previous fiscal year. Between October and December 2022, the company saw $9.4...

from GSMArena.com - Latest articles https://ift.tt/K6zW35Z

Poshmark lays off employees just two months after being acquired by Naver

Poshmark, a Redwood City, California-headquartered secondhand apparel marketplace, is laying off a proportion of its 800+ employees. The reduction is coming about two months after South Korean internet firm Naver completed its acquisition of the company earlier this year for $1.2 billion. 

Naver agrees to acquire fashion marketplace Poshmark for $1.2B

Poshmark confirmed to TechCrunch that the company is cutting its workforce due to the economic slowdown but did not disclose the number of people impacted.

“We made the difficult decision to reduce the size of some of our teams to better align with our priorities for the future, the current economic climate, and our return to being a private company,” a spokesperson at Poshmark told TechCrunch. “We are incredibly grateful for the contributions of the talented people in the roles that were impacted.”

It also did not disclose the number of total employees at the company, nor whether the layoffs would be in the U.S. only or globally. On its LinkedIn Profile, it describes itself as having “over 800” employees.

We have asked the questions and will update this post as we learn more.

Poshmark’s job cuts come as a number of tech companies are also downsizing their workforces. As the economy dips, tech companies in particular have seen their businesses slow down, and so they are turning to layoffs as part of bigger cost cutting strategies to focus more on profitability. That is a trend that has not spared fashion e-commerce, with others like Everlane and StitchFix collectively laying off hundreds of employees in recent months.

Founded in 2011, Poshmark claims to have more than 80 million registered users across the U.S., Canada, Australia and India. It was delisted from NASDAQ after the Naver acquisition completed, but according to the last accounts it filed, in 2021, it had annual gross merchandise volume of $1.8 billion, and it posted net revenues of $44.4 million in Q3 2022, an 11% year-on-year increase, with gross merchandise value of $475.6 million in the same period. 

At the time of Naver acquisition, Poshmark’s leadership touted the scaling potential and technology investments that would come with the deal.

“As a part of Naver, we’ll benefit from their financial resources, significant technology capabilities and leading presence across Asia to expand our platform and enhance our user experience for the Poshmark community and create additional value for all our stakeholders,” founder and CEO of Poshmark Manish Chandra said in its statement earlier this year. “[We] look forward to seeing Poshmark employees benefit from being part of a larger, global organization who shares our values and vision around content, community and empowerment.” 

During its press conference in San Francisco last month, Poshmark unveiled a new shopping feature, Posh Lens, which will enable users to find a list of similar products on the Poshmark platform when they take a picture of a product using Posh Lens.

CEO of Naver, Sooyeon Choi, said in its statement in January that Naver technologies like its search engine, AI recommendation and e-commerce tools, would all get incorporated into Poshmark to enhance the user experience on the platform.

3 takeaways from the Poshmark-Naver deal

Poshmark lays off employees just two months after being acquired by Naver by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/cJe8nB1

A year on from Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian startups show astounding resilience

Today marks exactly one year since Russia’s illegal, unprovoked, and brutal of Ukraine. This week, a majority of the members of the United Nations reiterated its demand that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine and called for a cessation of hostilities”.

It would be fair to say that TechCrunch can only concur with this sentiment. So, in keeping with our mission, we present to you today a list of Ukrainian tech companies and initiatives you can support, the products you can use, and the startups which you – if you’re an investor – can look at funding.

Ukraine’s startup ecosystem was thriving before the war and making great progress, with Ukrainian startups raising $832 Million in VC funding in 2021. VC Funding was steadily growing before the war and there are more than 50 VC firms continuing to operating in the country.

According to research by the Ukrainian tech industry itself, there are about 228,000 members of the tech industry in Ukraine today, with the main tech hubs being located in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Odesa. During the last year, as many as 57,000 were forced to relocate abroad, while around 7,000 joined the ranks of the Armed Forces or Territorial Defense, and today fight on the front lines against the aggressor.

