Month: October 2018

Temasek, the Singaporean government-controlled company that is one of the world’s biggest investors, is today announcing an acquisition to beef up its cybersecurity business. It is acquiring Sygnia, a startup out of Israel that keeps a low profile, but has built technology and services to help large organizations respond to cyber threats. The price of the deal is not being officially disclosed, but a source close to it says that Temasek is buying Sygnia for $250 million. After the deal closes, Temasek will continue to let Syngia operate as an independent entity.

Sygnia came out of stealth less than a year ago, after being incubated by Team8, an investor/company builder in Israel that itself has been built like a startup, with Intel, Microsoft, AT&T, Qualcomm, Cisco, Nokia and Temasek all backers. Team8’s focus is on cybersecurity, and as such it lives somewhat under the radar, but the other three companies that have been spun out of so far it are Illusive Networks, Claroty and Hysolate.

Sygnia is typical of the makeup of Team8-incubated startups. It was co-founded by a team of elite security specialists from Israel: Shachar Levy (who is the CEO), Ariel Smoler, Arick Goomanovsky and Ami Kor, with its chairman Nadav Zafrir, the co-founder and CEO of Team8 and a former commander of Unit 8200. The basic idea behind Sygnia is both to build technology, tools and services to help an organization’s resilience — both to reduce the likelihood of a breach, and to help the company weather an attack if one does happen. Other members of the team come from military and security industry backgrounds, and generally are always in training, either to hone their own skills or to train customers with whom it works.

Team8 had invested only $4.3 million into Sygnia, the only outside funding the startup had ever taken.

Part of the reason for that is because Sygnia has been generating revenue since before it came out of stealth. It doesn’t name specific customers, or threat incidents that it has helped manage (or avoid, for that matter), but notes that typically it interacts with executive management, boards, and technology teams, and it has customers in the financial, legal, retail and consumer goods products, information technology, media and entertainment, pharmaceutical, telecommunication, logistics and manufacturing sectors, with customers based in the US, Canada, EMEA and Latin America.

The deal should help Sygnia add another part of the world of the world to that list: Asia, both providing services for Temasek portfolio companies and others. Although Temasek will operate Sygnia as its own independent entity, this deal is a sign of how the Singaporean company is ramping up its cybersecurity activities overall: just last month, it formed a cybersecurity joint venture called Ensign InfoSecurity with StarHub, the Singaporen carrier, bringing together Temasek subsidiary Quann and StarHub subsidiary Accel Systems.

If Sygnia’s customer list and trade were both strong and today, more than ever before, cybersecurity is a huge priority (and business opportunity), it’s worth wondering why the startup decided to sell up so quickly. From what I understand, an acquisition by Temasek — itself a huge holding company by way of its many investments — is essentially like securing a dedicated and large-pocketed owner that will help the company scale in an efficient way to meet demand.

“Cyber, in its current magnitude, is a new domain of technology, a new domain of warfare, and a new domain of business,” said Sygnia’s Levy in a statement. “Companies are today confronted with a level of risk which until lately was the realm of militaries and states. We assist them in balancing this asymmetry with ‘military grade security’ – conceptual frameworks,  methodologies and technologies built to build resilience and win the battle within their network.”

Team8 will continue to be involved with the company post-acquisition — not least because of the chairman connection.

“Sygnia has built a powerful combination of professional proficiency, methodologies, technologies, and a culture of excellence, which is critically needed in confronting the growing complexity of cyber,” said Zafrir in a statement. “Team8 will remain committed to Sygnia’s success and we will continue to collaborate and work closely together.”

Analyst Gartner, best known for crunching device marketshare data; charting technology hype cycles; and churning out predictive listicles of emergent capabilities at software’s cutting edge has now put businesses on watch that as well as dabbling in the usual crop of nascent technologies organizations need to be thinking about wider impacts next year — on both individuals and society.

Call it a sign of the times but digital ethics and privacy has been named as one of Gartner’s top ten strategic technology trends for 2019. That, my friends, is progress of a sort. Albeit, it also underlines how low certain tech industry practices have sunk that ethics and privacy is suddenly making a cutting-edge trend agenda, a couple of decades into the mainstream consumer Internet.

The analyst’s top picks do include plenty of techie stuff too, of course. Yes blockchain is in there. Alongside the usual string of caveats that the “technologies and concepts are immature, poorly understood and unproven in mission-critical, at-scale business operations”.

So too, on the software development side, is AI-driven development — with the analyst sneaking a look beyond the immediate future to an un-date-stamped new age of the ‘non-techie techie’ (aka the “citizen application developer”) it sees coming down the pipe, when everyone will be a pro app dev thanks to AI-driven tools automatically generating the necessary models. But that’s definitely not happening in 2019.

