August 2021 – Page 30 – Digital Pulse

News: NS1 brings open-source service NetBox to the cloud

August 24, 2021
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New York City based startup NS1 got its start providing organizations with managed DNS services to help accelerate application delivery and reliability. With its new NetBox Cloud service that is being announced in preview today, NS1 is expanding its services into a new area beyond DNS. It can often be a challenging task for a

It can often be a challenging task for a network administrator in an enterprise to understand where all the networking infrastructure is and how it’s all supposed to be connected. That’s a job for an emerging class of enterprise technology known as Infrastructure Resource Management (IRM) that NS1 is now jumping into. TechCrunch profiled NS1 in a wide-ranging EC-1 series last month. The company provides DNS as a service, for some of the biggest sites on the internet. DNS, or domain name system is about connecting IP addresses to domain names and NS1 has technology that helps organizations to intelligently optimize application traffic delivery.

With its new NetBox Cloud service, NS1 is providing a managed service for NetBox which is a popular open source IRM tool that was initially built by developer Jeremy Stretch, while he was working at cloud provider DigitalOcean. Stretch joined NS1 as a distinguished engineer in April of this year, with NS1 now supporting the open source project.

The NS1 EC-1

Stretch recounted that at one point during his tenure at DigitalOcean he was using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to track IP address management. Using a spreadsheet to track IP addresses doesn’t scale, so Stretch coded the initial version of NetBox in 2015 to address that need. Over the last several years, NetBox has expanded with additional capabilities that will now also help users of NS1’s NetBox Cloud service.

Stretch explained that Netbox’s role is primarily in modelling network infrastructure in an approach that provides what he referred to as a “source of truth” for network infrastructure. The basic idea is to enable organizations to model their desired state of their networks and then from that point they can draw in monitoring to verify that the operational state is the same as the desired state.

“So the idea of this source of truth is that it is the actual documented authoritative record of what is supposed to be configured on the network,” Stretch said.

NetBox has continued to grow over the years as a popular open source tool, but it hasn’t been particularly accessible to enterprises that required commercial support to get started, or that wanted a managed service. The goal with the new service is to make it easier for organizations of any size to get started with NetBox to better manage their networks.

NS1 co-founder and CEO Kris Beevers told TechCrunch that while Stretch has done a solid job of building the NetBox open source community, there hasn’t been a commercial service for NetBox. Beevers said that while NetBox has had broad adoption as an open source effort, in his view there are a lot of enterprises that will want commercial support and a managed service.

One key theme that Beevers reiterated time and again in the Extra Crunch EC-1 series is that NS1 is very experimental as a business, and that same theme holds true for NetBox. The primary objective for the initial beta release of the NetBox Cloud is all about figuring out exactly who is trying to adopt the technology and learning what challenges commercial users will face. Fundamentally, Beevers said that NS1 will be actively iterating on NetBox Cloud to make sure it addresses the things that enterprises care about.

“From the NS1 point of view, this is just such a compelling open source product and community and we want to drive barriers to adoption as low as we possibly can,” Beevers said.

NS1 was founded in 2013 and has raised $118.4 million in funding, including a $40 million Series D which the company closed in July 2020.

News: Shipt’s new feature pairs members with their favorite, 5-star shoppers

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Target’s same-day delivery service Shipt is launching a new feature that will pair customers with their favorite shoppers on future orders. This “Preferred Shoppers” feature will be available as a membership-only perk at no extra charge, offering customers a more reliable shopping experience, where more of their orders are directed towards people they already known

The feature arrives at a time when the online grocery delivery market is booming due to the pandemic. But this market shift has also led to a number of newer shoppers joining the gig economy who don’t have the same level of experience as others. Today, you’ll come across some shoppers who excel at picking quality items, making great substitutions, and staying in close communication with their customers. Others, meanwhile, are checking out before you even have time to respond to their text about the product replacements they’ve made or the refunds they’ve put through. That can leave consumers feeling like online grocery shopping is an unreliable experience.

The Preferred Shoppers feature aims to change that.

As Shipt explains, customers who rate their shopper with five stars after their order is complete will be presented with the option to add the shopper to their Preferred Shoppers list. If the shopper accepts this request, they’ll be prioritized to shop for those customers in the future. (If the shopper declines, however, that won’t be shown the customer.) This list can be edited at any time, and if a customer downrates a shopper on a future order, they’ll be removed.

