Month: April 2021

This week’s episode of Found features The SMART Tire Company co-founder and CEO Earl Cole, a one-time Survivor champion whose startup is working with NASA to commercialize some of its space-age tech. Cole won a NASA startup competition seeking entrepreneurs to work with its scientists and researchers on applications of innovations it created for space exploration that could work right here on Earth, helping people while also forming the basis for a commercially-viable business.

For Cole, that resulted in The SMART Tire Company, a venture that’s using tech NASA developed to create more durable, puncture-proof tires to equip future rovers. NASA turned to shape memory alloys (SMAs), which is a type of metal that can be flexed or bent, but that also has elastic properties to return to its original shape, to handle the unique task of building a tire that wouldn’t require inflation, but that would be able to handle rocky Martian terrain with aplomb. Cole’s startup is using the same technology to tackle the more than $100 billion tire industry — starting with bike tires, but eventually moving on to address other kinds of vehicles as well.

We talked to Cole about the process of working with NASA, including its challenges and what the agency has to offer in terms of unique access to cutting-edge technology. He also shared his perspective on entrepreneurship from decades of experience, including difficulties with traditional VC and access to funding, and why he chose to initially raise money for his own startup through newly-available equity crowdsourcing. Cole also told us about why being a Survivor champ (and the first unanimous winner) provides crucial lessons for not only being a founder, but also running a company and being an effective leader, too.

We had a great time chatting with Cole, and we hope you have just as much fun listening. And of course, we’d love if you can subscribe to Found in Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on Google Podcasts or in your podcast app of choice. Please leave us a review and let us know what you think, or send us directed feedback either on Twitter or via email. Come back next week for yet another great conversation with a founder all about their own unique experience of startup life.

Source: Tech Crunch

Experts believe the data-lake market will hit a massive $31.5 billion in the next six years, a prediction that has led to much concern among large enterprises. Why? Well, an increase in data lakes equals an increase in public cloud consumption — which leads to a soaring amount of notifications, alerts and security events.

Around 56% of enterprise organizations handle more than 1,000 security alerts every day and 70% of IT professionals have seen the volume of alerts double in the past five years, according to a 2020 Dark Reading report that cited research by Sumo Logic. In fact, many in the ONUG community are on the order of 1 million events per second. Yes, per second, which is in the range of tens of peta events per year.

Now that we are operating in a digitally transformed world, that number only continues to rise, leaving many enterprise IT leaders scrambling to handle these events and asking themselves if there’s a better way.

Compounding matters is the lack of a unified framework for dealing with public cloud security. End users and cloud consumers are forced to deal with increased spend on security infrastructure such as SIEMs, SOAR, security data lakes, tools, maintenance and staff — if they can find them — to operate with an “adequate” security posture.

Public cloud isn’t going away, and neither is the increase in data and security concerns. But enterprise leaders shouldn’t have to continue scrambling to solve these problems. We live in a highly standardized world. Standard operating processes exist for the simplest of tasks, such as elementary school student drop-offs and checking out a company car. But why isn’t there a standardized approach for dealing with security of the public cloud — something so fundamental now to the operation of our society?

The ONUG Collaborative had the same question. Security leaders from organizations such as FedEx, Raytheon Technologies, Fidelity, Cigna, Goldman Sachs and others came together to establish the Cloud Security Notification Framework. The goal is to create consistency in how cloud providers report security events, alerts and alarms, so end users receive improved visibility and governance of their data.

Here’s a closer look at the security challenges with public cloud and how CSNF aims to address the issues through a unified framework.

The root of the problem

A few key challenges are sparking the increased number of security alerts in the public cloud:

1. Rapid digital transformation sparked by COVID-19.
2. An expanded network edge created by the modern, work-from-home environment.
3. An increase in the type of security attacks.

The first two challenges go hand in hand. In March of last year, when companies were forced to shut down their offices and shift operations and employees to a remote environment, the wall between cyber threats and safety came crashing down. This wasn’t a huge issue for organizations already operating remotely, but for major enterprises the pain points quickly boiled to the surface.

Numerous leaders have shared with me how security was outweighed by speed. Keeping everything up and running was prioritized over governance. Each employee effectively held a piece of the company’s network edge in their home office. Without basic governance controls in place or training to teach employees how to spot phishing or other threats, the door was left wide open for attacks.

In 2020, the FBI reported its cyber division was receiving nearly 4,000 complaints per day about security incidents, a 400% increase from pre-pandemic figures.

