Electriphi, a provider of charging management and fleet monitoring software for electric vehicles, has joined the scrum of startups looking to provide services to the growing number of electric vehicle fleets in the U.S.

The San Francisco-based company has just raised $3.5 million in seed funding from investors, including Wireframe Ventures, the Urban Innovation Fund and Blackhorn Ventures. Lemnos Labs and Acario Innovation also participated in the round.

Electriphi’s pitch has resonated with school districts. It counts the Twin Rivers Unified School District in Sacramento, Calif. as one of its benchmark customers.

“Twin Rivers Unified School District has the largest fleet of electric school buses in North America, and our ambition is to transition to a fully electric fleet in the coming years,” said Tim Shannon, transportation services director, Twin Rivers Unified School District, in a statement. “This is a significant undertaking, and we needed a trusted partner that could provide us state-of-the-art charging management and help us with data collection and monitoring.”

There are several companies pursuing this market — all with either a bit of a head start, significant corporate backers or more capital. Existing offerings from EVConnect, GreenLots, GreenFlux, AmplyPower all compete with Electriphi.

The company is betting that the experience of co-founder Muffi Ghadiali, a former senior director at ChargePoint who led hardware and software development for fast charging infrastructure, can sway customers. Joining Ghadiali is Sanjay Dayal, who previously worked at Agralogics, Tibco, Xamplify, Versata and Sybase . 

There’s also the sheer scale of the opportunity, which is likely to see multiple companies emerge as winners.

“There are millions of public and commercial fleet vehicles in the U.S. alone that we rely on daily for transportation, delivery and services,” said Paul Straub, managing partner, Wireframe Ventures. “Many of these are beginning to consider electrification and the opportunity is tremendous.”

Tock, a six-year-old, Chicago-based culinary reservation service, has never had the kind of brand-recognition that other companies in the space have enjoyed, from publicly traded OpenTable to Resy, the New York-based company that was founded in 2014 and acquired last year for undisclosed terms by American Express.

That’s because Tock has relatively quietly been supporting customers, many of them high-end restaurants like French Laundry that, with Tock’s encouragement, began selling prepaid “tickets” for meals years ago. These aren’t unlike buying tickets to a concert or NBA game, sometimes weeks or even many months in advance.

Yet the reach of Tock appears to be growing. Late last month, in an interview with this editor, founder Nick Kokonas said the platform has been processing $2 million a day in these pre-paid tickets. He insists that by rethinking the reservations process for higher-end spots, Tock has drastically reduced both wasted food and no shows. As he said during our sit-down, “If you think about it, if you’re going to buy a ticket to the Rose Bowl and see a game, and suddenly your dog gets sick and you’ve got to go to the vet, you do not call the Rose Bowl and say, ‘I’m really sorry, I can’t make it tonight. Give me my money back.’ ”

Tock has since announced a partnership with Chase, a partner of two years that just expanded its tie-up with Tock such that Chase Sapphire, Freedom and link cardholders will now have access to a dining page within the Chase mobile app that, driven by Tock, enables cardholders to browse, book and pay ahead for dining experiences at restaurants, bars, pop-ups and wineries. (It gives Tock, which says it already had 10 million users, another “30 million households at once,” said Kokonas.)

That bit of momentum begs the question of whether Tock — which is backed with $17 million from Origin Ventures, Valor Equity Partners and others — might go the Resy route and itself become part of a credit card giant. But Kokonas — a hyphenate who also co-owns a prominent restaurant group that includes the famed Alinea in Chicago — suggests he’s inclined to keep building the business for now. He has too many ideas of where to take it, including turning Tock into a kind of Spotify that recommends and customizes booking experiences for diners around the world.

More from our sit-down, at the Upfront Summit last month, follows, lightly edited for length and clarity. It was an interesting conversation, particularly for anyone fascinated with the evolution of the restaurant industry over the last 15 years and how tech is changing it.

TC: We’re both Greek Americans [and many Greeks used to open restaurants when they came to the U.S.]. My family had restaurants. Your father had a diner. But you didn’t jump into the restaurant business right away. 

NK: I had the usual where I started a derivatives trading firm right out of college because I was a philosophy major. That’s really important. I did that for 11 years, built that through about 100 employees. Then I met Grant Achatz, the chef who, if you want to learn more about him, check out Netflix’s “Chef’s Table” [or the documentary] “Spinning Plates.” He had tongue cancer and a very incredible outcome. He’s still 10 years cancer-free. But I met him when he was very young and he was the same kind of person who I would want to hire in my trading firm. It was more about backing a great person.