Image Credits: Shipt

The feature was developed in response to feedback from both shoppers and Shipt regulars, the company says. Consumers, in particular, had been asking for a way to be paired with their favorite shoppers who they already trusted to handle their orders correctly. But until now, whether or not that shopper would be available to grab the customer’s order was left mostly up to chance. The shopper would have had to see the order come in as it arrived, then grab it before someone else did.

During early tests, which included the Detroit metro, Shipt found the feature impacted its own bottom line and increased shoppers’ tips. Without providing specific metrics, the company said that customers using the feature would order more often and would rate their experience highly. Shoppers also benefitted because they were now serving customers who valued their work and who were expressing their appreciation with a larger tip.

“The more often a shopper shops for a customer, the more they learn about that customer’s wants and needs and are able to deliver a tailored shopping experience,” said Karl Varsanyi, Chief Experience & Product Officer at Shipt, in a statement. “Preferred Shoppers helps customers get the exceptional service they enjoy again and again,” he added.

The feature could also motivate shoppers to focus on building up a quality clientele, so they had a better shot at being assigned orders from customers they enjoyed working with and where they could expect to see higher tips. Over time, as customers add more shoppers to their Preferred Shopper list, the likelihood of being paired with a highly-rated shopper would improve, too. This could perhaps help to address some gig workers complaints over their work being undervalued, where bonuses are placed out of reach and customers are stingy with tips.

The idea for personal shoppers is not new. A startup called Dumpling has been developing a platform that allows gig economy workers to transition their clients off apps like Shipt and Instacart to a service where shoppers set their own rates and get to keep all their tips. But many consumers aren’t aware of Dumpling unless a shopper they know markets the service to them directly and usage of Dumpling isn’t free. In addition, while Shipt offers delivery from a number of top retailers, being owned by Target has other advantages. The service is now integrated into Target’s own website and mobile app, and Target products aren’t marked up on an individual basis, like you’d see on other services.

Currently, Shipt’s membership is $99 per year, offering free delivery on all orders over $35. The Preferred Shoppers feature will be made available to all U.S. members, starting today.

News: Infinite Canvas raises $2.8M for a metaverse creator group modeled after esports teams

August 24, 2021
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With the promise of an interconnected virtual world coming into focus and user-crafted gaming content exploding, Infinite Canvas is looking to apply lessons learned in the esports boom to the metaverse. “Metaverse” is the hot buzzword right now, but it’s not an empty term. Ten different people would probably define the metaverse in ten different

“Metaverse” is the hot buzzword right now, but it’s not an empty term. Ten different people would probably define the metaverse in ten different ways, but it’s generally used as shorthand for the web of emerging virtual spaces full of personalized avatars, games and digital goods that are already shaping our world.

Much like the realm of esports boasts individual standout players who command their own followings, the social gaming world has its own stars who make original in-game content. But right now, creators making hit content in Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft are mostly operating on their own, without the supportive infrastructure that quickly professionalized the esports world. And like the early waves of esports players, those content creators skew young and lack some of the resources that would make it smoother to scale the digital brands they’re building.

Founded by Tal Shachar and Sebastian Park, Infinite Canvas is looking to connect creators who craft content for the world’s most popular online games with the financial resources, tools and experience they need to grow their businesses beyond what would be possible in isolation.

Shachar, the former growth strategist at Buzzfeed Studio and Chief Digital Officer at Immortals Gaming Club, and Park, previously VP of Esports for the Houston Rockets where he founded League of Legends franchise team Clutch Gaming, envision a hybrid talent management company and game publisher modeled after the success they’ve seen in the esports world. The pair liken the new venture to “an esports team for the metaverse.”

To grow their vision, Infinite Canvas has raised $2.8 million in pre-seed funds led by Lightshed Venture Partners, the venture firm founded by media analyst Richard Greenfield. BITKRAFT Ventures, Day One Ventures, Crossbeam, and Emerson Collective also participated in the funding round.

“We are just at the beginning of seeing what the metaverse market opportunity can be,” said Greenfield. “While the path to monetization is clear on platforms like YouTube, in virtual worlds Infinite Canvas is pioneering a network that will unite creators, players, and content partners to enhance the earning power of the talent building new virtual empires.”