Another security issue is the growing intelligence of cybercriminals. The Dark Reading report said 67% of IT leaders claim a core challenge is a constant change in the type of security threats that must be managed. Cybercriminals are smarter than ever. Phishing emails, entrance through IoT devices and various other avenues have been exploited to tap into an organization’s network. IT teams are constantly forced to adapt and spend valuable hours focused on deciphering what is a concern and what’s not.

Without a unified framework in place, the volume of incidents will spiral out of control.

Where CSNF comes into play

CSNF will prove beneficial for cloud providers and IT consumers alike. Security platforms often require integration timelines to wrap in all data from siloed sources, including asset inventory, vulnerability assessments, IDS products and past security notifications. These timelines can be expensive and inefficient.

But with a standardized framework like CSNF, the integration process for past notifications is pared down and contextual processes are improved for the entire ecosystem, efficiently reducing spend and saving SecOps and DevSecOps teams time to focus on more strategic tasks like security posture assessment, developing new products and improving existing solutions.

Here’s a closer look at the benefits a standardized approach can create for all parties:

• End users: CSNF can streamline operations for enterprise cloud consumers, like IT teams, and allows improved visibility and greater control over the security posture of their data. This enhanced sense of protection from improved cloud governance benefits all individuals.
• Cloud providers: CSNF can eliminate the barrier to entry currently prohibiting an enterprise consumer from using additional services from a specific cloud provider by freeing up added security resources. Also, improved end-user cloud governance encourages more cloud consumption from businesses, increasing provider revenue and providing confidence that their data will be secure.
• Cloud vendors: Cloud vendors that provide SaaS solutions are spending more on engineering resources to deal with increased security notifications. But with a standardized framework in place, these additional resources would no longer be necessary. Instead of spending money on such specific needs along with labor, vendors could refocus core staff on improving operations and products such as user dashboards and applications.

Working together, all groups can effectively reduce friction from security alerts and create a controlled cloud environment for years to come.

What’s next?

CSNF is in the building phase. Cloud consumers have banded together to compile requirements, and consumers continue to provide guidance as a prototype is established. The cloud providers are now in the process of building the key component of CSNF, its Decorator, which provides an open-source multicloud security reporting translation service.

The pandemic created many changes in our world, including new security challenges in the public cloud. Reducing IT noise must be a priority to continue operating with solid governance and efficiency, as it enhances a sense of security, eliminates the need for increased resources and allows for more cloud consumption. ONUG is working to ensure that the industry stays a step ahead of security events in an era of rapid digital transformation.

Source: Tech Crunch

Last year was a record 12 months for venture-backed biotech and pharma companies, with deal activity rising to $28.5 billion from $17.8 billion in 2019. As vaccines roll out, drug development pipelines return to normal, and next-generation therapies continue to hold investor interest, 2021 is on pace to be another blockbuster year.

The median step up in valuations from seed to Series A is now 2x, higher than in all later rounds. As a result, biotech startups will continue to attract more investment at earlier stages from a larger, more diverse pool of venture capitalists.

This may also change the nature of biotech founders themselves: As a blog post from Y Combinator suggests, these founders are trending younger and perhaps less willing to cede control to VCs and hired executives than they might have in years past (i.e., via the “venture creation” model so predominant among early-stage biotech companies).

As longtime members of the biotech startup community — as executives, entrepreneurs, advisors and legal counsel — we’ve seen our fair share of founder missteps early in the fundraising journey result in severe consequences.

In this exciting moment, when younger founders will likely receive more attention, capital and control than ever, it’s crucial to avoid certain pitfalls.

Clarity trumps creativity

Founders are some of the most creative people out there, but legal documentation should be anything but. Keep it as simple and clear as possible. That means using National Venture Capital Corporation documents that everyone knows and understands, as well as keeping organized documentation for employee intellectual property (IP) assignment and NDAs, option grants, independent contractor agreements, tax documents and other key contracts and paperwork.

Source: Tech Crunch

Ever since I read this Bloomberg story about how songs are engineered to go viral on TikTok, I’ve had one thought in my head – if you can call it that – it’s more of a noise, or impression: 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yes, it’s the sound of internally screaming. Just when I thought I understood how deeply social media algorithms have hijacked our desires, tastes and preferences – WHAM! Another jab straight to the nose. I have to admit, I was blindsided by this one. It knocked me out.

Now, I understand that I work for a website called TechCrunch, emphasis on the tech, but if this story doesn’t make you feel at least a teensy bit like a Luddite, well, I don’t know what to tell you. You’re probably like that character in the Matrix, Cypher, who wants to be plugged in.

Is that harsh? I mean, companies are going to company, and partnerships with major record labels is a common sense move for a social media app all about honing the art of short, clever combinations of sound and video. And fair dues to the creators, many of them in college or high school, for jumping at the chance to make some money and get a little bit of fame.