Grant was doing what I think we all try to do anytime we build anything. He was doing something that’s emotionally resonant with consumers [at the restaurant where he was working at the time]. So you would go in there and you’d have this incredible experience… I felt like I knew how to build businesses. I started investing in the internet 1996. And I just said to him ‘One day if you ever want to do something more than this, let me know.’ And he said, ‘Well, what kind of restaurant do you want to build?’ and I said, ‘How should I know? I’ve never built a restaurant before. But I want to make it great.’ And so, I knew nothing about it, and then a year to the day later of that conversation we opened Alinea.

TC: And…

NK: I remember on the first day I thought I was done. It was kind of like a film production, where you produce the film, and then people can watch it. But of course, with the restaurant, you’re making art every day that people consume. It’s one of the only art forms or forms of entertainment that’s consumable. I remember [Grant] just grabbed me by the tie that opening night and said, ‘Go over table 40 and make sure that [the wait staff is] doing it the right way.’ Sixteen years later I have six restaurants and about 300 employees between Chicago and New York. And what I learned when I actually started running the restaurant when Grant got sick was that no one else knew anything about running a restaurant, either. It’s one of those areas where tradition exceeds expertise, and the software for it was built in a way that looked like 1998.

TC: How so?

So in 2005, an OpenTable salesman would come literally with a briefcase and [with its legacy reservation system], say, ‘Look at this bad boy; I could leave it here for you today.’ And that’s kind of what they still do.

I came from a trading organization where we could process hundreds of thousands of transactions without a problem, yet in 2005 [when we opened Alinea], I couldn’t even know who my customers were; that was held from me [by OpenTable], and whenever I see opaque information, I see an arbitrage [opportunity].

[I wanted a way to] look up every single thing that you eat and what you liked and what you didn’t like and left on the table, and your wife or spouse likes to drink. We were doing that in a very real way [in house, but] we couldn’t share that information with our other restaurants. [That information was] siloed on purpose because of the business model of OpenTable and Booking.com. So I started building it for myself.

I remember [famed restaurateur] Danny Meyer telling me, ‘You’ll never sell a ticket to a restaurant,’ I thought of it 20 years ago. ‘It won’t work.’ But we process about $2 million a day now in pre-paid tickets [beginning with what I built in 2010] by myself with one programmer. It was a very rudimentary system, and we sold $562,000 of tickets in the first day.

TC: What is a ticket?

NK: There are three kinds of reservations that you make in the world. There are free reservations, like ordinary reservations. There are times when you have to put a deposit down, and there are times that you pre-pay. [Regarding the last], when you think about it, if you’re going to buy a ticket to the Rose Bowl and see a game and suddenly your dog gets sick and you’ve got to go to the vet, you do not call the Rose Bowl and say, ‘I’m really sorry, I can’t make it tonight. Give me my money back.’ They play the game without you.

With restaurants where demand exceeds supply by two or three times, there’s an opportunity to charge, like a movie or concert or some other form of entertainment. And that’s what was going through my head [at the start of Alinea] because we’re running 8% no show rates; we had [staff] answering the phone every day, disappointing people, telling people “no” when they wanted [ a reservation] at seven o’clock on a Saturday. It’s like walking into a sweater store and [asking] ‘Do you have a black cardigan?’ [and being told] ‘Nope, try again.’

I just knew that I needed to solve my own problem. And now we’ve got 100 employees building all sorts of different iterations of dynamic and variable pricing for time-slotted businesses. Pricing will be differentiated in real time.

TC: What is that sales process like [when it comes to your software and this ticket idea?] Do restaurants see it as a big gamble? Do they want to try it first for some period of time?

NK: Any time you’re ripping and replacing a system that’s been around for 20 or 30 years, you have some convincing to do. The crossing-the-chasm thing is real. The first couple of years, we’d add 15, 20 restaurants a month, and we had to learn, really quickly, that they were either really great and had high demand, or they were failing and willing to try anything. So you had to really learn to pick your the right customers when you were early in the process.

Now what’s happening is that we built out a system that is cloud based — we’re the only independent system left [of meaningful scale] — and we built it for enterprise. So we have 400 API endpoints. We can integrate with Salesforce. But we can also do specialty integrations with, you know, Vail Resorts, which is now a client of ours.

