Month: October 2019

On September 17, HTC announced that cofounder Cher Wang would be stepping down as CEO. In her place, Yves Maitre stepped into the role of Chief Executive, after more than a decade at French telecom giant, Orange.

It’s a tough job at an even tougher time. The move comes on the tail of five consecutive quarterly losses and major layoffs, including a quarter of the company’s staff, which were let go in July of last year.

It’s a far fall for a company that comprised roughly 11 percent of global smartphone sales, some eight years ago. These days, HTC is routinely relegated to the “other” column when these figures are published.

All of this is not to say that the company doesn’t have some interesting irons in the fire. With Vive, HTC has demonstrated its ability to offer a cutting edge VR platform, while Exodus has tapped into an interest in exploring the use of blockchain technologies for mobile devices.

Of course, neither of these examples show any sign of displacing HTC’s once-booming mobile device sales. And this January’s $1.1 billion sale of a significant portion of its hardware division to Google has left many wondering whether it has much gas left in the mobile tank.

With Wang initially scheduled to appear on stage at Disrupt this week, the company ultimately opted to have Maitre sit in on the panel instead. In preparation for the conversation, we sat down with the executive to discuss his new role and future of the struggling Taiwanese hardware company.

5G, XR and the future of the HTC brand

Source: Tech Crunch

Facebook’s relentless feature copy of Snapchat have been seen as one of the chief examples of the company’s competitive overreach, but Snap CEO Evan Spiegel isn’t sure whether antitrust activity from the government is going to change the company’s near-term prospects of competing with Instagram.

“I mean the history of antitrust would basically say that these investigations last like seven to ten years or something like that and that basically nothing happens,” Spiegel said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF. “I think a lot can change in the seven to ten years that this process will take.”

Though Spiegel didn’t seem to have the most faith in the process giving Snap a more level playing field to take on Facebook, he did say there were clear public concerns with how Facebook was responding to competition in the market.

“The thing that everyone’s concerned about is like is that they’ve seen that competition has been what has motivated Facebook to make those changes over time,” Spiegel said onstage. “So, if you look at Snapchat, the inventions that we create around ephemerality, around privacy, those have really motivated Facebook to dramatically change their product offering in order to compete.”

Whether Facebook was specifically suppressing Snapchat content, Spiegel said, “It’s hard to say and I you know I’d probably be stupid to talk about it here.”

“I think what everyone is concerned about is what they would characterize as anti competitive practices so for example, you know, people upload snaps they create on Snapchat to Instagram, all the time, and then Instagram suppresses you know the Snapchat hashtag or they suppress people’s ability to post snap codes as their profile picture or suppress their ability to link to Snapchat on their profile. And that’s an example of anti-competitive behavior.”

Spiegel also confirmed that the company had put together a list of some of Facebook’s competitive moments called Project Voldemort, noting that the list had been started several years ago. The initiative’s existence was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

“I didn’t make it, our legal team put it together,” Spiegel said. “I think just because they kept hearing from our partners all of these things that Facebook was doing and it was actually so many that people couldn’t actually remember them all so they started writing them down.”

Source: Tech Crunch

So you’ve had a data breach. Don’t worry, it’s not just you. These days it happens to everyone, no matter how large or small your company is. It’s almost inevitable, some might say, and not a case of if but when.

A lot is already out of your control. Whether a hacker broke in and stole customer data or someone on staff left a cloud server exposed without a password, the incident alone is bad enough. But then you’ll also face a stream of headlines, flack from your customers, and endless tweets and social media posts. Trust will invariably suffer, your brand will hurt, and recovery seems like a million miles away.

But as breaches become more commonplace, few companies remember the actual incident itself — or even the number of users or customers affected. No matter what kind of security incident you’re thrown into, what happens afterward is how you will be remembered.

Get it right, you can save face. Get it wrong, and you’ll never live it down. Here’s what not to do when you have a data breach.

Don’t try to cover it up

Source: Tech Crunch

Becoming a venture capitalist is notoriously difficult. One part timing, one part experience, another part network. Rarely can someone provide succinct instructions on how to break into the field of private market investing or how to create your own VC fund.

Onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, established VCs Theresia Gouw, the founder of a new firm called aCrew Capital, and Floodgate co-founder Ann Miura-Ko explained what they see as two distinct paths to the top of VC.

One path is long, calculated and requires endurance. The first step is to become an associate at a venture capital fund (this typically requires a college degree and a few years working in investment banking or in the greater finance industry). Next, you spend several years learning the ins and outs of the trade. And finally, once you’ve developed a portfolio and reputation in startups investing, you can rise to the partner ranks or raise your own VC fund.

“When I was starting in 2008, everyone said ‘no one starts a venture capital firm,’ ” Miura-Ko, who launched Floodgate nearly a decade ago after a stint as an analyst at CRV and seven years obtaining a Ph.D. in cybersecurity, told TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos. “Today, there are so many different paths into the market and that’s both an opportunity and a huge challenge … The question is how do you stand out? … You have to figure out what’s your schtick.”

Gouw, for her part, was a managing partner at the renowned firm Accel from 1999 to 2014 after consulting for Bain & Company. In 2014, she co-founded one of the first female-run venture capital firms, Aspect Ventures, alongside Jennifer Fonstad. Last month, however, the pair announced the firm would be splitting up, with Gouw launching aCrew and Fonstad starting Owl Capital.

Gouw, said to be one of the wealthiest women in venture thanks to several high-profile bets, says raising your own fund is all about relationships: “I think there are many great entry paths into [venture] now,” she said. “Remember what makes you stand out as an investor is investing in great companies… These people are going to be the references for you when you want to raise your first fund. It’s about investing in great people who are trying to do great things.”

The other route to venture is newer and simpler. Just start making investments, the two explained. This only works if you have money to invest, i.e. if you’ve sold your startup for a decent sum or you’re being paid an exorbitant sum by one of the tech giants.

“There’s some great investors who went out and started building their own individual track records as either advisors or angels,” Gouw said. “And, you know, there’s obviously a lot of great entrepreneurs who then go and start venture funds.”

Source: Tech Crunch

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1. Facebook is being leaned on by US, UK, Australia to ditch its end-to-end encryption expansion plan

U.S. Attorney General William Barr, acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel and Australia’s minister for home affairs, Peter Dutton, have co-signed an open letter to Facebook calling on the company to halt its plan to roll out end-to-end encryption across its suite of messaging products.

Facebook isn’t the only messaging company using end-to-end encryption, but it’s in governments’ crosshairs on account of a plan to expand its use of e2e crypto.

2. Bird raises $275 million Series D round at a $2.5 billion valuation

The scooter startup’s new round comes a few months after TechCrunch reported Bird was looking to raise a Series D round at a $2.5 billion valuation.

3. Instagram launches Threads, a Close Friends chat app with auto-status

What if Instagram could automatically tell your Close Friends you’re home, working, on-the-move or chilling and might want to hang out? That’s the idea behind its new companion app Threads.

4. Startups ‘are staying private way too long’ says Salesforce founder Marc Benioff

“What public markets do is indeed the great reckoning,” Benioff said while onstage at Disrupt SF. “But it cleanses [a] company of all of the bad stuff that they have.”

5. Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside

HVSD (named after renowned physicist and electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside) is an electric aircraft designed to go anywhere and land anywhere fast and quietly. Sebastian Thrun’s aviation startup has been working on the aircraft for two years.

6. TikTok explains its ban on political advertising

This isn’t really a new ban, but rather a reiteration of an existing one. The company says it won’t allow ads supporting a candidate, political party or issue, because they don’t fit with the “light-hearted and irreverent feeling” that the app is aiming for.

7. Google-backed Dunzo raises $45M to expand its hyperlocal delivery startup in India

An Indian startup that is increasingly posing a threat to established food and grocery delivery businesses, as well as to e-commerce giants, just closed a new financing round.

Source: Tech Crunch

The global cybersecurity market is booming: Cybersecurity-related spending is on track to surpass $133 billion in 2022, and the market has grown more than 30x in 13 years. But it’s not all unicorns and rainbows. Some industry watchers have claimed that the cybersecurity market is a bubble about to burst. To understand the debate, it’s important to look beyond traditional supply and demand metrics.