Out of the gate, Infinite Canvas has partnered with some big names in Roblox, including Russoplays, Deeterplays, Sabrina and DJ Monopoli from Terabrite Games as well as a handful of other Roblox developers, Fortnite map makers and streamers who combined reach more than 4.5 million subscribers.

For the team, this nascent era of user-generated gaming content looks a lot like another now-ubiquitous creator platform once did.

“Roblox in particular, but really all of these UGC gaming platforms really reminded me a lot of YouTube. Which is to say that they were enabling a new type of person to distribute a content format that was previously kind of locked right behind like barriers of distribution and also of skills set and capital, quite frankly,” Shachar told TechCrunch.

After getting curious, Shachar and Park dove into the creator community and found a diverse array of generally self-taught young people from all around the world crafting custom in-game content for Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft. Much of that content, whether intentionally or not, offered players more digital spaces to connect during the pandemic-imposed social isolation, which saw interest in online social spaces take off.

“Everyone was pretty negative about the world writ large and we’re just talking to these like 17, 16, 18 19 year old guys, gals and non-binary pals from all over the world just like straight up making cool stuff,” Park said.

In those conversations, Park and Shachar realized that while the world of user-generated gaming content can produce huge hits, creators were mostly isolated from support that could help them take their work to the next level.

“It felt very siloed — you have people making content over here on the right and then people developing these games on the left and then players kind of in the center there and that didn’t really make a ton of sense to us,” Shachar said. “Especially because it was super clear that there was this really strong loop of content creation leading to gameplay leading to content creation.”

With Infinite Canvas, they want to provide that missing framework, offering creators crafting content in virtual worlds everything from marketing support to capital and tech tools. As creator monetization channels within virtual worlds mature, Infinite Canvas hopes to even be able to broker ad and brand opportunities and empower creators to expand their own brands across platforms.

“What if we built a new kind of organization that blended parts of being a game publisher, parts of being an esports team, parts of being a capital and tech backend to basically enable these people to do what they do but better and bigger?” Shachar asked.

“For the metaverse — whatever word you want to use — to really exist, it’s going to take all of these independent people to actually populate it and bring it to life and make all of these experiences and there’s just an insane amount of talent out there that we think can be unlocked.”

Roblox raises at $29.5 billion valuation, readies for direct listing

News: Ramp raises $300M at a $3.9B valuation, makes its first acquisition

August 24, 2021
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Less than five months after raising $115 million, spend management startup Ramp announced today it has raised $300 million in a Series C round of funding that values the company at $3.9 billion. That’s more than double the $1.6 billion that New York-based Ramp was valued at in April at the time of its Series

Less than five months after raising $115 million, spend management startup Ramp announced today it has raised $300 million in a Series C round of funding that values the company at $3.9 billion.

That’s more than double the $1.6 billion that New York-based Ramp was valued at in April at the time of its Series B.

Founders Fund led the latest round, which brings the fintech’s total equity and debt raised to date to over $625 million since its March 2019 inception. Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital, D1 Capital Partners, Spark Capital, Coatue Management, Iconiq, Altimeter, Stripe, Lux Capital, A* Partners, Definition Capital and other existing backers participated in the financing. Founders Fund also led Ramp’s $15 million Series A in February 2020.

It’s been a good year for Ramp, which first launched its corporate card in August of 2019. Since the beginning of 2021, the company says it has seen its number of cardholders on its platform increase by 5x, with more than 2,000 businesses currently using Ramp as their “primary spend management solution.” The transaction volume on its corporate cards has tripled since April, when its last raise was announced. And, impressively, Ramp has seen its transaction volume increase year over year by 1,000%, according to CEO and co-founder Eric Glyman. Given the company’s business model (it makes money mostly off interchange fees), Ramp also saw its revenue increase by the same amount during that time frame.

Spend management startup Ramp confirms $115M raise at a $1.6B valuation

A wide range of customers use Ramp from startups/unicorns such as Ro, DoNotPay, Better, ClickUp and Applied Intuition to established businesses like Bristol Hospice, Walther Farms, Douglas Elliman and Planned Parenthood.

“The pace of growth in the business has been a lot faster than people expected and so that’s a big part of what’s underpinning this new investment and valuation,” Glyman told TechCrunch. “Even in August, we’re experiencing what is shaping up to be the fastest percentage growth all year, if not ever.”