See also: Augmented analytics eventually (em)powering “citizen data science”.

On the hardware front, Gartner uses the umbrella moniker of autonomous things to bundle the likes of drones, autonomous vehicles and robots in one big mechanical huddle — spying a trend of embodied AIs that “automate functions previously performed by humans” and work in swarming concert. Again, though, don’t expect too much of these bots quite yet — collectively, or, well, individually either.

It’s also bundling AR, VR and MR (aka the mixed reality of eyewear like Magic Leap One or Microsoft’s Hololens) into immersive experiences — in which “the spaces that surround us define ‘the computer’ rather than the individual devices. In effect, the environment is the computer” — so you can see what it’s spying there.

On the hardcore cutting edge of tech there’s quantum computing to continue to tantalize with its fantastically potent future potential. This tech, Gartner suggests, could be used to “model molecular interactions at atomic levels to accelerate time to market for new cancer-treating drugs” — albeit, once again, there’s absolutely no timeline suggested. And QC remains firmly lodged in an “emerging state”.

One nearer-term tech trend is dubbed the empowered edge, with Gartner noting that rising numbers of connected devices are driving processing back towards the end-user — to reduce latency and traffic. Distributed servers working as part of the cloud services mix is the idea, supported, over the longer term, by maturing 5G networks. Albeit, again, 5G hasn’t been deployed at any scale yet. Though some rollouts are scheduled for 2019.

Connected devices also feature in Gartner’s picks of smart spaces (aka sensor-laden places like smart cities, the ‘smart home’ or digital workplaces — where “people, processes, services and things” come together to create “a more immersive, interactive and automated experience”); and so-called digital twins; which isn’t as immediately bodysnatcherish as it first sounds, though does refer to “digital representation of a real-world entity or system” driven by an estimated 20BN connected sensors/endpoints which it reckons will be in the wild by 2020. 

But what really stands out in Gartner’s list of developing and/or barely emergent strategic tech trends is digital ethics and privacy — given the concept is not reliant on any particular technology underpinning it; yet is being (essentially) characterized as an emergent property of other already deployed (but unnamed) technologies. So is actually in play — in a way that others on the list aren’t yet (or aren’t at the same mass scale).

The analyst dubs digital ethics and privacy a “growing concern for individuals, organisations and governments”, writing: “People are increasingly concerned about how their personal information is being used by organisations in both the public and private sector, and the backlash will only increase for organisations that are not proactively addressing these concerns.”

Yes, people are increasingly concerned about privacy. Though ethics and privacy are hardly new concepts (or indeed new discussion topics). So the key point is really the strategic obfuscation of issues that people do in fact care an awful lot about, via the selective and non-transparent application of various behind-the-scenes technologies up to now — as engineers have gone about collecting and using people’s data without telling them how, why and what they’re actually doing with it.

Therefore, the key issue is about the abuse of trust that has been an inherent and seemingly foundational principle of the application of far too much cutting edge technology up to now. Especially, of course, in the adtech sphere.

And which, as Gartner now notes, is coming home to roost for the industry — via people’s “growing concern” about what’s being done to them via their data. (For “individuals, organisations and governments” you can really just substitute ‘society’ in general.)

Technology development done in a vacuum with little or no consideration for societal impacts is therefore itself the catalyst for the accelerated concern about digital ethics and privacy that Gartner is here identifying rising into strategic view.

It didn’t have to be that way though. Unlike ‘blockchain’ or ‘digital twins’, ethics and privacy are not at all new concepts. They’ve been discussion topics for philosophers and moralists for scores of generations and, literally, thousands of years. Which makes engineering without consideration of human and societal impacts a very spectacular and stupid failure indeed.

And now Gartner is having to lecture organizations on the importance of building trust. Which is kind of incredible to see, set alongside bleeding edge science like quantum computing. Yet here we seemingly are in kindergarten…

It writes: “Any discussion on privacy must be grounded in the broader topic of digital ethics and the trust of your customers, constituents and employees. While privacy and security are foundational components in building trust, trust is actually about more than just these components. Trust is the acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation. Ultimately an organisation’s position on privacy must be driven by its broader position on ethics and trust. Shifting from privacy to ethics moves the conversation beyond ‘are we compliant’ toward ‘are we doing the right thing.”

The other unique thing about digital ethics and privacy is that it cuts right across all other technology areas in this trend list.

