May
24

InVision design tool Studio gets an app store, asset store

InVision, the startup that wants to be the operating system for designers, today introduced its app store and asset store within InVision Studio. In short, InVision Studio users now have access to some of their most-used apps and services from right within the Studio design tool. Plus, those same users will be able to shop for icons, UX/UI components, typefaces and more from within Studio.

While Studio is still in its early days, InVision has compiled a solid list of initial app store partners, including Google, Salesforce, Slack, Getty, Atlassian, and more.

InVision first launched as a collaboration tool for designers, letting designers upload prototypes into the cloud so that other members of the organization could leave feedback before engineers set the design in stone. Since that launch in 2011, InVision has grown to 4 million users, capturing 80 percent of the Fortune 100, raising a total of $235 million in funding.

While collaboration is the bread and butter of InVision’s business, and the only revenue stream for the company, CEO and founder Clark Valberg feels that it isn’t enough to be complementary to the current design tool ecosystem. Which is why InVision launched Studio in late 2017, hoping to take on Adobe and Sketch head-on with its own design tool.

Studio differentiates itself by focusing on the designer’s real-life workflow, which often involves mocking up designs in one app, pulling assets from another, working on animations and transitions in another, and then stitching the whole thing together to share for collaboration across InVision Cloud. Studio aims to bring all those various services into a single product, and a critical piece of that mission is building out an app store and asset store with the services too sticky for InVision to rebuild from Scratch, such as Slack or Atlassian.

With the InVision app store, Studio users can search Getty from within their design and preview various Getty images without ever leaving the app. They can then share that design via Slack or send it off to engineers within Atlassian, or push it straight to UserTesting.com to get real-time feedback from real people.

InVision Studio launched with the ability to upload an organization’s design system (type faces, icons, logos, and hex codes) directly into Studio, ensuring that designers have easy access to all the assets they need. Now InVision is taking that a step further with the launch of the asset store, letting designers sell their own assets to the greater designer ecosystem.

“Our next big move is to truly become the operating system for product design,” said Valberg. “We want to be to designers what Atlassian is for engineers, what Salesforce is to sales. We’ve worked to become a full-stack company, and now that we’re managing that entire stack it has liberated us from being complementary products to our competitors. We are now a standalone product in that respect.”

Since launching Studio, the service has grown to more than 250,000 users. The company says that Studio is still in Early Access, though it’s available to everyone here.

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May
24

Watch every startup from Startup Battlefield Europe

TechCrunch is hosting its first ever Startup Battlefield in Paris. This morning, 15 startups competed for the coveted Best of Show award.

They all pitched in front of three different panels of esteemed judges. Investors and tech leaders took some time to ask them some tough questions and understand what they’re doing. Later today, finalists will pitch on the big stage in front of a brand new batch of judges.

And now, meet the 15 startups who competed in the Startup Battlefield Europe.

Wisebatt

Wisebatt wants to lower the cost of R&D for hardware engineers by providing them with a patented simulation and collaboration platform.

Wingly

Wingly is a flight sharing platform connecting private pilots with passengers to share the cost of a flight.

Walk With Path

Walk With Path’s wearables help Parkinson’s patients walk more confidently and avoid falls.

Wakeo

Wakeo is a SaaS platform that uses machine learning and satellite data to help industrial leaders optimize their supply chain.

Varanida

Varanida is a web extension that allows users to choose when they want to see ads.

Tapoly

Tapoly offers on-demand insurance for freelancers contractors and SMEs.

StatusToday

StatusToday is an AI-powered employee insights platform that simplifies team management.

Statice

Statice’s software secures a company’s private data while providing an avenue for sharing of that data.

Solely Original

Solely Original is a womens footwear brand that enables customers to design their own shoes online.

Mapify

Mapify is a social travel platform aimed at providing a single outlet for planning transportation, entertainment and housing.

IOV

IOV provides a universal protocol for blockchains and wallet users.

Glowee

Glowee is a sustainable living light source powered by waste products and reusable biomass. Their mission is to disrupt the way we produce and consume light.

DROVA

Drova is a decentralized gaming rental service that enables clients to rent games/apps around the world without having to buy a gaming console.

BIMlosophy

BIMlosophy is a platform aimed at providing construction managers with the software needed to pay workers without having to buy a license.

Anorak

Anorak is a platform that uses machine learning to tailor advice to those seeking life insurance.

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May
24

Meet the five finalists at Startup Battlefield Europe

Fifteen companies just got off the stage at TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield Europe at VivaTech in Paris.

The TechCrunch team has taken feedback from our expert judges and narrowed the group down to five companies that will be competing in the finals on the VivaTech Main Stage at 6:15pm CET. (If you’re not at VivatTech, you can watch the finals live here on TechCrunch.)

One of the startups will receive the the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Top European Startup award, as well as €25,000 in equity-free money. Here are the finalists:

Glowee

Glowee is developing biological light systems using the natural properties bioluminescent marine organisms. These systems are built by encoding genes in symbiotic bacteria and will require neither electricity nor installation infrastructure.

IOV

IOV is building a decentralized DNS for blockchains. By implementing the Blockchain Communication Protocol, the IOV Wallet will be the first wallet that can receive and exchange any kind of cryptocurrency from a single address of value.

Mapify

Mapify aims to help travelers discover where to head next, what to pack and who to go with. It also allows them to share information about places, people and experiences.

Wakeo

Wakeo helps shippers and forwarders improve customer experience and optimize operations. It does this by consolidating multiple transport partners into a central SaaS platform to bring real-time visibility on all transport flows.