As a mark of the Ukrainian’s astounding resilience both on and off the battlefield, in the first 10 months of 2022, Ukraine’s export of IT services grew by 9.9% from a year earlier, and brought in more than $6 billion in revenue, more than $542 million the revenue generated in 2021.

TechUkraine and Emerging Europe also published the results of a survey looking at the country’s start-up ecosystem. It found that despite the ongoing war, Ukrainian start-ups had demonstrated enormous fortitude. While some Ukrainian start-ups have relocated, the vast majority have kept at least a part of their operations or team in Ukraine. And more than half continue their operations exclusively from Ukraine.

But over 90% of Ukrainian startups say they need financial support to survive the war.

Thankfully, the wider tech industry has rallied around Ukraine in the last year.

Google presented 25 startups with a grant to help them continue operating and growing.

For the first time, as part of the Horizon Europe, the EU will include targeted support for Ukraine out of the €13.5 billion in research and innovation it has to spend this year.

Around 7,000 tech workers have joined the ranks of the Armed Forces or Territorial Defense

Only last month, OneUkraine sprang up from a host of major European tech founders and investors, who plan to provide sustainable humanitarian relief for the Ukrainian people.

The Ukrainian government also has a range of non-repayable grants and other support for its tech sector, despite also having to fund the war.

And two new unicorns with Ukrainian roots were born in the last year. Ukraine can now lay claim to at least 6 startups with more then $1 billion valuation: GitLab, Grammarly, Genesis, Bitfury, People.ai and Firefly Aerospace.

Below, we present a list of Ukrainian startups and tech companies (roughly in A-Z order) that you can check out. Obviously, this list is not exhaustive. But the list attempts to highly organizations which retain staff inside Ukraine or remain domiciled there, supporting the war effort. If you have a tech company or initiative you think we should include, you can apply to be listed on this post here. Any questions about this listing can be directed to mike@techcrunch.com

Slava Ukraini!
——————————————————————————-

3DLOOK
A retail tech start-up behind the virtual fitting room YourFit. As the war began, the company relocated the team of 70 to safer regions in western Ukraine and EU. It has now moved to Poland and set up the office there. Despite such conditions, they rolled out a new product in March. It has raised $14.7 million, with the latest Series A round closed in November 2021. Main investors include TMT Investments, TLF Ventures, Flyer One and others.

Ajax
Ajax Systems makes professional security systems in Europe. Employees: 877 new people (2,620 in total). Markets: 39 new countries (169 in total).

Ahrefs
“Ahrefs is an SEO software company that helps optimize websites of any scale — from giants like Netflix, Facebook, Uber, and Forbes to small businesses looking to build their presence on Google’s top page.” The company continued hiring developers and marketers and raised the team by around 10%. Ahrefs claims to have become a $100 million company in annual revenue without venture capital.

Adwisely
An online tool for digital advertising campaigns to help increase clients’ revenue

Aspichi

Aspichi is working on audio/visual teleportation platform allowing people to capture experiences and let others be immersed into it. After 2 months in an underground shelter they have also used their technology to register evidence of war crimes and provide the ability to immerse oneself into Ukraine to experience it, it’s now developing applications for psychological trauma treatment, VR medical trainin, combat surveillance systems and making the de-mining process safer. Incorporated in Delaware, USA. Secured seed finding from SMRK VC.

Blocksport
Blocksport builds Web3-ready platform solutions for the professional sports and entertainment industry to enable tokenization use cases for their fan community. Developed a SaaS-based white-label web3 platform that opens revenue streams and strengthens community engagement.

Birb
An apartment rental app to search for the best offers in a user’s favorite neighborhoods

Book Box
A library service for corporations to provide employees access to books and reading material

Corner
“The modern, frictionless way to set up a renovation with a pre-designed kitchen entirely online.”

