Month: August 2018

Lyvly, a London-based startup that offers what might best be described as a members-based shared living and rental service, has raised $4.6 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is Mosaic Ventures, while Greg Marsh, who co-founded Onefinestay, has joined the burgeoning company as Chairman and investor.

The latest take on how to improve the experience for ‘generation rent’ in sprawling cities like London, Lyvly is at its most basic a two-sided marketplace that helps renters find high quality shared living accommodation and landlords find good tenants. However, it goes far beyond simply matching supply and demand for house shares.

Not only are properties fully managed — including providing tenant services such as managing household bills, replacing consumables and cleaning — but at the heart of it all is the Lyvly community platform, which treats Lyvly renters as members within a network of “like-minded individuals who share a passion for shared living”. And, as wishy-washy as that sounds, there is no doubt that city living is often devoid of community, and in London especially it can be difficult to meet new people.

“Renting is often not a pleasant experience, and living in cities can be lonely and stressful,” says co-founder and CEO Philip Laney. “Moving into your new apartment, sorting out furniture and utilities, and then trying to connect with busy people around you all whilst working long hours in a transient economy are frustrations many of us have experienced. We are confronting three problems for renters in the city: their desire for community, convenience and affordability”.

Laney says the current way people rent shared accommodation is also painful for landlords, who don’t have consistency and control over the quality of their tenants, and often pay high fees to a middle person and struggle with vacancy rates. “We provide them guaranteed income with no voids and no fees, and a genuinely positive social impact,” he says.

For renters, Lyvly operates a little like a members club. Once you’ve applied to join the community, you have a call with a member of the Lyvly team to learn more about your “life stage and values”. “We are people, not property first. So we establish what you’re seeking from your Lyvly move and whether you are keen to actively participate in the Lyvly community and share your life, not just spaces,” says Laney.

Next, you are given profiles of the members (and prospective housemates) you will be meeting with, and they are sent your profile and an overview as to why you are well matched. You then meet each other, and if you like each other, you can apply online to the membership committee, which is made up of the most active Lyvly members and the team. This includes submitting your bio and stating why you want to be part of Lyvly, and what you would bring to the community.

Adds Laney: “Once you’re in, we then guide you through the whole moving process, taking care of everything and removing any usual stresses that come from moving to a new place in London. You are introduced to other members in the area who have similar interests and values and other members reach out to you directly to invite you to other activities they’re hosting. We also regularly host events and actively support members to engage with each other and give value to the community”.

Lyvly’s target tenants are 25-35 year olds who are looking for single occupancy. Laney says that’s because they are at similar life stages to each other and this is where the startup can make a meaningful difference. “We really care about being something to someone, rather than everything to no one. In time however, we will be able to expand Lyvly into different community groups,” he says.

Landlords using the platform range from individuals who are first time owners to some of London’s biggest property companies.

Asked who Lyvly competes with, he cites the grey and black economy of shared housing and “dodgy landlords”. Technically the company is also competing with estate agents, although it is open to working with them to help find better tenants for their landlords.

Meanwhile, don’t confuse the startup for co-living, build-to-rent developers who “put property first” and aim to profit from the development of assets. In contrast, Lyvly makes money from the managed services it provides and is not developing new property but renting out existing housing stock.

“We believe people like living in existing houses and apartments and what we need to do is create a community around that. It’s not the configuration of the spaces that need changing, but how people interact inside and outside of them,” says Laney, adding that the use of existing housing infrastructure also means that Lyvly is potentially a lot more scalable.

Along with Laney, the startup’s other co-founders are Dario Favoino and Siraj Khaliq. Both Laney Favoino have a 10 year background in real estate investment and property management at Deutsche Bank and Realstar. And in case you aren’t keeping up, Khaliq is a Partner at London VC firm Atomico and was previously CTO and co-founder of Silicon Valley startup Climate Corporation, which exited in 2013 for over $1.1 billion.

Media giants Sinclair and Tribune were all set to merge and create one of the country’s biggest broadcasters — and a complacent FCC seemed to be doing everything it could to help the deal along. But the regulator had a change of heart after evidence surfaced of duplicity too serious to be ignored, and the resultant red tape and bad PR provoked Tribune into spiking the deal and suing its would-be acquirer for $1 billion.