Wingly

Wingly is a flight-sharing platform that connects pilots and passengers. Private pilots can add flights they have planned, then potential passengers can book them.

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May
24

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Charlie O’Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures (Part 4) - Sramana Mitra

Sramana Mitra: Your strategy is to not worry about the ones that are not really making it and will have to raise money with liquidation preference where you don’t have the negotiating leverage. Focus...

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Original author: Sramana Mitra

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May
24

Macron defends the European way of tech regulation

French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech at VivaTech in Paris, alternating between French and English. He defended a third way to regulate tech companies, which is different from the U.S. and from China.

Macron thinks Europe should have a say when it comes to regulation — and it shouldn’t be just about privacy. Of course, he defended GDPR and online privacy, but he also talked about taxes, cyberbullying, the protection of independent workers and more.

What is at stake is how we build a European model reconciling innovation and common good Emmanuel Macron

Yesterday, Macron hosted 50 tech CEOs to talk about leveraging tech for the common good, especially when it comes to education, labor and diversity. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about the event before Macron took the stage.

Macron first started with a few numbers on the French tech ecosystem. “I want to talk to the entire French ecosystem here today. What we’re all doing is essential for our country and the world,” he said.

Based on his numbers, startups raised $2.9 billion in France last year (€2.5 billion). That’s three times as much as in 2015. He then listed some of the recent changes, from corporate taxes to France’s open data policy and the French Tech Visa.

He didn’t have much to say about the tech industry in particular. You could feel that he has a lot on his plate right now and that tech is more or less an afterthought.

“France is changing like crazy. And that's why we can say that France is back,” he said in English to conclude the first part of his speech.

“My second message is for Africa because you decided to invite Africa to VivaTech this year,” he said.

Macron then announced that France is going to invest some public money in the most promising African startups. “For the past six months, the French Development Agency has worked hard on this,” he said. “And the French Development Agency is going to announce in the coming weeks a new specific program of €65 million [$76 million] in order to invest small amounts, €30,000 to €50,000 per startup.”

Michel Euler / AFP / Getty Images

A message to big tech companies

Finally, Macron talked about the Tech for Good Summit and tech regulation in general. “We’re currently experiencing a revolution. I truly believe in that revolution and our country believes in it too,” he said. “But you can’t deny that some people in our country and in the world fear change.”

“Tech companies haven’t always been exemplary. Some haven’t complied with taxation laws and it has fostered mistrust — even from French entrepreneurs.”

Macron then defended France’s project to create a European tax on big tech companies. If the French Government can convince other European Governments, big tech companies would be taxed on local revenue in each European country. It could be a way to avoid tax optimization schemed. Smaller European countries with a lower corporate tax rate don’t seem convince yet.

“I'm a big tech optimist and this country does believe in innovation,” he said. “But it's not enough — making money, creating jobs and making shareholders happy is great. Especially creating jobs as far as I'm concerned.”

Macron also criticized U.S. regulation on tech companies, saying that the U.S. Government is not doing enough when it comes to online harassment, taxes, labor and more.

He then criticized the Chinese model, saying that the Chinese Government is not doing enough when it comes to privacy, human rights and gender equality.

“What is at stake is how we build a European model reconciling innovation and common good,” he said. “We have to work together to build this common framework.”

After yesterday’s commitments, the French Government is going to track tech companies every six months to see if they actually implement what they promised when it comes to tech for good.

He also finished by saying that the Tech for Good Summit should become an annual initiative. Tech CEOs will be invited once again to the Élysée next year ahead of VivaTech.

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May
24

A Dutch payment giant backed by Mark Zuckerberg and used by Uber is going public

LONDON — Dutch payment business Adyen has announced plans to list its shares publicly in Amsterdam.

Adyen said on Thursday that it will IPO on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange later this year. Existing shareholders will sell around 15% of its shares in the offering.

Adyen's biggest investor is Index Ventures, the London-based venture capital firm, and it is also backed by Iconiq Capital, a Silicon Valley fund backed by an incredible lineup of billionaires including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey.

Reuters reports that the company is seeking a valuation of between €6 billion ($7 billion) and €9 billion ($10.5 billion) in the public listing.

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Adyen's core product is an integrated payment platform that lets companies process both online and offline payments through one system. Customers include Facebook, Uber, Netflix, Spotify, L'Oreal, eBay, Microsoft, and Tinder.

The company, which was founded in 2006, processed €108 billion ($126.3 billion) of payments last year and had net revenues of €218 million ($254.9 million). Adjusted earnings were €99 million ($115.7 million).

CEO Pieter van der Does said in a statement: "We feel that we are still in the early stages of a remarkable journey. Our focus remains on building new functionality and on helping our merchants grow.

"This offering provides us with the freedom to keep building the company, while offering our shareholders a path to liquidity. Adyen will remain a company that is driven by a long-term vision and strategy."

Adyen said it wants to grow revenues by 20-30% over the next few years and expects to grow revenues by 40% this year.

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JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, ABN Amro, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup are all working on the offering.

Original author: Oscar Williams-Grut

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May
24

Klevio launches its smart intercom and app that lets you open doors remotely

Klevio, a smart home startup out of the U.K., is officially launching its first product: a smart intercom system that lets you control your front door lock remotely via an iOS and Android app on your phone.

Dubbed “Klevio One,” the device is designed to be retrofitted to existing electric strike-enabled locks, and also interfaces with intercom systems found on the communal doors of apartment blocks. This, say its makers, means that it is better suited to flats than smart locks already on the market.