So all of that now is going laterally and we’re getting the halo effect. We spend very little on marketing to businesses. We spend an awful lot of money now [on] building out that consumer network, [which the Chase deal should help with meaningfully]. The cool part about that news is that every single one of those people in the largest rewards program in the country is going to get an account. So that’s how I get 30 million U.S. households all at once.

TC: What other ways are you sharing your customer data?

NK: One of the most important pieces of data within a restaurant group that we don’t share across, is that we want to know your preferences, your dietary restrictions, your spouse’s birthday — all those things. Those are for better hospitality. Now, for the next step we want you to give us that information. We already know your dining history — why is there no platform like Spotify or Netflix for restaurants that anticipates your needs, knows what you enjoy and suggests little nudges to you [like], ‘Hey, your anniversary is coming up in a little while — maybe you should book something now, and we’ve got these great five choices that are in your (playlist).’ So that mass personalization for the consumer is coming, that’s something that we’re building. You have to get to a point where you have enough of that data to do it well enough that it’s meaningful, but we’re there now.

TC: The restaurant industry is brutally competitive. Is there a chance that some of your restaurants maybe don’t want to be part of a suggested rotation alongside other restaurants?

NK: We don’t know. We haven’t done it yet.

You know, restaurants are incredibly myopic in the sense that I don’t care how good you are, they are concerned that, when I turn on bookings from March, I hope we have customers. It’s a really weird business that way. And what we’re going to be able to do is that because of some of the data and people indicating interest before the reservations are available, we get to show the restaurant the elasticity of their demand before they actually put those bookings on. That’s incredibly powerful because now, for the first time, they can know they can project out months into the future what their demand will look like.

TC: You’re working with restaurants and wineries and the like. What’s the vision? Are you going to be getting into other verticals within hospitality or beyond?

We’ve experimented with other verticals; we’re focused on hospitality. We’re in 30 countries organically already. It’s a huge, huge space. But you know, if I was left to my own devices and didn’t have people managing me, I’d already have dentists using it.

We’ve been dropping into the Australian startup scene increasingly over the years as the ecosystem has been building at an increasingly faster pace, most notably at our own TechCrunch Battlefield Australia in 2017. Further evidence that the scene is growing has come recently in the shape of the Pause Fest conference in Melbourne. This event has gone from strength to strength in recent years, and it is fast becoming a must-attend for Aussie startups aiming for both national international attention.

I was able to drop in virtually to interview a number of those showcased in the Startup Pitch Competition, so here’s a run-down of some of the stand-out companies.

Medinet Australia

Medinet Australia is a health-tech startup aiming to make healthcare more convenient and accessible to Australians by allowing doctors to do consultations with patients via an app. Somewhat similar to apps like Babylon Health, Medinet’s telehealth app allows patients to obtain clinical advice from a GP remotely; access prescriptions and have medications delivered; access pathology results; directly email their medical certificate to their employer; and access specialist referrals along with upfront information about specialists such as their fees, waitlist, and patient experience. They’ve raised $3M in Angel financing and are looking for institutional funding in due course. Given Australia’s vast distances, Medinet is well-placed to capitalize on the shift of the population towards much more convenient telehealth apps. (1st Place Winner)

Everty

Everty allows companies to easily manage, monitor and monetize Electric Vehicle charging stations. But this isn’t about infrastructure. Instead, they link up workplaces and accounting systems to the EV charging network, thus making it more like a “Salesforce for EV charging.” It’s available for both commercial and home charging tracking. It’s also raised an Angel round and is poised to raise further funding. (2nd Place Winner)

AI On Spectrum

It’s a sad fact that people with Autism statistically tend to die younger, and unfortunately, the suicide rate is much higher for Autistic people. “AI on Spectrum” takes an accessible approach in helping autistic kids and their families find supportive environments and feel empowered. The game encourages Autism sufferers to explore their emotional side and arms them with coping strategies when times get tough, applying AI and machine learning in the process to assist the user. (3rd Place Winner.)

HiveKeeper

Professional bee-keepers need a fast, reliable, easy-to-use record keeper for their bees and this startup does just that. But it’s also developing a software and sensor technology to give beekeepers more accurate analytics, allowing them to get an early-warning about issues and problems. Their technology could even, in the future, be used to alert for coming bushfires by sensing the changed behavior of the bees. (Hacker Exchange Additional Winner.)