But it’s probably not too harsh when you consider what else is possible when catchiness is weaponized. Here’s what we know: whether it’s internet memes or political slogans or Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage, what drives information dissemination is not the truthfulness of the content or the credibility of the speaker but 1) how easy it is to remember and 2) how quickly it sparks conversations. 

And would you look at that! Those are exactly the variables music producers optimize for today. What the Bloomberg story highlights, inadvertently or not, is how a #1 pop hit and a piece of political disinformation are not all that different, aesthetically. Everyone’s an entertainer.

Now read to the end of the Bloomberg story. Get to the part where it’s revealed that ByteDance (the Chinese company that owns TikTok), in response to threats of a U.S. ban on the app, recruited creators to orchestrate a seemingly grassroots lawsuit against the proposed ban. And I think: damn. Attention really is the most precious commodity in the world. And we’re just…giving it away.

(Cue the internal screams.)

Source: Tech Crunch

A biotech company that has spent 11 years researching supplements to increase human longevity plans to launch its supplements later this year. Longevica says it has attracted a total of $13 million from investors, including Alexander Chikunov, a longevity investor, who is also president of the company.

Longevica says it created a biotechnology platform for longevity after researching the life-span of laboratory mice. It now aims to produce medicines, dietary supplements and food products.

The longevity space is a growing sector for tech startups. Google backed the launch of Calico in the space. Late last year Humanity Inc. raised $2.5 million in a round led by Boston fund One Way Ventures for its longevity company that will leverage AI to maximize people’s health span.

Longevica’s CEO Aynar Abdrakhmanov, backing up his company’s aim to tap the desire for people to live longer, said: “According to the WHO, by 2050, 2 billion people will be 60+ years old. By 2026, the sales of services and products for this audience will be around $27 trillion… By comparison, it was only $17 trillion in 2019.”

According to CB Insights, life-extension startups raised a record total of $800 million in 2018 alone. And there are some high-profile investors in the space.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel invested in Unity Biotechnology, which is developing drugs to treat diseases that accompany aging. And Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin invested $2.4 million worth of Ether into the nonprofit SENS Research foundation, where famed longevity research Aubrey de Grey is chief science officer, to develop rejuvenation biotechnologies.

Longevica is basing its platform on the work of scientist Alexey Ryazanov, who holds 10 U.S. patents in the space, and is a longtime researcher into the regulation of protein biosynthesis cells.

Chikunov said: “I gathered scientists known in this field to discuss their approaches to the problem. Then Alexey Ryazanov proposed the innovative idea of large-scale screening of all known pharmacological substances on long-lived mice in order to find those that prolong life.”

Under the leadership of Ryazanov, Longevica says it used 20,000 long-lived female mice and 1,033 drugs representing compounds from 62 pharmacological classes to find five substances that statistically significantly increased longevity by 16-22%: Inulin, Pentetic Acid, Clofibrate, Proscillaridin A, D-Valine.

From this work, they formed a view about the elimination of certain heavy metals from the body and improved the body’s ability to remove toxins.

Source: Tech Crunch

When it comes to building a successful startup, biotech and hardware happen to be two of the most difficult verticals in the tech industry. But Oura is doing it anyway.

The health and fitness tracking ring has been used in a number of studies around COVID-19, and been worn by NBA and WNBA players to help prevent outbreaks in the league. Oura has raised nearly $50 million from investors including Lifeline Ventures, Bold Capital Partners, and Forerunner.

So it should come as no surprise that we’re thrilled to have Forerunner’s Eurie Kim and Oura CEO Harpreet Rai join us on a forthcoming episode of Extra Crunch Live.

Kim is herself a former entrepreneur and joined Forerunner in 2012. She sits on the boards of companies like The Farmer’s Dog, Curology, Attabotics, Oura Ring, Eclipse, Juni, among others, and found herself on the Midas Brink List in 2020.

Rai, for his part, is CEO at Oura, where he leads a team of over 150 employees. Before Oura, Rai was a portfolio manager at Eminence Capital for nine years.

On Extra Crunch Live, the duo will talk about how Oura went about raising its $28 million Series B round and why Kim took a bet on the startup. We’ll also ask about tactical advice for founders looking to fundraise and grow their businesses.

Anyone can join the live event, which goes down on April 28 at noon PT/3pm ET. REGISTER FOR FREE HERE!