In a call with Klevio co-founder and CEO Aleš Špetič, he explained that the approach the London-based company has taken is different to smart locks that typically use a motor to turn the lock and require tearing out and replacing your existing lock. In contrast, if you already have an electric strike as part of your lock — which a lot of apartments do — the Klevio One can simply be wired to interface with it. If you don’t, a Klevio installer can fit one to your existing lock for you.

This major upside of this approach is that Klevio isn’t re-inventing the whole wheel, but taking years old, tried and tested electric strike technology, and simply adding smart connectivity to it.

It means the Klevio One works with multiple doors and there’s no need to modify the communal area of apartment buildings when installing it, since the device is located within an individual apartment. You can also still use your old physical keys as a backup, and the company says the use of Klevio won’t be obvious to anyone outside the building.

And as you’d expect, the Klevio system is cloud-connected so that you can control your lock remotely, and issue virtual and one-time use keys. It comes in a WiFi only version, and a subscription version with added 4G.

The startup’s back story is noteworthy, too. The Klevio’s original concept and eureka moment came at Onefinestay, the ‘upscale Airbnb’ acquired by Accor in 2016. After the exit, Onefinestay co-founder Demetrios Zoppos teamed up with CubeSensors’ Aleš Špetič and Marko Mrdjenovič to start the new company, including purchasing the needed patents from Onefinestay.

In addition, Onefinestay co-founder Greg Marsh is an investor in Klevio, alongside LocalGlobe’s partner Robin Klein (who I’m told has invested in a personal capacity). To date Klevio has raised £1.2 million in funding.

Meanwhile, Špetič tells me that prior to today’s wider launch — where it can be ordered via the Klevio website — the Klevio One has been piloted with 1,000 users across London.

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Nov
27

Pronoun Thoughts – She and He

Mitch Lowe, the CEO of MoviePass, with Ted Farnsworth, the CEO of Helios and Matheson Analytics. MoviePass/Reuters

Don't worry, everything is fine.

That has been the message from MoviePass and its parent company, Helios and Matheson Analytics, in recent weeks as the company's financial health has become a topic of heated debate.

MoviePass has been burning more than $20 million a month, but its leadership has repeatedly stressed that it has access to a $300 million "equity line of credit."

The comments were intended to address concerns that MoviePass might go out of business. The lifeline meant the company could sustain itself for over a year without needing additional funds — long enough to figure out how to stem its substantial losses.

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But it has become clear after speaking with MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe, consulting financial experts, and reviewing Helios and Matheson's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the $300 million in financial firepower is less secure than at first blush and dependent on selling shares to a fickle public market. And it's not really a "line of credit" as generally defined by the financial community.

To access that money, MoviePass has to convince investors of its prospects — a big ask, given that Helios and Matheson's stock is down over 98% from its 52-week high in October. Shares were trading at an all-time low of $0.46 on Wednesday, and the entire company is now valued at under $39 million.

The state of affairs for MoviePass

Helios and Matheson disclosed in filings this month that it had been losing nearly $23 million a month in the first quarter (though the company also said it had found a way to cut losses by more than 35%).

It had only $15.5 million cash on hand at the end of April, and some industry observers, including the CEO of AMC Theatres, publicly questioned how it would keep going. Helios and Matheson's independent auditor said it had "substantial doubt" about the company's ability to survive a year.

MoviePass' leadership fired back, with Helios and Matheson's CEO, Ted Farnsworth, telling Variety he was "not worried at all" about the cash situation.

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Why? He said Helios and Matheson had a "$300 million equity line of credit," a term he used in an email (via a spokeswoman) to Business Insider. Articles on MoviePass by The New York Times, Reuters, and Variety have also mentioned it.

Business Insider

The 'equity line of credit' question

So this lifeline would supposedly save MoviePass for at least another year. But what exactly is this "equity line of credit" MoviePass keeps talking about?

Lowe told Business Insider that the term referred to the "at-the-market" (ATM) sale of the remainder of a shelf offering certified by the SEC.

By Business Insider's calculations (based on SEC filings), less than $265 million remained of the original $400 million as of April.

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Here is Lowe's explanation in full:

"So the SEC approved for Helios and Matheson the ability to sell up to $300 million of its stock in the format of what is called an ATM. An ATM essentially means you can put on the market shares on a daily, weekly basis, and feed them into the market, and as long as people want to buy them, then that money can go into the coffers of HMNY and therefore go into MoviePass to fund our growth — to fund our ticket purchasing and our acquisition of subscribers.

"It's kind of a science in that you can't put all $300 million out there. You put a little bit every day. If you look at how many shares are sold every day, I think there are some days 25 million shares, 10 million shares — I think the average is 6 million shares — so you can imagine you can put four or five hundred thousand shares out there without having much impact on the demand.

"I have no idea. It's a third party that manages it on behalf of HMNY, but essentially some days they might sell, some days they might not sell. It's all kind of based on what they believe will have the least impact on the valuation."

What Lowe is describing is an at-the-market offering, not what is usually considered to be an equity line of credit, according to several financial experts.

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A Wall Street analyst who covers Helios and Matheson told Business Insider that an equity line of credit was a "confusing" way to characterize such a stock offering. Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, said it was "not the way most people think of an equity line of credit."

MoviePass did not respond to multiple requests for further clarification.

Why is it not a line of credit?

An equity line of credit implies that an investor has already agreed to buy shares at a maximum offering price. (A guide from the law firm Morrison & Foerster explains it in more detail.) It's money in the bank if the company wants to take it, during a certain period and under certain conditions.