Relectrify

Rechargeable batteries for things like cars can be re-used again, but the key to employing them is being able to extend their lives. Relectrify says its battery control software can unlock the full performance from every cell, increasing battery cycle life. It will also reduce storage costs by providing AC output without needing a battery inverter for both new and 2nd-life batteries. Its advanced battery management system combines power and electric monitoring to rapidly the check which are stronger cells and which are weaker making it possible to get as much as 30% more battery life, as well as deploying “2nd life storage”. So far, they have a project with Nissan and American Electric Power and have raised a Series A of $4.5 million. (SingularityU Additional Winner.)

Gabriel

Sadly, seniors and patients can contract bedsores if left too long. People can even die from bedsores. Furthermore, hospitals can end up in litigation over the issue. What’s needed is a technology that can prevent this, as well as predicting where on a patient’s body might be worst affected. That’s what Gabriel has come up with: using multi-modal technology to prevent and detect both falls and bedsores. Its passive monitoring technology is for the home or use in hospitals and consists of a resistive sheet with sensors connecting to a system which can understand the pressure on a bed. It has FDA approval, is patent-pending and is already working in some Hawaiian hospitals. It’s so far raised $2 million in Angel and is now raising money.

Here’s a taste of Pause Fest:

One of the questions I frequently ask startup founders is how much they’re spending on security. Unsurprisingly, everyone has a different answer.

Startups and small companies are invariably faced with the prospect that they’re either not spending enough or are spending too much on something that’s hard to quantify in terms of value. It’s a tough sell to sink money into an effort to stop something that might one day happen, particularly for bootstrapped startups that must make every cent count — yet we’re told security is a crucial investment for a company’s future.

Sorry to break it to you, but there is no easy answer.

The reality is that each company is different and there is no single recommended dollar amount to spend. But it’s absolutely certain that some investment is required. We know because we see a lot of security incidents here at TechCrunch — hacks, breaches and especially data exposures, often a result of human error.

We spoke to three security experts — a head of security, a security entrepreneur and a cybersecurity fellow — to understand the questions facing startups.

Know and understand your threat model

Every company has a different threat model — by that, we mean identifying risks and possible ways of attack before they happen. Companies that store tons of user data may be a greater target than companies that don’t. Each firm needs to evaluate which kind of risks they face and identify weaknesses.

Got your sights set on attending TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 on May 14 in San Jose? Spend the day with 1,000 or more like-minded founders, makers and leaders across the startup ecosystem. It’s a day-long deep dive dedicated to current and evolving mobility and transportation tech. Think autonomous vehicles, micromobility, AI-based mobility applications, battery tech and so much more.

Hold up. Don’t have a ticket yet? Buy your early-bird pass and save $100.

In addition to taking in all the great speakers (more added every week), presentations, workshops and demos, you’ll want to meet people and build the relationships that foster startup success. Get ready for a radical network experience with CrunchMatch. TechCrunch’s free business-matching platform makes finding and connecting with the right people easier than ever. It’s both curated and automated, a potent combination that makes networking simple and productive. Hey needle, kiss that haystack goodbye.

Here’s how it works.

When CrunchMatch launches, we’ll email all registered attendees. Create a profile, identify your role and list your specific criteria, goals and interests. Whomever you want to meet — investors, founders or engineers specializing in autonomous cars or ride-hailing apps. The CrunchMatch algorithm kicks into gear and suggests matches and, subject to your approval, proposes meeting times and sends meeting requests.

CrunchMatch benefits everyone — founders looking for developers, investors in search of hot prospects, founders looking for marketing help — the list is endless, and the tool is free.

You have one programming-packed day to soak up everything this conference offers. Start strategizing now to make the most of your valuable time. CrunchMatch will help you cut through the crowd and network efficiently so that you have time to learn about the latest tech innovations and still connect with people who can help you reach the next level.

TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 takes place on May 14 in San Jose, Calif. Join, meet and learn from the industry’s mightiest minds, makers, innovators and investors. And let CrunchMatch make your time there much easier and more productive. Buy your early-bird ticket, and we’ll see you in San Jose!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

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During the days when Snapchat’s popularity was booming, investors thought the company would become the anchor for a new Los Angeles technology scene.