The FCC, which until recently had been accused of being overly chummy with broadcasters, Sinclair in particular, last month issued a “de facto merger death sentence” to the deal, citing mounds of evidence that the company was shirking the terms of the merger and lying about it. The legal process of working out these issues with a view to approving the merger might have taken years.

Tribune wasn’t having that, and moved quickly to throw Sinclair under the bus. In a statement posted to the company’s website, the company wrote that “Sinclair’s entire course of conduct has been in blatant violation of the Merger Agreement and, but for Sinclair’s actions, the transaction could have closed long ago.”

The legal complaint published simultaneously goes into further detail:

From virtually the moment the Merger Agreement was signed, Sinclair repeatedly and willfully breached 3 its contractual obligations in spectacular fashion… Sinclair fought, threatened, insulted, and misled regulators in a misguided and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to retain control over stations that it was obligated to sell.

The damage, it asserts, amounts to a round $1 billion.

This merger failing can hardly be considered as anything but good news to consumers; as former counsel at the FCC Gigi Sohn put it:

This transaction had but two supporters – Sinclair and Tribune. It was opposed by large and small cable companies, rural broadband providers, conservative cable channels and the public interest community. Chairman Pai and his colleagues did right by the American people and the entire broadcast industry by putting the brakes on this merger.

The ACLU’s Jacob Hutt was even less diplomatic:

This was a terrible idea to begin with. The merger would have trampled on First Amendment principles, crippled the future of journalism, and disproportionately harmed minority communities. We thank the thousands of activists that raised their voices to prevent the damage this deal would have done.

But the most erudite insult surely comes from Sinclair’s complaint.

Sinclair was impervious to appeals to its contractual obligations. It intended to pursue its own narrow self-interest regardless of its obligations until the FCC found its conduct so egregious as to merit administrative review. Tribune is now the victim of that outrageous obduracy.

Emphasis mine. I congratulate Tribune’s lawyers on their prose.

Florida police have arrested a 25-year-old named Ricky Joseph Handschumacher. The young man is suspected of grand theft and money laundering. Handschumacher used SIM swapping techniques to steal thousands in Bitcoin and to “drain bank accounts,” according to security researcher Brian Krebs.

Handschumacher’s scam was simple: He called telecom operators and asked them to swap his SIM card for the victim’s SIM card. This, in turn, gave him access to two-factor authentication techniques via SMS and allowed him to access email accounts, bitcoin wallets and file storage systems. I experienced this firsthand a year ago when my phone stopped working and all of my Google passwords began changing without my control.

“In some cases, fraudulent SIM swaps succeed thanks to lax authentication procedures at mobile phone stores. In other instances, mobile store employees work directly with cyber criminals to help conduct unauthorized SIM swaps, as appears to be the case with the crime gang that allegedly included Handschumacher,” wrote Krebs.

The takedown happened after a mother overheard her son pretending to be an AT&T employee. Police found multiple SIM cards and a Trezor in the Michigan home of the first hacker, as well as logins for Telegram and Discord channels dedicated to SIM swapping. The police found that the hackers had stolen 57 bitcoins from one victim. Handschumacher was head of the group.

The hackers were allegedly targeting the Winklevoss twins before Handschumacher was arrested.

According to the police complaint, “Handschumacher and another co-conspirator talk about compromising the CEO of Gemini and posted his name, date of birth, Skype username and email address into the conversation. Handschumacher and the co-conspirators discuss compromising the CEO’s Skype account and T-Mobile account. The co-conspirator states he will call his ‘guy’ at T-Mobile to ask about the CEO’s account.”

Worried about getting hacked? Given the ease with which Handschumacher and his team worked, non-SMS-based two-factor authentication is still the best solution for ensuring you aren’t effected. There are also methods to add a SIM lock to your phone so outsiders can’t swap your SIM as easily, but remember: All the protection in the world can’t stop a dedicated hacker. Keep your important data and cryptocurrencies offline if possible.

Name aside, not all that much appears to have changed with the new Galaxy Watch. Samsung’s clearly used the Gear Sport as the jumping off point here. And that’s a good thing. Since the beginning, Samsung’s wearables have been plagued by a size issue.