Deus Robotics
Ukrainian Startup Deus Robotics secured a $1.5M seed round funding for its warehouse robotics solutions, led by SMRK VC, a Ukrainian venture fund. Deus Robotics specializes in full-cycle projects, including hardware engineering, software development, and integration, focusing on automating warehouse and logistics operations. Its robots are capable of sorting by direction and moving shelves, which are used in pre-sorting tasks, consolidation, and order picking. Deus Robots returned to Kyiv in May last year after the military defeated the Russians near the capital. Despite the ongoing war, increased the peak speed of parcel processing by 200%, compared to manual warehouse operations.

DjookyX A platform enabling musicians to sell songs’ royalty rights to generate funds for their career

Drug Cards
A cost-effective software for automated medical literature monitoring

ELEKS
Provides full-cycle software engineering outsourcing services, from ideation to finished products. Its 2,000 staff work on software and product design for corporate giants including BNY Mellon and Havas, and moved its offices in the Western part of Ukraine.

ELVTR
Is an online learning company offering professional courses in the US. As the war began, part of the team decided to relocate to the EU, while the rest kept hustling from bomb shelters. Despite not having electricity or internet access half of the time, the company keeps working and growing, saying it has sustainable 50% quarter-over-quarter growth.

Finmap
A cash flow management service for businesses. Recently closed a new funding round of €1M from SMOK Ventures, a US-Polish venture capital fund. In April 2022, Ivan Kaunov, the company’s co-founder and Head of Growth, was mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a reserve officer.

Fuelfinance
Their pitch: “We do your spreadsheets, graphs, and automation. You get P&L, CF, Financial Projections, Plan/Actual , Unit Economics, and finally, peace of mind”. It raised $1M in Seed Funding and investors include Bolt’s Markus Villig, and SendBird’s John S. Kim, as well as San Francisco-based Stratmind and Eastern Europe-focused Bad Ideas funds. FuelFinance has created a “first aid” resource kit for Ukrainian entrepreneurs with information on how to reorganize and keep working during the war. The company has created a platform to aggregate donations for small businesses that are fighting back.

Gradual
An online platform for sales specialists to build their professional skills

Folderly
An AI-based platform to improve clients’ email performance

Esper Bionics
Listed as one of Time Magazine’s best inventions of 2022, this makes a prosthesis that “improves
and gains abilities over time.”

Еfarm.pro
“The IOT navigation field assistant for agricultural work that allows you to save resources and work more accurately.”

G-Mak
“The innovative security device equipped with a number of unique technological solutions that can physically stop or disorient an intruder.”

Happy Monday
Matches employees with purpose-driven organizations

Hacken
Hacken, the blockchain cybersecurity firm, has also been working on tools to help Ukraine cyber warfare efforts and combat Russian propaganda. The company says it donated around $350,000 in aid and Budorin, its CEO, said he gave his own Tesla to a local Territorial Defense unit.

Howly

“You choose a category where you need professional advice and type your question in the chat form. On Howly, you gain 24/7 access to thousands of experts in various areas – from finance to household appliances repair.”

Headway
Headway is a Ukrainian EdTech startup which claims 15+ mln users from 140+ countries and 170 employees.

i3 Engineering
“The complete solution for Smart Home projects and business’s automation, which consists of controllers mounted on a DIN-rail, software and mobile application.”

Jooble
Jooble is a job search site that operates in 69 countries and says it is one of the top 10 most popular employment resources in terms of traffic in the Jobs and Employment segment, according to SimilarWeb. Jooble Venture Lab has also invested in JayJay, a startup in the field of online education.

Knopka
“The advanced nurse call system for patient care automation on hospital beds.”

The company’s co-founder was mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a reserve officer.

Jiffsy
A mobile commerce platform for “slow” fashion brands to help them boost sales

Kycaid
An online identity verification and compliance management system

MacPaw
MacPaw is a software company with headquarters in Kyiv, Ukraine, that develops and distributes software for macOS and iOS. MacPaw is the maker behind CleanMyMac X, Setapp, ClearVPN, and other products. In 2017, MacPaw acquired The Unarchiver. MacPaw claims its products have more than 30 million users worldwide.

Musemio
Musemio uses immersive technology and has partnerships with paid customers, such as the Crisis Charity and the Royal Museums of Greenwich. Educators (cultural institutions) and IP owners (publishers and broadcasters) can use it to create immersive games with a drag-and-drop interface that can be deployed in VR and on mobile.