Snapchat, they hoped, would spin-off entrepreneurs and angel investors who would reinvest in the local ecosystem and create new companies that would in turn foster more wealth, establishing LA as a hub for tech talent and venture dollars on par with New York and Boston.

In the ensuing years, Los Angeles and its entrepreneurial talent pool has captured more attention from local and national investors, but it’s not Snap that’s been the source for the next generation of local founders. Instead, several former SpaceX employees have launched a raft of new companies, capturing the imagination and dollars of some of the biggest names in venture capital.

“There was a buzz, but it doesn’t quite have the depth of bench of people that investors wanted it to become,” says one longtime VC based in the City of Angels. “It was a company in LA more than it was an LA company.” 

Perhaps the most successful SpaceX offshoot is Relativity Space, founded by Jordan Noone and Tim Ellis. Since Noone, a former SpaceX engineer, and Ellis, a former Blue Origin engineer, founded their company, the business has been (forgive the expression) a rocket ship. Over the past four years, Relativity has raised $185.7 million, received special dispensations from NASA to test its rockets at a facility in Mississippi, will launch vehicles from Cape Canaveral and has signed up an early customer in Momentus, which provides satellite tug services in orbit.

The Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 earbuds have a fantastic sound that suits all music types, long battery life, and they are really easy to use — all for a great price.

Let's get this straight from the start: Most truly wireless earbuds look unattractive because they stick out of your ears. You won't buy the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 for the look, unless Frankenstein's Monster is your style icon.

Our review model came in black, but they are available in white too. The shape is best described as bullety, and the control system classic, as the end caps are big physical buttons that are easy to locate and press. You get simple controls too. Hold the buttons to raise or lower the volume, double tap to advance or go back, and press once to pause. Easy, and more importantly, reliable. 

The case is small, black, and made of plastic. It's similar in size to the AirPods, but cheaper feeling with its quickly smudged soft-touch finish. Flip the top to take out the bullet earbuds, which are securely fixed in using magnets.

Of all the earbuds tested here, these were the ones that were hardest to get a comfortable fit. They're not heavy at only 4.6 grams, but because they poke out of my ears quite far — ears are all different, so they may fit you differently — they tended to feel like they're loose. I settled on the included Comply foam tips in the end, which made sure they felt secure. Despite this looseness, they never once fell out, even when used at the gym. 

Each bud has a 5.8mm graphene driver inside and paired with the iPhone XS Max, the Melomania 1 headphones are little rockets. They deliver an overwhelming level of volume, a bass response that borders on the extreme, and a stunning clarity that reveals every detail in the music you're listening to.

Cambridge Audio dedicates itself to the "British sound," which has been embedded deep inside the Melomanias. Guitars and drums are front and center, while the vocals fill the wide soundstage. The listening experience is exciting, joyous, and often epic. 

The British sound really suits guitar-driven, vocal-heavy rock and pop songs. Band Maid's "Daydreaming" kicks like it should, with lead singer Atsumi Saiki's voice never being overpowered by Tōno Kanami's guitar or Hirose Akane's drums — instead getting the balance exactly right. The real surprise comes when you discover how fantastic the Melomania earbuds are for dance and bass-heavy music.

Mat Zo's progressive house masterpiece "The Sky" is superb, for example: Soaring, detailed, and with a controlled, pumping bass line. Apink's Eung Eung, and Hug Me are full of bass and mids, but never at the expense of the group's stunning vocals. I could listen for hours. 

Battery life is fantastic. Charged, the buds last for nine hours, and the case delivers a further four full charges for 45 hours listening before the whole thing needs plugging into a charger itself. Disappointingly, the case has a Micro-USB port, rather than a USB-C port. A decision that may have been made to keep the price down, this may annoy those who have made the switch to USB-C charging on their phones. However, it doesn't need constant recharging due to the long battery life, so it's not a disaster. 

Provided you prioritize sound and battery over aesthetics — and in this case you really should — it's impossible to dismiss the Melomania's very low price, and welcome simplicity. They're one of the cheapest we tested, don't bother with a complicated app, and arguably sound just as good as the most expensive set, plus they have the longest battery life too. Our recommendation: Save some cash, buy the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1, enjoy the superb performance, and forget about the looks.