They’re huge — big on my wrists, even, and I’m 5’11. That rules out a pretty massive potential user base right out of the gate. The Galaxy Watches on display appeared to be the smaller of the two, at 42mm, which fit pretty comfortable on my wrist. There’s also a 46mm for those diehard big watch fans. Samsung has yet to introduce a size for even smaller wrists, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Those earlier rumors that the company would be jumping to the more widely used Android Wear operating system were off-base. Samsung’s sticking with Tizen here, with the Galaxy watch running version 4.0. Not a huge surprise, of course. Samsung’s taken ownership over the open OS — moving to Google’s would feel like starting from scratch.

The industrial design is also similar to earlier models, with a well, pronounced metal case and large buttons. There are two color designs, however, so you can opt for rose gold for a bit of a softer touch. And, of course, there are a whole bunch of different band options to further customize it.

LTE functionality is present here — Samsung beat Apple to the draw on that one. The watch is also 5ATM + IP68 water resistant and features a Gorilla Glass face, so it can take a licking, at all.

Like the rest of the wearable world, health is a big feature here. There are six automatic exercises (walking, running, cycling, elliptical, training, rowing, and dynamic workouts), plus sleep tracking and breathing reminder. Speaking of sleeping with the thing on, the company promises “several days of usage,” but that will depend in no small part on which size you opt for. The battery sizes are 472mAh and 270mAh for the 46mm and 42mm, respectively. So that’s certainly a point in favor of opting for the largest one possible.

We’ll no doubt be testing that, along with everything else soon. For now, I’m not seeing any features that really stand out the the rest of the wearable masses.  The 46mm runs  $350 and the 42mm version is $330. Pricing on the LTE models will be carrier dependent (AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon are all repped here). The device is launching at some unspecified time later this year.

Blissfully, a New York City startup that helps companies understand their SaaS usage inside their organizations, announced it has received a $3.5 million seed round.

The investment was led by Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Hubspot, Founder Collective, and several unnamed pre-seed investors also participated. They got a $1.5 million pre-seed investment, bringing the total so far to $5 million, according the company.

Company co-founder and CEO Ariel Diaz says Blissfully actually helped him and his co-founder solve a problem they were having tracking the SaaS usage at their previous startups. Like many companies, they were using spreadsheets to track this information and they found it was untenable as the company grew beyond 30 or 40 people. They figured there had to be a better way, so they built one.

Their product is much more than simply a database of the SaaS products in use inside an organization. It can integrate with existing company systems like single sign-on tools such as Okta and OneLogIn, financial reporting systems and G Suite login information. “We are trying to automate as much of the data collection as possible to discover what you’re using, who’s using it and how much you are spending,” he said.

Blissfully SaaS report. Screenshot: Blissfully

Their scans often turn up products customers thought they had canceled or those that IT had asked employees to stop using. More than finding Shadow IT, the product also gives insight to overall SaaS spend, which many companies have trouble getting a grip on. They can find most usage with a scan. Some data such as customized contract information may have to be manually entered into the system, he says.

Hubspot CEO Brian Halligan, whose company is one of the investors in this round, sees a growing need for this kind of tool. “The widespread growth of SaaS across companies of all sizes is a leading indicator of the market need for Blissfully. As business’ investments in SaaS increase, they lose visibility into issues ranging from spending to security,” Halligan said in a statement.

The company offers a freemium and pay model and is available in the G Suite Marketplace. If you go for the free version, you can scan your systems for SaaS usage, but if you want to do more complex integrations with company systems, you have to pay. They currently have 10 employees and 500 customers with a mix of paying and free.

One interesting aspect of the Blissfully tool is that it is built entirely using Serverless architecture on AWS Lambda.

Lime, the electric scooter and bike-share startup, is expanding its program for people with low incomes. Called Lime Access, the program enables people who qualify for state or federal assistance programs to access Lime’s fleet of vehicles at a discount.

Lime first launched the program in May. At the time and up until now, it enabled people to purchase 100 rides on pedal bikes for $5. But starting today, anyone who is eligible for state or federal assistance programs can access traditional pedal bikes at a 95 percent discount and electric bikes and scooters at a 50 percent discount per ride.