But in an at-the-market offering, which Lowe is describing, Helios and Matheson is at the mercy of the public market. It is authorized to sell shares, but someone has to buy them. It is not a guaranteed line of credit.

Todd Lowenstein, the director of research at Highmark Capital, explained to Business Insider that the idea behind an offering like the one Helios and Matheson is using is that you do the SEC paperwork up front, then time the selling of shares based on your need as you prove your business model.

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Farnsworth told Variety this month that Helios and Matheson had "17 months' worth of cash without further raises of capital."

But as Lowe describes it, the ATM offering is effective only "as long as people want to buy" the shares. That is not certain, given the negative investor outlook on the company evident in the stock price.

A MoviePass customer's ticket-stub collection. Tracey Trevino

What are MoviePass' chances?

"If they can sell stock, the most likely buyers are related parties, bottom-feeders, or people who think the company is on the cusp of a turnaround," Gordon said. "It is unlikely to be an easy sell."

At this stage, those who would be buying are the "true believers," Lowenstein said. And if Helios and Matheson has to sell tons of stock to cover its costs, after such a huge drop in price, it would massively dilute previous shareholders.

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MoviePass is also at risk of getting kicked off the Nasdaq by mid-December if its share price and market cap don't increase, as my colleague Troy Wolverton noted recently. Lowenstein called it the "specter of delisting" hanging over the company's head.

The big question now is whether MoviePass can keep investors happy long enough to find a way to become profitable — because the line of credit that was supposed to sustain the company could easily slip out of its grasp.

Its survival depends on it.

Additional reporting by Jason Guerrasio.

If you have any information about MoviePass, tip the author at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Original author: Nathan McAlone

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Sep
03

Catching Up On Readings: VMWorld US 2018 - Sramana Mitra

TechCrunch scoured all of Europe to find the most innovative and disruptive early-stage startups to launch at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Europe 2018 at VivaTech. And today starting at 9:05 am CET on the TechCrunch homepage you can watch the pitches from the latest 15 Startup Battlefield companies

Each company will pitch for six minutes on the Pitch B stage at VivaTech, followed by a rigorous six-minute Q&A with esteemed judges from all over Europe. Five companies will be selected to pitch in the finals this evening at 6:15 pm on the VivaTech Main Stage in front of a fresh crop of judges.

Our teams come from a diverse set of industries and are using a range of technologies, from insurance tech to biotech, and from blockchain technology to the latest in bioluminescent capture. Some are first-time founders and others have already negotiated $60 million financing rounds and developed tokens with over a billion-dollar market cap. These founders are challenging industry norms, and replacing the status quo of today’s businesses with technologies that support circular economy, optimized IoT design, GDPR-compliant data innovation and so much more.

Many of the problems these startups attempt to solve are rooted in personal experiences: One entrepreneur is building an insole to help Parkinson’s patients, like her father, regain their ability to sense the ground beneath them. Another entrepreneur grew up in a port city watching the dysfunction of shipments and became fixated on making them more seamless. And there’s an entrepreneur participating who built a flight marketplace, realizing first-hand that hobby pilots’ empty seats were a market opportunity waiting to be unlocked.

Here are the 15 Startup Battlefield Europe companies and the order in which they will pitch:

Session 1 at 9:05 am CET: Statice, Anorak, Tapoly, Wakeo, BIMlosophy

Session 2 at 10:30 am CET: Glowee, Mapify, DROVA, Walk With Path, StatusToday

Session 3 at 12:00 pm CET: Wingly, Varanida, Solely Original Shoes, Wisebatt, IOV

Over the last two months, these 15 startups refined their business models, demos and messaging with TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield team and editors. Today, it will culminate onstage as they share their business with the world and answer the judges’ questions about the viability of their businesses.

Battlefield alumni have raised more than $8.2 million with over 105 successful exits, so investors, get your checkbooks ready. One of these 15 startups will receive the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Top European startup award along with €25,000 in equity-free money.

TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief Matthew Panzarino and I will kick off Startup Battlefield Europe at 9:05 am CET. You can find more information about Startup Battlefield Europe here.

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Nov
27

International Focus Paying Off For Salesforce - Sramana Mitra

The company behind the simple fitness band aimed at getting people moving now has its sites set higher: playing doctor.

In recent months, wearable-device company Fitbit has made a big push toward healthcare. From an in-app feature for tracking women's menstrual cycles to a redesigned ecosystem that makes it more compatible with diabetic glucose monitors, the company is working to keep its device relevant alongside heavy competition from players like Apple.

As part of the health pivot, the company is also developing apps designed to detect two common but dangerous health conditions: sleep apnea, which affects 22 million Americans but goes undiagnosed in some 80% of them, and atrial fibrillation, a tough-to-spot heart disorder that's on the rise in the US.

It's all part of a strategic move to transform its products from casual, single-purpose fitness bands to comprehensive devices that do everything from tracking your steps to detecting and even treating illnesses, Shelten Yuen, Fitbit's vice president of research and development, told Business Insider. In the process, the company will be working closely with the Food and Drug Administration and running a series of clinical trials.

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"We're consumer-centric and health-centric at same time," Yuen said. "We're moving into a new direction where those lines will become blurred and, I think, Fitbit will play a huge role in giving individuals insight there, and healthcare providers too."

From fitness trackers to far-reaching health tools

Fitbit

One-use devices such as wristbands that exist just to help count steps have fallen by the wayside as all-in-one gadgets like smartphones and smartwatches have taken their place.

Fitbit's share price, in turn, has taken a tumble. When the company went public in 2015, it did so at a $4 billion valuation; now its market cap stands at just over $1 billion.