Indeed, such big growth numbers are more commonly seen in the very early stages of a company, and tend to lessen over time as a company matures.

Says Founders Fund’s Keith Rabois: “As the company has grown, I’ve continued to invest heavily because it’s rare to find a business with a growth rate that is actually increasing as it gets larger. Typically growth slows as a company scales, but demand for Ramp’s product is only accelerating as the team builds awareness and strengthens their product offering.”

Ramp also today announced its acquisition of Buyer, a “negotiation-as-a-service” platform that claims to save its clients an average of 27.3% on big-ticket purchases, such as annual software contracts.

With the addition of the 10-person Buyer team, Glyman said Ramp will be able to offer its customers a “customized and proactive approach” to savings on large purchases.

“There are more B2B growth SaaS companies than ever before, and they’re better at charging than they’ve ever been,” he noted. “Buyer is viewed as the leader of a generation of startups that are trying to flip the tables and actually help customers negotiate rates down. Very large companies might have procurement departments to negotiate rates, but for those who don’t, Buyer is very skilled at identifying what new contracts are coming up and negotiating them down.”

It has saved its customers about 27% on SaaS contracts.

“We’re looking forward to adding those figures to the savings we’ve helped businesses incorporate,” Glyman said.

The buy follows a partnership that was forged earlier this year before Ramp realized that it could “be even stronger by having them fully as a part of the Ramp team, and and really build out even further.”

Over time, Ramp intends to expand its product offering as a result of the acquisition. By combining Buyer’s team with benchmarking spend data from millions of transactions on its platform, Ramp says it wants to help its customers negotiate the best rate on “anything that can be purchased with a card, from travel to software — with the goal of shifting purchasing power back into the hands of buyers.”

Image Credits: Ramp

Other ways Ramp helps its customers save include offering 1.5% cash back “on everything,” helping them identify ways to spend less, such as identifying and canceling duplicitous subscriptions and identifying redundancies in licenses. It also shows companies when better pricing is available. One example of this is letting them know they can save 20% by switching to an annual rate, as opposed to monthly. It also has helped customers save by getting rid of software like Concur, Expensify or Bill.com by helping them manage their expenses. Ramp claims that its customers on average save 3.3% annually by switching their corporate card spending to Ramp.

Earlier this year, the company added merchant blocking to its corporate credit card, which Glyman says has probably become one of the company’s most used features since adoption.

Looking ahead, the company plans to use its new capital to speed up the development of its finance automation platform. It’s also going to naturally continue to hire, adding to its nearly 150-person team. For context, Ramp started the year with 65, people and employed about 100 at the time of its April raise.

“Hiring is going to be the biggest use of our capital,” Glyman told TechCrunch.

The startup is also going to invest heavily in product development, including expansion into broader B2B payments, and marketing and awareness. It’s also going to look for more acquisition targets.

While Ramp currently makes money mostly by interchange fees, Glyman told me previously that the two-year-old startup thinks of itself as a SaaS operator.

“Our long-term strategy is to develop great software,” he said.

No doubt the spend management space is heating up. Last week, Brex announced it was acquiring one-year-old Weav for $50 million in its first significant acquisition. Founded in 2017, San Francisco-based Brex earlier this year was valued at $7.4 billion after raising a $425 million Series D led by Tiger Global. It is more focused on earlier-stage startups, whereas Ramp tends to serve larger, more established companies.

Why fintechs are buying up legacy financial services companies

News: Max Q: Launch industry low-down

August 24, 2021
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Max Q is a weekly newsletter from TechCrunch all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Mondays in your inbox. Another public launch company is coming soon, while a still-private launch had to push off their planned first flight date. Still another launcher got the go-ahead for its big debut. It’s a

Max Q is a weekly newsletter from TechCrunch all about space. Sign up here to receive it weekly on Mondays in your inbox.

Another public launch company is coming soon, while a still-private launch had to push off their planned first flight date. Still another launcher got the go-ahead for its big debut. It’s a launch launch launch news week in space.

Virgin Orbit plans $3.2B SPAC

Image Credits: Virgin Orbit

The past year has been a real dam-break in terms of exit events for space-focused startups, and it’s hard to attribute that to anything other than the rise in popularity of the SPAC merger path to public markets. Virgin Galactic began the fad, and now Richard Branson’s other space company, Virgin Orbit, is following suit.