Melt Water Club
“The technical solution for obtaining premium drinking water, thanks to the innovative Freezing Process technology.“

Mama Plant a Tree
A digital service that allows users to plant a tree in one click

Mate Academy
Tailor-made computer science courses for people who want to start a job in tech

Mathema
An online math school for students from kindergarten to high school

Nanit Robot
“The STEM Robotics education solution with a high engineering perspective and a creative learning process for kids and adults.”

Numo.so
Is an app for adults with ADHD that helps gamify daily tasks and get support. They launched in the midst of the war in Ukraine and claim to be growing 2-3x MoM in revenue and active users. Numo provides a social to-do list that people with ADHD use to complete daily tasks. Other ADHDers can endorse them for added or completed tasks.

NetHunt
A customer relations management system designed for sales teams and integrated with Gmail and LinkedIn

OptySun filters
“The technology of water purification and disinfection in any conditions.”

Orderry
Taking local businesses from offline to online to improve their competitiveness

PeopleForce
HR software for companies to manage employee performance

Pricer24
A platform providing brands, distributors and online stores with market analytics

RECEPTOR.AI
An AI platform enabling pharma and biotech companies to design new drugs more easily

ReLeaf Paper
Turns fallen tree leaves into paper and sustainable packaging. It claims it can reduce CO2 emissions of shipping bag oproduction by 78%, using 15 times less water and 3 times more energy efficient than wood papermaking. It raised €2.5 million from the European commission. They started during the COVID pandemic and made a move to export sustainable packaging in Europe during the war in Ukraine in 2022. Its main production site is located in Lutsk (Ukraine).

Reply.io
Reply.io is a B2B platform that automates cold messaging by creating sequences that are delivered directly to the recipient’s inbox.

Rekava
“The Ukrainian brand of biodegradable products made from reused coffee grounds. The startup’s products include rekava cups, rekava pots, and rekava candles.“

Respeecher
Respeecher, AI voice generation startup used to create the Darth Vader AI voice in the Star War’s TV series – Obi-Wan Kenobi – and during the war! This generative AI voice cloning startup claims to have grown 2.5 times and doubled projects from 65 in 2021 to 98 projects in 2022 despite the war.

Reface
Reface applies AI/ML technologies for personalized content creation. The Reface app hit #1 in the App Store soon after release and was listed among the best apps of 2020 by Google Play. Celebrities including Elon Musk, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, and Miley Cyrus have shared refaced videos. Claims 250M downloads (+70M / 38% growth). TQ Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz are the most recent investors

Solar Plex
“The service for upgrading new and already installed conventional solar (PV) panels into hybrid (PVT) ones.”

Softjourn
A full-cycle consulting and software development company. 17+ years in Finance and Media & Entertainment, with a special emphasis on Ticketing.

Sorbsys
Sustainable, low-cost and environmentally friendly carbon battery producer

Stape
A tool helping website owners and marketers to track customer behavior

Signal My Oligarch
“Do you want to help in the war for Ukraine but are frustrated and don’t know how? SMO is a non-profit, community-driven mobile app to signal the assets of Oligarchs in the world. All you need to do is to snap a picture, geolocate the asset, and boom the asset will be sent anonymously to the local authority to be frozen!”

Sigma Software
Sigma Software Group includes a VC fund, business incubator, University, and R&D centers. It managed to relocate 2,800 employees to safer places and became fully operational in just 2 weeks, after the outbreak of war. In 2022 they say they opened 17 new offices in Europe and LATAM and 40+ new clients.

The Breakfast
The Breakfast is a social app for modern humans that introduces two people to meet and talk over breakfast. It has closed its first round of $300k from investors in the US and Ukraine to fully launch The Breakfast in New York and Los Angeles.