So Fitbit is looking at broadening out its product to have a more comprehensive role as a health tool. And the company is starting by focusing on populations other wearable-device makers may have overlooked.

In February, the company put $6 million behind a tiny San Francisco startup that's working on a needle-free way to track blood-glucose levels, a key metric that people with diabetes rely on to make decisions about what to eat and when. Around the same time, Fitbit announced a number of new partnerships with diabetes-device companies designed to help better integrate the devices into the Fitbit ecosystem.

In May, Fitbit became the first major wearables company to introduce period tracking. The feature includes an in-app dashboard that allows users to log their periods, record symptoms, and opt into getting push notifications two days before and on the day of their predicted period start date. Eventually, Fitbit wants to use the data it gathers from the initiative to help women take steps to address painful period-related symptoms such as cramps and fatigue, Yuen told Business Insider.

"To take something most women have in their pocket or purse and use that to help give key health information not only to themselves but also to medical providers, that is such a powerful, and still relatively untapped, resource," Katherine White, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University who advised Fitbit on its female-health tracking initiative, said.

Diagnosing heart conditions, sleep apnea, and more

Fitbit

Next, Fitbit plans to roll out a host of more advanced medical features geared at detecting widespread but often unaddressed health conditions.

First on Fitbit's radar are sleep apnea and atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, two disorders that frequently go undetected but can have dramatic consequences without treatment.

While sleep apnea is characterized by breathing that repeatedly stops and starts during sleep, atrial fibrillation is an irregular, often quick heart rate that can cause poor circulation.

In 2017, Fitbit enrolled in a new precertification program with the FDA designed to help speed the approval process for new digital health products.

As part of that work, Fitbit is conducting clinical trials on both sleep apnea and A-fib, to see if their devices could one day replace existing tests for the conditions, which are often invasive and expensive. Right now, diagnosing sleep apnea requires physicians to collect information on everything from your heart rate and blood-oxygen level to your airflow and breathing patterns.

For some people, that can mean spending the night in a sleep lab and spending up to $5,000 a night; others may be able to do so using home sleep-apnea tests that cost between $350 and $500. By comparison, Fitbit's most expensive smartwatch costs $300.

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As with its female-health-tracking initiative, the new apps would give Fitbit access to a trove of data — in many cases where little or none existed before.

That data could be used as it is now — with researchers who are studying cancer and heart conditions drawing from it for scientific studies — or it could be sold. For instance, genetics-testing company 23andMe has sold anonymized genetic data from millions of customers to drug companies.

Fitbit's data could be more attractive than that of its competitors because it's all stored one place, no matter what device the consumer is wearing.

"We know people like to change their devices," Yuen said. "Regardless of which device you use, Fitbit is able to maintain a big database of this, and we think that's exceptionally powerful over the long term."

If the company can pull from that mass of data and capitalize on conditions that other wearable-device makers aren't addressing, that could be enough to keep customers — and researchers — coming back for more.

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"The market is very large for these kinds of tools, but right now they're all behind this regulatory fence, and so we hope there will be some exciting commercial opportunities in the near future," he added.

Original author: Erin Brodwin

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May
24

Revolut adds Ripple and Bitcoin Cash support

Fintech startup Revolut is adding Bitcoin Cash and Ripple to its cryptocurrency feature. While cryptocurrency isn’t really Revolut’s focus point, it’s a good way to get started with cryptocurrencies.

If you have a Revolut account, you can now buy and hold Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Bitcoin Cash. Behind the scene, the startup has partnered with Bitstamp to process the transactions. Revolut currently charges a 1.5 percent fee for cryptocurrency transactions. There are currently 100,000 cryptocurrency transactions per day.

Compared to a traditional cryptocurrency exchange, you can’t send or receive cryptocurrencies from your Revolut account. You don’t get a bitcoin address for instance. All you can do is buy tokens in the app. If you want to transfer those tokens somewhere else, you’ll have to sell them for USD, GBP, etc. and then buy cryptocurrencies on a traditional exchange using your fiat money.

Recently, the startup also announced a new feature called Vaults. Revolut users can set up a vault to save money over time.

You can round up your spare change every time you make a transaction. For instance, if you pay $3.47 for that delicious ice cream, you’ll save 53 cents in your vault. You can also multiple that amount so that you save multiple times your spare change with each transaction. Many fintech startups also provide this feature.

You can also set up recurring payments to set aside a bit of money each day, each week or each month. Interestingly, you get to choose the currency of your vault. So it means that you can decide to buy ethers with spare change and weekly payments for instance. It’s a great way to hedge against the volatility of cryptocurrencies.

Users don’t earn interests on vaults. It’s just a way to set some money aside that doesn’t appear in your main Revolut account. You can decide to close your vault whenever you want.

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May
24

Amazon and Microsoft look poised to keep dominating cloud computing (AMZN, GOOGL, MSFT)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Ted S. Warren/AP Images

When it comes to the cloud-computing market, Amazon is the clear leader and Microsoft's a strong No. 2.

Their dominance of the space isn't going to change anytime soon, if new research from Cowen is any indication. Companies of all kinds — small, medium, and large — are rushing to embrace the cloud. But customers of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft's Azure are more likely than those of other services to ramp up their spending this year, Cowen found.

"AWS and Azure scored well across the board" in the survey, the Cowen analysts said in a report issued Wednesday. "Both companies continue to distance themselves from the rest of the pack."