Virgin Orbit, which also launches its spacecraft from a modified commercial airplane at high-altitude, but which focuses on small satellite payloads instead of flying people, stands to gain nearly half-a-bilion dollars in on-hand cash from the merger.

SPACs remain something that most retail investors and market observers should be wary of, but Virgin Orbit does appear to have some solid business in fundamentals in place, now that it’s actually an active launch services provider. The company reached orbit for the first time in January, and then flew its first commercial mission for paying customers in June.

Relativity’s first launch slips, but Astra’s is on track

Relativity Space's Terran 1 rocket, artist's rendering

Image Credits: Relativity Space

In other newbie launch provider news, 3D-printed rocket startup Relativity Space has pushed its first flight to 2022. The company’s debut Terran 1 rocket needs a bit more time, owing to no individual factor, but because of various refinements to the design, a new engine design, better construction materials — and yes, the impact of COVID-19.

The company is still aiming to have that launch done by “early 2022,” so it doesn’t sound like it’s slipping in terms of target time very much. Of course, in the space industry, you can never be sure of when a rocket is taking off until it actually takes off.

Astra is another provider looking to join the club of active launch companies by the end of 2021. While the company has done well with its test launches to date, but it hasn’t technically achieved orbit. It’ll look to add that notch to its belt, along with getting its first commercial launch done for a paying customer, with a launch window that opens later this week. It got the green light from the FAA to fly the mission last week, setting the stage for the attempt.

Taiwan and Australia’s commercial launch moves

Image Credits: Australian Space Agency (opens in a new window)

Taiwanese launch startup Tispace has also gotten a regulatory green light for its first commercial launch. The company is looking to fly a test flight of its two-stage suborbital rocket, and will do so from a launch complex in Southern Australia. Both Australia and Taiwan have young but potentially promising space industries, so this should be a mission to watch once it gets a firm schedule for later this year.

Join us at TC Sessions: Space in December

Last year we held our first dedicated space event, and it went so well that we decided to host it again in 2021. This year, it’s happening December 14 and 15, and it’s once again going to be an entirely virtual conference, so people from all over the world will be able to join — and you can, too.

News: Samsung to invest $205B in semiconductor, biopharma and telco units by 2023, creating 40,000 jobs

August 24, 2021
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Samsung Group, South Korea’s tech giant, announced on Tuesday that it will invest $205 billion (240 trillion won) in their semiconductor, biopharmaceuticals and telecommunications units over the next three years to enhance its global presence and lead in new industries such as next-generation telecommunication and robotics. The investment will be led by Samsung affiliates including

The investment will be led by Samsung affiliates including Samsung Electronics and Samsung Biologics. It also unveiled mergers and acquisitions plan to fortify its technology and market leadership.

With setting aside $154.3 billion (180 trillion won) for home ground, Samsung expects to create 40,000 new jobs by 2023 through the investment.

This announcement comes days after Samsung Electronics vice chairman Jay Y. Lee was released on parole on 13 August right before South Korea’s Liberation Day. People speculated Samsung would be able to move forward with major investment once he was freed from prison, according to local media reports.

Samsung vice chairman Jay Y. Lee sent back to prison in bribery case

Samsung’s latest investment will be used for semiconductor, biopharmaceuticals and the next-generation telco units, according to the company’s statement.

Samsung Electronics plans to develop advanced process technology and expand the business with artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers for its system semiconductors while it will focus on up-to-date technology such as EUV-based sub14-nanometer DRAM and over 200-layer V-NAND products for the memory business. Samsung had announced in May the company will invest $151 billion in its logic chip and foundry sector, to be the top logic chip maker, by 2030.

Samsung Biologics and Samsung Bioepis plans to establish additional two new plants, in addition to a fourth factory that is under construction, for expanding the contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) business, the statement said.

South Korea’s largest conglomerate also will support its ongoing R&D in new technologies and emerging application in areas such as AI and robotics along with the next generation OLED, quantum-dot display and high-energy density batteries development.