On the one hand, the demand for cybersecurity solutions is huge. Organizations are increasingly investing in cybersecurity, as evidenced by a recent report by Gartner Group showing security spending is outpacing IT spending. Security departments are expanding in size and budget, and, at the helm, security decision-makers are gaining respect more than ever before. With ever-dynamic cybersecurity risks and regulations, it is clear to most C-suite leaders that there’s more to be protected and more on the line.

Security is taking on a new shape within organizations. Generally, security buyers are investing in various categories in order to protect their organizations. Moreover, security is often integrated into new business initiatives and used as a competitive advantage. Across the different approaches to security, the resounding sentiment is clear — no one wants to be breached. However, this preparation for a cyber doomsday might be disproportionate to how breaches affect the bottom line.

Well-publicized security incidents in recent years resulted in little long-term effect on the bottom line. Equifax has regained its full market cap less than two years following the “incident of the century,” and Sony, a $70 billion-plus giant, incurred “catastrophic” damages of less than $100 million after proprietary, sensitive and even embarrassing data was stolen. It seems that companies deal with their worst-case breach scenarios without enduring severe financial losses that were once believed to devastate companies. So, are security departments just crying wolf? If so, could the demand for solutions decrease?

On the other hand, let’s think about the supply: The landscape of cybersecurity solutions and services is strikingly saturated. Still, this busy frontier continues to attract founders and investors alike, with 300+ new startups launching every year and VCs investing in cybersecurity at a record high of $5.3 billion in 2018. Further, many cybersecurity startups are able to raise large rounds of funding, with exceedingly high valuations, despite having little market traction. But even when funding is pouring in, it is not easy for the cybersecurity business to survive, let alone successfully exit. Dave DeWalt, the former CEO of FireEye, said it well: “We are in this situation where there are just too many vendors and too few can be sustained.”

With overvaluation of startups, market saturation and the seemingly less-than-catastrophic impact of breaches, it’s no wonder why some are worried about the cybersecurity industry. I, for one, don’t think the bubble will pop anytime soon.

Unique factors make cybersecurity a formidable market. To highlight a few: Government and defense investing serve as anchors that continually fuel growth. For example, the U.S. 2019 President’s Budget includes $15 billion for cybersecurity-related activities, and France has committed to 4,000 cyber headcount by 2025. This type of demand is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Besides, increased compliance and regulatory requirements such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) calls for action from companies and propels awareness and sales even further. On top of that, the industry is dynamic and keeps reinventing itself. New categories emerge in spaces like Zero Trust and IoT security to address threats that are growing in scope and sophistication. The future-forward mindset in the industry is so strong that sci-fi writers are employed to predict cyber threat scenarios as well as inject innovation into cyber defense.

While these factors contribute to the strength of the industry, they are not the primary elements that will prevent the cybersecurity bubble from bursting. The answer does not lie in where cybersecurity is today, but where it is going next. In the foreseeable future, cybersecurity will face unique threats that will fuel its growth even further:

• Customer impact: High magnitude attacks geared toward B2C companies could lead to massive customer churn and bottom-line damage. Once consumers feel the effects, they will fear working with companies they don’t trust. The awareness level of consumers to cybersecurity and privacy is already raising the bar for companies to beef up their security efforts. As a result of higher customer expectations and intensified regulation, many companies will further invest in security and the market will keep expanding, respectively.
• Economic impact: In its Global Risk Report 2018, the World Economic Forum (WEF) listed cyber threat as one of the most critical risks threatening the world economy. In the near-term, companies will likely incur paralyzing attacks that will shut down daily operations, causing unprecedented loss of revenue eclipsing the breaches we’ve witnessed thus far. These crippling cyberattacks will lead to direct growth in cybersecurity spend.
• Civil-life impact: Attacks on developed countries could interrupt electricity, water supply and more, causing massive civil-life disorder. In addition, the rise of IoT and autonomous machinery in our day-to-day will not only expand the attack surface, but also threaten lives. The safety of people will pressure political bodies into creating regulatory requirements to bolster security for embedded technologies and scrutinizing how smart devices are secured.