Indeed, the analysts cited the survey results in raising their price targets on both companies. Cowen now has a price target of $2,000 a share for Amazon, up from $1,900 a share, and $112 a share for Microsoft, up from $105 a share.

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In recent trading on Wednesday, Amazon's stock was at $1,584.36 a share, while Microsoft was trading at $97.56.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Thomson Reuters For its survey, Cowen polled some 574 IT decision makers at a collection of small, mid-size, and enterprise companies about their current and expected use of cloud services. In general, the respondents who were customers of AWS or Azure were more enthusiastic about those services than their rivals, although on some questions, all the major service providers scored well.

On average, for example, the decision makers plan to increase their spending across all cloud providers by about 28% this year. But customers of AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and IBM Cloud each plan to up their spending with those services by at least 31% on average, according to the survey, with Amazon's service topping the list at 32%.

Perhaps more tellingly, customers of AWS and Azure were more likely than those of other services to say that the rate of growth in their cloud spending will increase this year. On average, about 28% of respondents said they planned to accelerate their cloud spending in general this year.

But 41% of AWS and Azure customers said they plan to increase the growth rate in their spending with those services this year. Another 42% of customers of both services said they plan to keep the rate of growth in their spending with them about the same.

"We currently forecast market leaders AWS and Azure to grow well above expected market growth in 2018," the Cowen analysts said in the report.

Another good sign for Amazon and Microsoft was that the decision makers in general were much more likely to be aware of AWS and Azure than other cloud services. About 67% of respondents were familiar with Azure and 65% with AWS. By contrast, Google Cloud and IBM Cloud were tied for third place with 50%.

Original author: Troy Wolverton

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24

Android phones everywhere are adopting the iPhone X notch, and it shows a true lack of originality among smartphone makers (AAPL)

Last September, Apple unveiled a smartphone that looked like none before it:

Hollis Johnson

Original author: Dave Smith

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Nov
27

What are E-commerce VCs Looking for with Gus Tai of Trinity Ventures - Sramana Mitra

Apple and Volkswagen are officially in the car business together.

That's according to a multiple news reports published on Wednesday night, which outline some details of Apple's plan to turn some Volkswagen passenger vans into self-driving vehicles.

Apple will equip the German automaker's T6 Transporter van with its own self-driving technology and use a fleet of them as employee shuttles.

The partnership between Apple and Volkswagen is seen by some as bittersweet for the consumer-electronics giant, which had higher hopes for its self-driving car project when it first launched in 2014. Apple has sought partnerships with BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Those endeavors never panned out.

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But the deal with Volkswagen could help breathe new life into one part of the project, which, as The New York Times reports, has been middling — mostly due to false starts and employee turnover within the program.

More broadly, Apple has encountered some formidable competition in the self-driving space, right in its own backyard. Waymo, the autonomous-car unit that Google launched in 2016, is miles ahead by most estimates.

It hasn't been all bad news for Apple's automotive ambitions, though. As of May 9, it had 55 self-driving vehicles on the road in California, according to DMV records.

Original author: Bryan Logan

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May
24

Microsoft's cloud boss explains why it's partnering with Informatica to make AI a reality for more companies

Informatica CEO Anil Chakravarthy. Informatica

Companies like Microsoft have spent the last few years championing so-called digital transformation, a catch-all term for businesses embracing cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and all the other wonders of modern technology.

The problem is that it's not always smooth sailing to get there: Lots of companies, especially older ones, are sitting on mountains of data that have accumulated over the years. That data might be sitting in different systems, on different servers, in different parts of the world. And it's not like a company can simply discard decades of data and start over.

Enter Informatica — a 25-year-old data management company that famously took itself off the public markets in 2015 following a $5.3 billion leveraged buyout deal.

This week marked the annual Informatica World conference, where the company announced a deeper partnership with Microsoft. Now, Informatica customers can easily shunt all of their data to the Microsoft Azure cloud, from which they can apply the tech titan's formidable database wizardry. Conversely, the Informatica data management platform, which lets customers mash-up data from different sources, will run natively on Microsoft Azure.

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From Informatica's perspective, this is a big step towards that ideal of digital transformation, CEO Anil Chakravarthy tells Business Insider.

Once the data is in the cloud, it becomes easier to put it to new and novel uses. Indeed, Chakravarthy hopes that partnerships like this make it easier for its customers to start using artificial intelligence in earnest, by making the data more usable. For its own part, Chakravarthy says, Informatica has bet big on integrating AI into its own products.

"We see ourselves as both a provider of AI, as well as a consumer," says Chakravarthy.

From Microsoft's perspective, partnerships like the one with Informatica are reflective of its broader approach to growing the Microsoft Azure supercomputing cloud — a huge driver of growth for Microsoft, and a platform that's second in the market only to the leading Amazon Web Services.

"One of the things that's allowed us to be so successful is to recognize that the enterprise space is a very complicated space," Scott Guthrie, the Microsoft executive VP in charge of cloud, enterprise, and AI products, tells Business Insider.

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In other words, not even Microsoft can build all the tools and services necessary to consolidate and combine data, says Guthrie. That leaves a huge opportunity for a specialist like Informatica, which is happy to play that role, and which can focus all of its energies on filling those complicated needs, he adds.

Further to that point, Microsoft has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence, positioning it as the wave of the future in both enterprise and consumer software. Indeed, Azure offers many AI services. Yet, without partners like Informatica, companies wouldn't be able to wrangle the huge amounts of data necessary to make AI really useful.

Microsoft Executive VP of Cloud and Enterprise Scott Guthrie. Microsoft

"Data is the heart of that transformation that's happening," says Guthrie. And Informatica's Chakravarthy says that there's a "big gap" between having data, and making it useful.