UnderDefense
A bootstrapped cybersecurity company from Ukraine recognized by Gartner, Clutch and Splunk. Before the war, UnderDefenese had a team of 60 in Ukraine, opened offices in Malta and Poland, and increased its presence in the USA to guarantee the continuity of its operations. Since the war began, UnderDefense team has grown x2 and donated $500k directly to artillery units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

UA Drone School
UA Drone School offers a 4-day training drone courses in Kyiv and the region. Free for the military. You can support the school by purchasing its course for civilians or by donating. It now plans to use Ukrainian military drone veterans on an EdTech platform and is fundraising from investors now to develop its own UAV systems, development of software and OSINT intelligence in connection with drone intelligence data.

Wantent
An AI-powered platform to measure audience engagement and test video content at all stages of production and distribution

Workee
A simple personal website builder designed for private tutors and freelancers

WEEDAR
WEEDAR created a loyalty and distribution platform for cannabis brands. They relocated the team to Europe as the war began, though some have chosen to come back to Ukraine already. Despite the war, WEEDAR recently closed its Seed Round of $1.5 mln, rolled out its new product, partnered with the leaders in the cannabis industry, including The Cure Company and Kushstock Festival, and says it shows sustainable month-over-month growth of 30%.

WheelKeep
“The invisible security system that helps cycling enthusiasts to protect their bikes from thefts and enjoy the freedom of everyday cycling. It includes a smart hardware device and a mobile application.”

YouControl
Online service for compliance, market analysis, business intelligence and investigation of legal entities

HARDWARE

WeDoSolar
WeDoSolar, launched in February 2022 (the month Russia invaded Ukraine) says it has so far received “thousand of orders” for its “vertical solar power” panels, which are specifically designed to be mounted, with weatherproof straps, onto to balconies by non-tech-savvy users.

Delfast
Delfast is an Electric Bikes manufacturing company with app integration and security.

nect WORLD Inc.
The ultimate 4g lte modem for fast internet anywhere in the world.

Caretech Human
Empowering people with an innovative, fully automated, painless, and affordable toilet-integrated solution for daily health checks and early disease detection

Meredot

A solution for wireless charging of EV and LEV electrical transport machines.

FeeLo

An easy way to tell someone about the feelings you are having about them.

Manna

Co-creating fantastic lifelike avatar media like games, quests, cinema, shows, webcasts, social and business events in a 3D/AR/VR ecosystem.

OTHER SUPPORT INITIATIVES:

Invest In Ukrainian Founders
Eamonn Carey, a partner at Tera Ventures is matching investors with Ukrainian founders.

Spend with Ukraine
The Spend with Ukraine campaign aims to support Ukrainian made products and services in the time of war. For instance, get pet cameras by Petcube, use Grammarly, increase work productivity with Readdle apps, protect your homes with the professional Ajax smart alarm, etc.

Ukrainian Tech Ventures
This is a nonprofit venture fund that will invest in tech startups founded by Ukrainian immigrants in Europe and the US. The fund is listed on AngelList:

Free Ukraine Foundation
This NGO was created by Ukrainian and Belgian tech founders

EASE Work
The European Association of Software Engineering has launched a service for helping Ukrainian tech people get jobs. It lists tech professional CVs.

1k Project
Send $1k to directly sponsor a family from ukraine

United Delivery Mission
United Delivery Mission is a non profit initiative that supports Ukrainian Military Forces with various supplies.

Vranishna Kava
“Order a UAV to deliver “morning coffee” to the enemy in the trench. Made according to a special recipe of the Ukraine Armed Forces, it will cheer up the occupiers and give them the strength to flee from Ukrainian land as soon as possible. $5.44 to send an “Espresso” (4 Drones).

MEDIA:

Kyiv Independent
This iconic Ukrainian online news outlet reporting from Kyiv. It has launched the Tech section where you can track Ukrainian tech industry news. You can support it on Patreon here.

‘Voices of Ukraine’
‘Voices of Ukraine’ presents multilingual readings of Ukrainian poetry and drama by artists and performers affected by the Russian invasion.

A year on from Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian startups show astounding resilience by Mike Butcher originally published on TechCrunch

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/5HurYlf