It is true that the security market is highly fragmented, some companies are overvalued and not every new security tool will be a big success. But as our world becomes more software-driven, cybercrime will inevitably intensify, leading to new matter entering the security bubble. This will propel security into a significantly larger market at an even greater rate, visible by investors, leadership teams and company boards. Instead of bursting, the cybersecurity market will only keep developing and growing.

Source: Tech Crunch

A lot of talk has been made about verifying valuable items on an immutable blockchain, but the main pioneer in this space has been Verisart, which appeared a few years ago to use a blockchain to create certification for the fine art and collectibles market. But despite the blockchain hype of the last few years, Verisart eschewed the fundraising bonanza, preferring instead to perfect its model and build partnerships.

That changes today with the news that it has raised $2.5 million in seed financing in a round led by Galaxy Digital EOS VC Fund. Further investment has come from existing investors Sinai Ventures and Rhodium. The funding will be used to expand Verisart’s commercial platform for authentication and further expand in the art world.

Co-founder and CEO Robert Norton commented: “With this new round of funding, we’re able to scale our business and ramp up our partnership integrations. The art world is quickly realizing that blockchain provides a new standard in provenance and record-keeping and we’re looking forward to extending these services to the industry.”

The $325 million Galaxy EOS VC Fund is a partnership between Galaxy Digital, a blockchain-focused merchant bank, and Block.one, the publisher of EOSIO, the blockchain protocol.

The funding will go toward extending the product and engineering team and launching a suite of premium services aimed at artists, galleries and collectors. The company recently appointed Paul Duncan, formerly the founding CTO of Borro, the online lending platform for luxury assets, to lead the engineering team.

In 2015, Verisart was the first company to apply blockchain technology to the physical art and collectibles market. It’s also working with some of the world’s best-known artists, including Ai Weiwei and Shepard Fairey to certify their works of art. In 2018, Verisart won the “Hottest Blockchain DApp” award at The Europas, the European tech startup awards.

It’s also been the first blockchain certification provider on Shopify to offer digital certification for limited editions, artworks and collectibles.

Other players are now entering this growing blockchain-for-art market. Codex Protocol is a new startup also putting art on the blockchain.

Source: Tech Crunch

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1. Publisher adtech startups Taboola and Outbrain merge in $850M deal to take on Google and Facebook

The content recommendation rivals — who are, shall we say, not exactly known for the high quality of their recommendations — are merging to form a single company.

While the companies describe the deal as a merger, the combined entity will be called Taboola, with Taboola’s founder Adam Singolda securing the CEO slot. Further, Taboola is paying Outbrain investors $250 million in cash plus a 30% share of the combined companies.

2. Here’s everything Microsoft announced at today’s Surface event

Most of the rumors panned out: There was a new version of the Surface Laptop, including the addition of a USB C port and a 15-inch model. The Surface Pro got a USB C port as well, along with improved studio microphones. And there’s the new Surface Pro X, which finds the company utilizing Microsoft’s new SQ1 chip.

3. Introducing the Startup Battlefield companies at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019

This year’s batch covers rapid cholera detection, developer tools, strawberry-picking robots, regulatory monitoring and more.

4. Uber launches a shift-work finder app, Uber Works, starting in Chicago

This is a new app for matching = workers with shifts, called Uber Works. The app does this matching in partnership with staffing agencies, and it offers workers the carrot of more timely payments.

5. Will Smith just dropped $10K on a startup that pitched him onstage at Disrupt

It’s true: I interviewed Will Smith and Ang Lee about their new movie “Gemini Man,” and it turned into a mini-startup pitch competition.

6. In a new filing, the venture firm Mithril Capital says it has been under assault by its former general counsel

The firm has been characterized in news reports by Recode as being in a complete state of disarray — and, more recently, for reportedly being investigated by the FBI for financial misconduct. Mithril is now drawing a line from those stories to former employee Crystal McKellar.

7. How Bongo, the ‘Netflix of Bangladesh,’ won the local video streaming market with just $10M

The on-demand video service began life as a channel on YouTube in 2014 before expanding as a standalone app to users a year later. Now, of the 96 million people in Bangladesh who are online today, 75 million of them are subscribed to either Bongo’s YouTube channel or to its app. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

Source: Tech Crunch