Source: Tech Crunch

Apple was questioned on its inability to rein in subscription scammers on its App Store during yesterday’s Senate antitrust hearing. The tech giant has argued that one of the reasons it requires developers to pay App Store commissions is to help Apple fight marketplace fraud and protect consumers. But developers claim Apple is doing very little to stop obvious scams that are now raking in millions and impacting consumer trust in the overall subscription economy, as well as in their own legitimate, subscription-based businesses.

One developer in particular, Kosta Eleftheriou, has made it his mission to highlight some of the most egregious scams on the App Store. Functioning as a one-man bunco squad, Eleftheriou regularly tweets out examples of apps that are leveraging fake reviews to promote their harmful businesses.

Some of the more notable scams he’s uncovered as of late include a crypto wallet app that scammed a user out of his life savings (~$600,000) in bitcoin; a kids game that actually contained a hidden online casino; and a VPN app scamming users out of $5 million per year. And, of course, there’s the scam that lit the fire in the first place: A competitor to Eleftheriou’s own Apple Watch app that he alleges scammed users out of $2 million per year, after stealing his marketing materials, cloning his app and buying fake reviews to make the scammer’s look like the better choice.

Eleftheriou’s tweets have caught the attention of the larger app developer community, who now email him other examples of scams they’ve uncovered. Eleftheriou more recently took his crusade a step further by filing a lawsuit against Apple over the revenue he’s lost to App Store scammers.

Though Eleftheriou wasn’t name-checked in yesterday’s antitrust hearing, his work certainly was.

In a line of questioning from Georgia’s Senator Jon Ossoff, Apple’s Chief Compliance Officer Kyle Andeer was asked why Apple was not able to locate scams, given that these fraudulent apps are, as Ossoff put it, “trivially easy to identify as scams.”

He asked why do we have rely upon “open-source reporting and journalists” to find the app scams — a reference that likely, at least in part, referred to Eleftheriou’s recent activities.

Eleftheriou himself has said there’s not much to his efforts. You simply find the apps generating most revenues and then check them for suspicious user reviews and high subscription prices. When you find both, you’ve probably uncovered a scam.

Andeer demurred, responding to Ossoff’s questions by saying that Apple has invested “tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars” in hardening and improving the security of its App Store.

“Unfortunately, security and fraud is a cat-and-mouse game. Any retailer will tell you that. And so we’re constantly working to improve,” Andeer said. He also claimed Apple was investing in more resources and technologies to catch wrong-doers and noted that the App Store rejected thousands of apps every year for posing a risk to consumers.

The exec then warned that if Apple wasn’t the intermediary, the problem would be even worse.

” … No one is perfect, but I think what we’ve shown over and over again that we do a better job than others. I think the real risks of opening up the iPhone to sideloading or third-party app stores is that this problem will only multiply. If we look at other app stores out there, we look at other distribution platforms, it scares us.”

Ossoff pressed on, noting the sideloading questions could wait and inquired again about the scam apps.

“Apple is making a cut on those abusive billing practices, are you not?” he asked.

Andeer said he didn’t believe that was the case.

“If we find fraud — if we find a problem, we’re able to rectify that very quickly. And we do each and every day,” he said.

But to what extent Apple was profiting from the App Store scams was less clear. Ossoff wanted to know if Apple refunded “all” of its revenues derived from the scam billing practices — in other words, if every customer who ever subscribed got their money back when a scam was identified.

Andeer’s answer was a little vague, however, as it could be interpreted to mean Apple refunds customers who report the scam or file a complaint — procedures it already has in place today. Instead of saying that Apple refunds “all customers” when scams are identified, he carefully worded his response to say Apple worked to make sure “the customer” is made whole.

“Senator, that’s my understanding. There’s obviously a dedicated team here at Apple who works this each and every day. But my understanding is that we work hard to make sure the customer is in a whole position. That’s our focus at the end of the day. If we lose the trust of our customers, that’s going to hurt us,” he said.

For what it’s worth, Eleftheriou wasn’t buying it.

“Apple’s non-answers to Senator Ossoff’s great questions in yesterday’s hearing should anger all of us. They did not offer any explanation for why it’s so easy for people like me to keep finding multimillion-dollar scams that have been going on unchecked on the App Store for years. They also gave no clear answer to whether they’re responsible for fraudulent activity in their store,” he told TechCrunch.

“Apple appears to profit from these scams, instead of refunding all associated revenues back to affected users when they belatedly take some of these down. We’ve been letting Apple grade their own homework for over a decade. I urge the committee to get to the bottom of these questions, including Apple’s baffling decision years ago to remove the ability for users to flag suspicious apps on the App Store,” Eleftheriou added.

Apple did not provide a comment.

Source: Tech Crunch