Those who are eligible can purchase credits via PayNearMe, a cash payment network that lets you pay for items and services from companies in person.

Electric scooter competitor Bird introduced a similar program called One Bird that eliminates the $1 fee to unlock a Bird scooter. Bird has raised $415 million in funding, while Lime has raised $467 million and, as of last month, partnered with ride-hailing giant Uber.

In a speech before the Department of Defense at the Pentagon today, Vice President Mike Pence outlined the broad contours of the new Space Force that the Trump Administration wants to create as the sixth branch of the U.S. military.

Emphasizing the need to both further militarize and privatize space as a new war-fighting domain, Pence stressed that the new branch of the military is targeted for a 2020 implementation date. The administration is pushing for $8 billion in new space spending.

“While other nations increasingly possess the capability to operate in space, not all of them share our commitment to freedom, private property and the rule of law,” said Pence. “As we continue to carry American leadership in space, so also will we carry America’s commitment to freedom into this new frontier.”

Pence cited threats from North Korea, Russia, China and Iran to the safety of the U.S. space program.

Newer threats include the Chinese government’s 2007 launch of a satellite-destroying missile and the development of hypersonic missiles that can evade U.S. missile defense capabilities. The Chinese government has set up a separate division within its own military to address space as a war-fighting domain, Pence said. “Our adversaries have transformed space into a war-fighting domain already.”

“It is not enough to have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space,” Pence said quoting the president. “What was once peaceful and uncontested is now crowded and adversarial.”

To advance its goals of creating the new Space Force, the Trump Administration had commissioned the Department of Defense to issue a report on the necessary steps to create the new military branch.

The creation of a new branch of the military — the first since the Air Force was created in the wake of World War II in 1947 — could require a significant reorganization of the Pentagon. And some officials within the military and national security communities fiercely oppose the idea. The Air Force in particular is opposed to the idea, because it might lose key responsibilities. The proposal would also need Congressional approval.

In a report that will be issued later today, the DOD outlined four steps.

The first is the creation of a United States Space Command that will coordinate the nation’s space-fighting capabilities. Pence likened it to the special operations command established in the eighties that provided unified command and control capabilities for mobilizing terrestrial air, sea and land forces. “This new command structure for the physical domain of space, led by a four star flag officer will…. develop the space warfighting doctrine and tactics of the future.”

As part of the space plan, the Department of Defense will also create a new space operations force that will be “an elite group of joint war fighters specializing in the war-fighting domains of space,” according to Pence. They’ll support the space combat and command and carry out space missions.

Third, a new joint organization called the Space Development Agency will be created to develop new technologies for the space force. “While our adversaries have been busy weaponizing space, we have been bureaucratizing it,” Pence said. He pointed to the creation of the intercontinental ballistic missiles and the Navy’s nuclear fleet as examples of American military innovation and achievement from past initiatives.

(It’s a good thing he didn’t bring up the Air Force’s “half-a-trillion dollar drone boondoggle” of a new fighter plane.)

Finally, the process of creating the new organization will require oversight, which will include the creation of a new civilian position that will report to the secretary of defense, Pence said. That position will be called the assistant secretary of defense of space.

“Just as we’ve done in ages past, the United States will meet the emerging threats on this new battlefield,” Pence said. “The time has come to establish the United States Space Force.”

One thing is very clear upon first look at the Galaxy Home. Samsung is once again trying to beat Apple at its own game. The company could have gone any number of different directions with the product, taking on entry level devices like the Amazon Echo or Google Home (or, for that matter, the Dot or Mini) or something a bit weirder along the lines of Harman Kardon’s Cortana speaker. 

Heck, even a Smart Display might have been in the cards for the company, though that would have meant embracing Google Assistant — something the company has clearly been not very keen to do.

Instead, the device’s black cloth cover and premium sound makes it pretty clear from the get go that Samsung once again has Apple firmly in its sites here. And why not? Bixby is still a ways away from being a true Alexa or Google Assistant competitor, so logic follows that it would take first aim at users who’ve got the disposable income to plunk down $1,000+ for a Note 9.

That said, while there are clear HomePod echos here, the design language is still unique. The speaker takes a quasi-teardrop form, which a base that seamless transitions into three metal tripods. It’s an interesting choice, which suggests that the premium speaker would be just as at home on the floor as it would a desk or tabletop.