Samsung vice chairman Jay Y. Lee faces nine-year sentence in bribery case

News: Plentific cements $100M to expand its property management SaaS

August 24, 2021
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London based Plentific, which operates a marketplace SaaS platform targeting the property management space, has closed a $100 million Series C. The funding round is led by new investors Highland Europe and Brookfield Technology Partners — the VC arm of the eponymous real estate giant — along with Mubadala Investment Company and RXR Digital Ventures,

The 2013-founded startup provides a cloud platform for landlords, property and facilities managers, and service providers — taking aim at legacy software with a joined up digital marketplace for locating tradespeople, managing repairs, keeping tenants informed and generating analytics to support data-driven property service delivery.

Live in the UK, Germany and the US, it says the new financing will go on significantly growing its presence in the US as well as further global expansion. Its total equity raised to date with this latest round is $140M.

Plentific says it intends to spend on accelerating its engineering and product development to further fire up digitalisation across the property and facilities management space — with a plan to integrate Internet of Things (IoT) into its platform and also build out asset management solutions.

It’s also eying baking in machine learning and AI to help commercial and residential landlords increase returns and “make smarter decisions”, per its pitch.

Series C funds will also go on beefing up its offer for service provider — such as by increasing its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) functionality so it can better position itself to pull in contractors of all sizes.

The home improvement trend that boomed during the pandemic lockdown certainly seems to have been very positive for Plentific’s business: Per its website, 350,000+ properties are now managed by the platform across its three (current) markets.

The startup also told TechCrunch it has 100+ “large clients”, at this stage, and more than 16,000 contractors on its marketplace. While the number of properties Plentific has under management has grown 17-fold in the last three years, per a spokeswoman.

Plentific targets its property management tools broadly, at a range of customers and sectors, from private landlords and those running short term lets; to those responsible for managing social housing or student accommodation; and to property managers in sectors like education, hospitality, sport/fitness and social care. (So — unlike startups like Mashroom, which are trying to disrupt the traditional managed service letting agency model — it doesn’t play in the lettings side of the market and would instead be hoping to win such agencies as customers for its tools.)

Commenting on the Series C in a statement, Cem Savas, CEO and co-founder of Plentific, said: “We had a phenomenal year of growth, more than doubling headcount to almost 200 employees, opening an office in the United States and cementing our position in the UK and German markets. Our next step is to rapidly expand in the US, as well as look to begin operating in new geographies. We have only just scratched the surface of a $2.5 trillion potential market opportunity. We will now be rapidly expanding both our global footprint and the solutions we offer to become the de facto digital partner for landlords and service providers across the world.”

In another supporting statement, Josh Raffaelli, managing partner at Brookfield, added: “We are thrilled to partner with Plentific as it seeks to fully digitize the repairs and maintenance process. As one of the world’s largest real estate owner, operator and investor we have first-hand knowledge of how lowering operating costs can help drive efficiencies. We look forward to leveraging that knowledge and experience to help fuel Plentific’s growth and expand its global footprint.”

Another growing area of focus Plentific flags is supporting customers to expand their Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) credentials — saying it will expand capabilities in this “critical area”. Here it works with clients through its PropertyLab accelerator program which it says aims to develop solutions to strengthen ESG initiatives and make reporting more robust through enhanced analytics, in addition to trying to tackle the carbon footprint of properties.

Kapacity.io is using AI to drive energy and emissions savings for real estate

How to land startup funding from real estate giant Brookfield, which manages $600 billion in assets

This is a good time to start a proptech company

News: A new NSO zero-click attack evades Apple’s iPhone security protections, says Citizen Lab

August 24, 2021
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A Bahraini human rights activist’s iPhone was silently hacked earlier this year by a powerful spyware sold to nation-states, defeating new security protections that Apple designed to withstand covert compromises, say researchers at Citizen Lab. The activist, who remains in Bahrain and asked not to be named, is a member of the Bahrain Center for

The activist, who remains in Bahrain and asked not to be named, is a member of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, an award-winning nonprofit organization that promotes human rights in the Gulf state. The group continues to operate despite a ban imposed by the kingdom in 2004 following the arrest of its director for criticizing the country’s then-prime minister.

Citizen Lab, the internet watchdog based at the University of Toronto, analyzed the activist’s iPhone 12 Pro and found evidence that it was hacked starting in February using a so-called “zero-click” attack, since it does not require any user interaction to infect a victim’s device. The zero-click attack took advantage of a previously unknown security vulnerability in Apple’s iMessage, which was exploited to push the Pegasus spyware, developed by Israeli firm NSO Group, to the activist’s phone.