Pros: Long battery life, excellent sound, competitive price, simple to use

Cons: Unattractive design, fit takes work to get comfortable, Micro-USB charging port

Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0

Battery: 2 hours recharge using Micro-USB

Charging: Nine hours use time, four charges from the case, for a total of 45 hours

Codecs: AptX, AAC codecs

Durability: IPX5

App: No

The Apple AirPods Pro look and sound better than previous-generation AirPods, plus they have noise cancellation built right into them and integrate perfectly with other Apple devices.

The original AirPods were fine, but the AirPods Pro earbuds seriously step things up in almost every way. They fit better, are noise-cancelling, and they sound a whole lot better too. Though the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1 edge the AirPods Pro out when it comes to overall value, Apple's latest true wireless earbuds are still among the very best headphones you can buy for use with an iPhone.

Apple is moving in the right direction with the design of the AirPods in general. The arm on the headphones is a little shorter than previous-generation AirPods, so they won't look quite as distinctive. More important is the fact that they create a nice seal in your ears, which directly plays into how they sound and their noise cancellation.

Speaking of how they sound, the AirPods Pro earbuds sound much better than previous-generation AirPods. They offer a little more bass than before, along with clearly better-tuned and more natural mids, and a fair amount more detail in the highs. To be sure, these headphones are bass-forward, but it's not over the top by any means. The noise cancellation on the headphones is good, but not quite as good as over-ear headphones by the likes of Sony and Bose.

Apple users will also like how well the headphones integrate with their iPhone and other Apple products. AirPods easily pair to an iPhone without you having to go digging through menus, and thanks to their built-in Apple H1 chip, they support Siri and retain a better connection throughout. 

But what about downsides? Well, the headphones are a little expensive, and they're probably not the best choice for sports use. Still, despite that, the headphones have received great reviews. TechRadar and MacWorld both gave them 4.5 out of 5. —Christian de Looper

Pros: Good sound, excellent Apple integration, noise cancellation

Cons: Expensive, don't fit great for sports

Amazon may have a market cap of more than $1 trillion, but Finbarr Taylor, CEO of Y Combinator-backed startup Shogun, said the e-commerce giant is “kind of dropping the ball.”

Specifically, he argued that the experience of shopping on Amazon — not what happens after you buy something, but browsing the website itself — is pretty bad, full of sponsored results and fake products.

“What we’re seeing happen is that all this vast wave of direct-to-consumer brands is nibbling around edges of Amazon and beating them on buying experience,” Taylor said.

Shogun was designed to support those brands. Taylor and his co-founder Nick Raushenbush created the first product in 2015, and they treated it as a side project at first. But Taylor said that by May 2017, “It ate up all of our free time and it was obviously much bigger than we expected,” so they quit their jobs (Taylor was working as a software engineer at Y Combinator) and devoted themselves to it full-time.

The company now has 11,000 customers, including MVMT, K-Swiss and Leesa. And today, Shogun is announcing that it has raised a $10 million Series A, led by Initialized Capital, with participation from VMG Partners and YC. (The startup has now raised a total of $12 million.)

The company’s first product, Page Builder, offers a drag-and-drop interface to make it easier for e-commerce brands to build their storefronts on Shopify, BigCommerce, Salesforce and Magento.

And there’s a new product, Shogun Frontend, which allows brands to create a web storefront that’s entirely customized while still using one of the big commerce platforms as their back end.

Taylor pitched this as part of a broader trend toward “headless commerce,” where the e-commerce front end and back end are handled separately. He suggested that this is a “mutually beneficial” split, as Shopify and its competitors are going “super deep” on building the infrastructure needed to operate a store online, while Shogun focuses on the actual experience of the customer visiting that store.

Meanwhile, website builders like Squarespace and Weebly (owned by Square) have introduced e-commerce features, but Taylor suggested that they’re still “not really a professional choice” for most e-commerce businesses.

As one of the key features of Shogun Frontend, Taylor pointed to the fact that it creates progressive web apps that should be as fast and smooth as a native app.

Brett Gibson, general partner at Initialized Capital and a Shogun board member, made a similar point in a statement:

For DTC brands competing against goliaths like Amazon, Shogun Frontend now gives them features and capabilities once only reserved for enterprise companies. And when it comes to speed, Shogun Frontend’s sub-second load time is the critical difference between retaining or losing a customer.

Taylor added that the company will be “continuing to invest in Page Builder too,” but he suggested that Frontend is “more of an enterprise offering” that can help Shogun’s biggest customers “future proof themselves.”