There are no physical buttons on the top of the device. Instead its a touch surface that illuminates as a bright, white ring. There’s also a light up AKG logo, in case you forget that Samsung now owns the company that tunes all of its audio products. There don’t appear to by any inputs here, either, so there’s no plugging in auxiliary products. Instead, you’ll fully wireless on this one. 

It’s hard to imagine Bixby itself being a compelling enough motivating factor for more than a small handful of users, so the importance of Samsung’s Spotify partnership can’t be understated. Even among Apple users, there’s likely still a sizable contingent of users still holding onto Spotify accounts.

Sadly, we can’t really speak much to sound quality or other functionality yet. For now the Galaxy Home is really eye candy at the event. That said, the device is “soon,” which I expect means we’ll be getting our hands on it “sooner.”

Facebook is shutting down Friend List Feeds sometime today, according to a message posted in the Facebook app. The feature allowed users to scroll through only those posts from one of their designated friend lists – for example, family, work colleagues, neighbors, industry peers, and so on. The end result was a much more personalized version of Facebook – one where you could catch up on the updates that were important to you, without the clutter from Facebook Pages, posts from acquaintances, or those from friends whose updates you didn’t care to follow for any other reason.

To use Friend List Feeds, you would first have to create a friend list in Facebook. And to be clear – those friend lists are not going away.

So if you still want to brag about your professional successes to your industry colleagues or post baby pictures for your family to see, that will still be possible.

Facebook’s note regarding the feeds’ shutdown says “don’t worry – you can still continue to create, edit and share to your friend lists.” What’s winding down are the Friend List Feeds, which is a way to read these specific people’s updates in their own separate News Feed within the Facebook app.

To access this feature, there’s a section called “Feeds” in the Facebook app which would list all the feeds available to you, based on your friend lists.

Friend lists have been around on Facebook for a number of years, but the original version required a lot of manual labor. You’d first have to create a list, title it, and then go through all your friends one-by-one to determine who to add. And of course, as you added new Facebook friends, you’d have to remember to add them to the appropriate list, too.

Few adopted this feature – in fact, Facebook said in 2011 that 95 percent of Facebook users hadn’t made a single list. To make things simpler, Facebook launched “smart lists”, where it began auto-grouping your friends into lists for you to save you the effort. Facebook focused on making smart lists where it could identify some common factor based on profile data – like people who went to school with you, people you work with, people who live within 50 miles of you, and other things.

That way, you could use the lists for selective sharing and to browse their feeds, without having to do the work of list-building yourself.

But even with Smart Lists, it seems that not many people likely used the “Friend List Feeds” feature, specifically – or perhaps, even knew it existed.

In addition, with the rise of Facebook Groups, those who want to share and browse posts focused on a given topic – like neighborhood news, discussions about a favorite show, people going through a similar health crisis, or anything else – could just join a private group instead.

According to Facebook’s message, Friend List Feed are shutting down on August 9, 2018 – which is today. However, the feature is still available as of the time of writing.

Samsung didn’t just uneil new devices like the Galaxy Home, the Galaxy Watch and of course the new Galaxy Note 9 at its Unpacked event this morning — it also announced a partnership with Spotify.

The goal is to create a seamless cross-device listening experience on Samsung devices, including the ones announced today. As demonstrated on-stage, you should be able to start playing a song on your phone, then switch over to your TV, then over to your Galaxy Home.

This integration will allow you to play Spotify on your Samsung Smart TV through the SmartThings app deepens the integration between Spotify and Samsung’s voice assistant Bixby, making Spotify the default choice whenever you ask Bixby to look for music.

In addition, Spotify will become part of the set-up experience on Samsung devices.

For Spotify, this  partnership should mean more visibility, making it the preferred music experience on Samsung devices. And for Samsung, it highlights one of its differences compared to Apple, which has been focusing on Apple Music as it rolls out new devices like the HomePod.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek took the stage at Unpacked to talk about the partnership, which he also discussed in the official Spotify announcement.

“We believe that this significant long-term partnership will provide Samsung users across millions of devices with the best possible music streaming experience, and make discovering new music easier than ever – with even more opportunities to come,” Ek said.