The hack is significant, not least because Citizen Lab researchers said it found evidence that the zero-click attack successfully exploited the latest iPhone software at the time, both iOS 14.4 and later iOS 14.6, which Apple released in May. But the hacks also circumvent a new software security feature built into all versions of iOS 14, dubbed BlastDoor, which is supposed to prevent these kinds of device hacks by filtering malicious data sent over iMessage.

Because of its ability to circumvent BlastDoor, the researchers called this latest exploit ForcedEntry.

Citizen Lab’s Bill Marczak told TechCrunch that the researchers made Apple aware of the efforts to target and exploit up-to-date iPhones. When reached by TechCrunch, Apple would not explicitly say if it had found and fixed the vulnerability that NSO is exploiting.

In a boilerplate statement re-released Tuesday, Apple’s head of security engineering and architecture Ivan Krstic said: “Apple unequivocally condemns cyberattacks against journalists, human rights activists, and others seeking to make the world a better place … Attacks like the ones described are highly sophisticated, cost millions of dollars to develop, often have a short shelf life, and are used to target specific individuals. While that means they are not a threat to the overwhelming majority of our users, we continue to work tirelessly to defend all our customers, and we are constantly adding new protections for their devices and data.”

News: India’s KhataBook raises $100 million for its bookkeeping platform for merchants

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Khatabook, a startup that is helping merchants in India digitize their bookkeeping and accept online payments, said on Tuesday it has raised $100 million in a new financing round as it prepares to launch financial services. The startup’s new financing round — a Series C — was led by Tribe Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures

The startup’s new financing round — a Series C — was led by Tribe Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures and valued the two-and-a-half-year-old Bangalore-headquartered startup at “close to $600 million,” its co-founder and chief executive Ravish Naresh told TechCrunch in an interview.

As part of the new round — which was oversubscribed and also saw participation of Balaji Srinivasan and Alkeon Capital as well as many other existing investors including Sriram Krishnan, B Capital Group, Sequoia Capital, Tencent, RTP Ventures, Unilever Ventures, and Better Capital — KhataBook said it is also buying back shares worth $10 million to reward its current and former employees and early investors. The startup said it is also expanding its stock options pool for employees to $50 million

Even as hundreds of millions of Indians came online in the past decade, most merchants in the South Asian nation are still offline. These merchants, who run neighborhood stores, rely on traditional ways for bookkeeping — maintaining ledgers on paper — that are both time-consuming and prone to errors.

KhataBook is attempting to change that by providing these merchants with a suite of products to digitize their bookkeeping and manage their expenses and staff. The startup, which employs over 200 people, said it has amassed over 10 million monthly active users who are spread across nearly every zip code in the country.

“At Tribe, we believe strongly in the power of the network effect and how it can create moats for businesses. Khatabook has successfully built such a network by empowering this seismic shift among MSME businesses to move from paper to digital, literally,” said Arjun Sethi, co-founder and partner at Tribe Capital, in a statement. “Despite its large early success and fast adoption to date, the company is early in its path to power the segment. We’re thrilled to be a part of its growth as it leverages its network to build additional scale.”

KhataBook, which also counts Emphasis Ventures (EMVC) among its backers, has expanded its product offerings in recent years to try to solve a lot of other challenges merchants face. Later this year, Naresh said, the startup will provide lending to merchants. “We are currently testing the product with both retailers and distributors,” he said.

Online lending has boomed in India in recent years, but very few companies are today attempting to cater to small- and medium-sized businesses. “The unaddressed SME credit demand in India is ~$300-$350 billion, with more than 90% of current demand being met by banks. A typical digital SME lender focusses on 1-5 million Indian rupees ($13,575 to $67,875) ticket size with no collateral, average tenure ~12-18 months, and with some ecosystem anchor,” analysts at Bank of America wrote in a report.

As with scores of other firms, the pandemic was not good news for KhataBook, which lost a significant portion of the business last year after Indian states enforced lockdown to restrict mobility. But the startup has since bounced back. The month of July, said Naresh, was its all-time high. “MSMEs have come back very strongly and businesses were not as impacted by the second wave this year as they were by last year’s,” he said.