Notably, Informatica has integrations with Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services, too. Chakravarthy says that Microsoft is a key partner, however, because of its inroads with the largest companies in the world. In other words, Microsoft gets a way to offer customers better data management, and Informatica gets access to Microsoft's customers. Indeed, the Ford Motor Company is a mutual customer of Microsoft and Informatica.

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"This [partnership] gives us a way we can talk to customers together," says Guthrie.

"The real winner is gonna be the customer," agrees Chakravarthy.

Original author: Matt Weinberger

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May
23

Wall Street loves the 'boom' in big tech IPOs this year — but really, it's just a case of lowered expectations (MSFT, GOOG, GOOGL)

DocuSign executives and others celebrate its listing on the Nasdaq after its initial public offering in April. DocuSign

This year is seeing a resurgence in the market for initial public offerings from tech companies, but by historical standards, it still likely to end up looking disappointing.

Tech bankers are expecting some 50 to 60 tech IPOs this year. That's a significant uptick from the 38 or so that happened last year, but it's still significantly below the average over the last 35 years or so. And it's well off the pace of the dot-com era, when more than a hundred tech companies went public a year on a routine basis.

Jay Ritter, Professor of Finance at the University of Florida Jay Ritter For much of the last two decades, people have been trying to figure out why we're no longer seeing anywhere near the number of IPOs we saw during the dot-com boom — and how to boost the market back to those levels. Politicians, policymakers, and market watchers have typically blamed onerous regulations. More recently, they've been pointing at the flood of cash in the private markets from investors such as SoftBank that's allowed companies to stay in business without having to turn to the public markets for funding.

But if you ask Jay Ritter, the pundits have missed the real causes for why tech IPOs haven't returned to their historical levels. The lack of IPOs can't really be blamed on SoftBank or regulations, said Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida who has been studying the public offering market since the 1980s.

"The main reason" he said, "is that tech companies are selling out rather than going public."

Although pundits typically point to the dot-com bust as when the IPO market fundamentally changed, its transformation actually predates it. Even as the market for public offerings was hitting record levels in the 1990s, a smaller and smaller percentage of venture-capital backed tech companies were actually going public.

At the beginning of the 1990s, about 80% of VC-funded tech companies that didn't shut down went public, Ritter said. By the end of the decade, only 40% did, with the rest being acquired by other, typically larger companies, he said. Today, just 10% of venture-backed tech companies exit their startup phase with an IPO, he said.

The shift happened as larger and larger companies started to dominate particular sectors in the tech industry. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the market was fairly wide open, and entrepreneurs had a reasonable shot to build large successful firms in any number of different areas.

But the tech industry moves rapidly and tends to be dominated by network, and winner-take-all effects, Ritter said. Companies that enter and dominate a sector early tend to see increasing returns, while closing the door on competitors. That phenomenon has encompassed a growing number of areas in the tech industry, leaving fewer and fewer sectors available that have the room to allow a startup to become a huge corporation.

For a lot of tech companies, getting big fast is the value maximizing strategy, and organic growth takes too long

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In the early 1980s, it was a reasonable bet to create a computer operating system company. Few saw that as a good prospect after Microsoft came to dominate the space by the end of that decade. Likewise, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998, the web search market was still wide open. That's no longer the case.

With the competitive landscape changed, founders of smaller scale startups have found it more profitable to build businesses that they could potentially sell to one of the existing tech giants rather than trying to develop them into standalone businesses, Ritter said. Many are working on technologies that might fill in product niches at larger companies, or that could help improve those companies' services.

"Small tech companies have not been going public," Ritter said. "For a lot of tech companies, getting big fast is the value maximizing strategy, and organic growth takes too long."

Ritter has been making this case for years now. In 2012, he testified before Congress as it was considering the legislation that became the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. The law was in large part an effort to boost the IPO market by reducing the regulatory burdens companies faced. Ritter argued that legislators were misdiagnosing the cause of the problem and that the legislation likely wouldn't boost the number of companies going public.

"With the benefit of six years of experience, I wouldn't change single word of what I said six years ago," he said.

Original author: Troy Wolverton

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Nov
20

Scalyr scores $20M Series A for super-fast log reading tool

Streaming is eating TV. Ratings for live, ad-supported shows continue to plummet. Netflix is set to make 1,000 original shows and movies this year.

And the TV advertising business is set to have a killer year.

Counterintuitive it may be, but the just-kicked-off TV upfront selling period, that annual spring ritual during which TV networks sell the majority of their ad space, is expected to be robust. That's in spite of a growing number of Americans ditching scheduled-TV watching.

"Panelists were bullish on the TV Upfront," says a new report from UBS, which quizzed 40 major advertisers on their media spending plans for 2018. "Demand for high quality TV inventory has never been higher."

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Those advertisers "do not expect a sudden inflection point in TV share losses in the near/medium term," the report says. "Eventually advertisers cannot keep paying more and getting less, but for now there is no better alternative for the majority of TV budgets."

In other words, that TV-advertising tipping point you've been waiting for isn't happening this year.

In fact, while volume, or the sheer number of ads sold, is expected to be flat, TV ad prices are expected to jump over the coming year.

A unique set of short-term conditions is helping prop up the TV ad business for now

A strong economy and President Donald Trump's tax cuts. Brands realizing that TV advertising helps buoy other ad channels, like search advertising. Digital media's numerous issues with data and brand safety have made marketers skittish. There's simply a lack of better alternatives. "Where else are these brands going to go?" the ad-industry veteran Eric Bader said.