This is a developing story. More to follow…

Pakistan’s B2B marketplace and digital ledger platform Bazaar raises $30 million

News: Pakistan’s B2B marketplace and digital ledger platform Bazaar raises $30 million

August 24, 2021
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A one-year-old startup that is building a business-to-business marketplace for merchants in Pakistan and also helping them digitize their bookkeeping is the latest to secure a mega round in the South Asian market. Bazaar said on Tuesday it has raised $30 million in a Series A round. The new financing round — the largest Series

Bazaar said on Tuesday it has raised $30 million in a Series A round. The new financing round — the largest Series A in Pakistan — was led by Silicon Valley-based early stage VC Defy Partners and Singapore-based Wavemaker Partners.

Scores of other investors including current and former leaders of Antler, Careem, Endeavor, Gumroad, LinkedIn and Notion as well as new investors Acrew Capital, Japan’s Saison Capital, UAE’s Zayn Capital and B&Y Venture Partners and existing investors Indus Valley Capital, Global Founders Capital, Next Billion Ventures, and Alter Global also participated in the new round.

One way to think about Bazaar is — especially if you have been following the Indian startup ecosystem — that it’s sort of a blend between Udaan and KhataBook. “That’s a good way to describe us,” said Hamza Jawaid, co-founder of Bazaar in an interview. “We had this benefit of hindsight to not just look at India but other emerging markets,” he said.

“We saw lots of synergies between these two. If you look at commerce, you have to acquire every single merchant in every single category differently. Whereas with Khata, merchants in any city and category can download it. So effectively, it’s a great customer acquisition tool for you,” he said on a WhatsApp call, adding that this also provides greater insight into businesses.

Bazaar’s business-to-business marketplace, which provides merchants with the ability to procure inventories at a standard price and choose from a much larger catalog, is currently available in Karachi and Lahore, the nation’s largest cities, while Easy Khata is live across the country.

At stake is a booming market that is yet to see much deployment of technology, said Saad Jangda, Bazaar’s other co-founder. Both of them have known each other since childhood and reconnected in Dubai a few years ago. At the time, Jawaid was at McKinsey & Company while Jangda was working with Careem as a product manager for ride-hailing and food delivery products.

There are about 5 million micro, small, and medium-sized businesses in Pakistan. Like India, even as a significant portion of the population has come online, most merchants remain unconnected.

“We’ve been investing in FMCG B2B marketplaces across the region since 2017. After working with Hamza and Saad over the past year, we’ve been impressed by their customer-centric approach to product development and the speed of their learning and execution,” said Paul Santos, Managing Partner at Wavemaker Partners, in a statement.

“It’s no surprise that they’ve received glowing reviews from their customers and partners. We’re excited to support Bazaar as they solidify their market leadership and digitize Pakistan’s retail ecosystem,” he added.

The startup said it has amassed over 750,000 merchants since launch last year. And it appears to have solved a problem that many of its South Asian peers are still grappling with: Retention. Bazaar said it has a 90% retention rate.

I asked Jangda if he plans to expand to the ‘dukaan’ category. Several startups in Asia are currently building tools to help merchants set up online presence and accept digital orders. He said the market is currently not ready for a dukaan product just yet. “The B2C market is still developing, so there is not so much demand from the consumer side yet,” he added.

Instead the current new focus is financial services. In recent months, the startup said it has tested a buy now pay later product and early results have shown a 100% repayment.

“Bazaar is going after a massive opportunity with the ultimate aim of creating a generational story in and from Pakistan. In a country with incredible talent and huge market opportunity, it’s about time we create an inspirational story that brings together the country’s best talent who can go on to create many such stories in the future,” said the founders.

The startup eventually wants to become a super app, or a broader operating system for retail in Pakistan. It plans to deploy the fresh funds to expand its services to more cities across Pakistan and build and scale more products.

“What Bazaar has managed to accomplish in the last year is incredible. We are extremely impressed by the speed and robustness with which they build and deploy. As Defy’s first investment into Pakistan’s burgeoning tech ecosystem, we feel Bazaar is on its way to create a category defining company for the country” said Kamil Saeid – Partner at Defy Partners.

Tuesday’s announcement comes a week after Airlift, another Pakistan’s startup, announced a big round.

Monthly Archives: August 2021