TV budgets aren't shifting that fast. UBS

It's hardly all good news for TV, which may be enjoying a short-term blip

UBS did splash some cold water on what is otherwise a strong moment for TV advertising. For example:

Digital is still expected to steal ad share from TV over time. USB

TV is still the best way to reach millions of consumers quickly. But digital media wins on targeting.

TV wins on reach, but digital nails data. UBS

Original author: Mike Shields

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May
23

Facebook is taking a page from Amazon, Walmart, and Ikea (FB, AMZN, WMT)

Facebook's Marketplace will now let you find and book home-improvement professionals. Facebook

Facebook wants to be a bigger part of your home.

The social network's Marketplace section is moving further into commerce with the addition of home services. Starting Wednesday, users can enlist the expertise of local professionals to do things like plumbing, cleaning, or performing home renovations. Communication happens directly on the site, via Facebook Messenger.

Facebook says it got the idea from its own users, and it's working with partners like Handy, HomeAdvisor, and Porch to verify the providers on the site.

"More people ask for recommendations related to home services on Facebook in the US than any other topic," Deb Liu, head of Facebook Marketplace, said in a blog post announcing the new service.

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Here's how it works:

Users select the service they want done using the Marketplace menu. Facebook asks a few questions to identify what a user needs done. Enter a zip code, and Facebook will provide a list of professionals able to do the work. Users can then browse the providers and select them based on their profiles and reviews.

The service is a lot like other online portals that allow users to enlist professional help, like Angie's List or Amazon Home Services, which connects customers to local contractors to do work like cleaning and appliance installation. Amazon recently decided to hire its own cleaners in the Seattle area, signaling it might have more ambitious plans in the space.

A number of retailers are launching initiatives to bring home-improvement professionals into customers' homes. Walmart r ecently announced a partnership with Handy to bring its home-improvement and cleaning services to 2,000 stores, and in September, Ikea acquired TaskRabbit to integrate its assembly expertise into the stores' offerings.

Original author: Dennis Green

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May
23

In a Twitter rant, Elon Musk just vowed to create a news credibility rating site called 'Pravda' — here's how that's connected to Russia

A man reads an issue of Pravda newspaper in Moscow, Russia, December 1941. Wikipedia Commons

Elon Musk is apparently hoping to take a page out of the Soviet playbook.

It all started when, on Wednesday afternoon, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO criticized the media in a series of tweets.

"The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them," he wrote.

Several minutes later, Musk followed up by tweeting that he plans to start a site that would rate the credibility of news organizations. He wrote that he would consider calling the site "Pravda," a word that means "truth" in Russian.

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"Pravda" references the Russian newspaper of the same name, which launched in Moscow in the early 20th century and published daily. It still exists today, but has a much lower circulation and comes out three times per week. The paper is now run by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the country's modern Communist party.

From 1918 to 1991, the original Pravda served as the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When Vladimir Lenin and (later) Joseph Stalin ruled Russia, the paper was used to spread their ideas as propaganda.

During the Soviet era, Pravda was distributed nationwide. Featuring articles on Communist theory and programs, it attempted to avoid sensational news.

There's also the Pravda Report, another publication with a similar name that English speakers may be more familiar with. Existing solely as an online site at Pravda.ru, it covers both straightforward news (often with a Russian nationalist slant) as well as conspiracy theories. A few headlines in the past decade have included "AIDS: 21st Century's Biggest Hoax" and "Aliens forced Americans out from the Moon." Unlike today's Pravda, the Pravda Report has an English-language site and is not connected to the Communist party.

This is not the first time Musk has railed against the media. Earlier this week on Twitter, he also criticized journalists from Reveal, the nonprofit investigative news organization that ran a story claiming Tesla didn't report several factory injuries. Tesla workers have also accused Musk of shutting down efforts to unionize, and BuzzFeed recently leaked emails that show Musk slamming their organized labor effort.

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On Twitter, a number of journalists and other commenters have compared Musk's latest tweets to those of President Donald Trump, who frequently criticizes the media for stories he perceives as negative.

The Verge reporter Andrew J. Hawkins, for example, called Musk a "media-baiting Trump figure" on Wednesday.

Musk replied: "Thought you'd say that. Anytime anyone criticizes the media, the media shrieks 'You're just like Trump!' Why do you think he got elected in the first place? Because no ones believes you any more. You lost your credibility a long time ago.'"

Musk might be serious about launching his own "Pravda." As freelance reporter Mark Harris pointed out on Twitter, documents from California's Secretary of State show that one of Musk's agents incorporated Pravda Corp in October 2017.

Original author: Leanna Garfield

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May
23

PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are about to go head-to-head at the biggest gaming event of the year — here's what to expect

Microsoft's annual E3 press briefing on all things Xbox is Sunday, June 10 at 4 p.m. EST / 1 p.m. PDT.

The primary way to watch the broadcast is on Mixer, Microsoft's live video platform, though "other streaming services" will also carry a stream. Microsoft didn't reveal which services those will be, but it's likely to include the usual platforms (YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook).

The E3 briefing is Microsoft's annual opportunity to announce major Xbox games, show off upcoming games, and — generally speaking — address its most loyal fans directly. It's the kind of event where Microsoft might reveal a major new "Halo" game (for example only, though we're certainly due for a follow-up to "Halo 5" at this point).

It's an event full of surprise reveals intended to wow viewers, and this year is no different, but we do have a few good ideas of what to expect.

Here's what we know about Microsoft's Xbox line-up:

Original author: Ben Gilbert

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