You can — and should — rightly ask what does blockchain mean for privacy? Or quantum computing for ethics? How could the empowered edge be used to enhance privacy? And how might smart spaces erode it? How can we ensure ethics get baked into AI-driven development from the get-go? How could augmented analytics help society as a whole — but which individuals might it harm? And so the questions go on.

Or at least they should go on. You should never stop asking questions where ethics and privacy are concerned. Not asking questions was the great strategic fuck-up condensed into Facebook’s ‘move fast and break things’ anti-humanitarian manifesto of yore. Y’know, the motto it had to ditch after it realized that breaking all the things didn’t scale.

Because apparently no one at the company had thought to ask how breaking everyone’s stuff would help it engender trust. And so claiming compliance without trust, as Facebook now finds itself trying to, really is the archetypal Sisyphean struggle.

Analyst Gartner, best known for crunching device marketshare data; charting technology hype cycles; and churning out predictive listicles of emergent capabilities at software’s cutting edge has now put businesses on watch that as well as dabbling in the usual crop of nascent technologies organizations need to be thinking about wider impacts next year — on both individuals and society.

Call it a sign of the times but digital ethics and privacy has been named as one of Gartner’s top ten strategic technology trends for 2019. That, my friends, is progress of a sort. Albeit, it also underlines how low certain tech industry practices have sunk that ethics and privacy is suddenly making a cutting-edge trend agenda, a couple of decades into the mainstream consumer Internet.

The analyst’s top picks do include plenty of techie stuff too, of course. Yes blockchain is in there. Alongside the usual string of caveats that the “technologies and concepts are immature, poorly understood and unproven in mission-critical, at-scale business operations”.

So too, on the software development side, is AI-driven development — with the analyst sneaking a look beyond the immediate future to an un-date-stamped new age of the ‘non-techie techie’ (aka the “citizen application developer”) it sees coming down the pipe, when everyone will be a pro app dev thanks to AI-driven tools automatically generating the necessary models. But that’s definitely not happening in 2019.

See also: Augmented analytics eventually (em)powering “citizen data science”.

On the hardware front, Gartner uses the umbrella moniker of autonomous things to bundle the likes of drones, autonomous vehicles and robots in one big mechanical huddle — spying a trend of embodied AIs that “automate functions previously performed by humans” and work in swarming concert. Again, though, don’t expect too much of these bots quite yet — collectively, or, well, individually either.

It’s also bundling AR, VR and MR (aka the mixed reality of eyewear like Magic Leap One or Microsoft’s Hololens) into immersive experiences — in which “the spaces that surround us define ‘the computer’ rather than the individual devices. In effect, the environment is the computer” — so you can see what it’s spying there.

On the hardcore cutting edge of tech there’s quantum computing to continue to tantalize with its fantastically potent future potential. This tech, Gartner suggests, could be used to “model molecular interactions at atomic levels to accelerate time to market for new cancer-treating drugs” — albeit, once again, there’s absolutely no timeline suggested. And QC remains firmly lodged in an “emerging state”.

One nearer-term tech trend is dubbed the empowered edge, with Gartner noting that rising numbers of connected devices are driving processing back towards the end-user — to reduce latency and traffic. Distributed servers working as part of the cloud services mix is the idea, supported, over the longer term, by maturing 5G networks. Albeit, again, 5G hasn’t been deployed at any scale yet. Though some rollouts are scheduled for 2019.

Connected devices also feature in Gartner’s picks of smart spaces (aka sensor-laden places like smart cities, the ‘smart home’ or digital workplaces — where “people, processes, services and things” come together to create “a more immersive, interactive and automated experience”); and so-called digital twins; which isn’t as immediately bodysnatcherish as it first sounds, though does refer to “digital representation of a real-world entity or system” driven by an estimated 20BN connected sensors/endpoints which it reckons will be in the wild by 2020. 

But what really stands out in Gartner’s list of developing and/or barely emergent strategic tech trends is digital ethics and privacy — given the concept is not reliant on any particular technology underpinning it; yet is being (essentially) characterized as an emergent property of other already deployed (but unnamed) technologies. So is actually in play — in a way that others on the list aren’t yet (or aren’t at the same mass scale).

The analyst dubs digital ethics and privacy a “growing concern for individuals, organisations and governments”, writing: “People are increasingly concerned about how their personal information is being used by organisations in both the public and private sector, and the backlash will only increase for organisations that are not proactively addressing these concerns.”

Yes, people are increasingly concerned about privacy. Though ethics and privacy are hardly new concepts (or indeed new discussion topics). So the key point is really the strategic obfuscation of issues that people do in fact care an awful lot about, via the selective and non-transparent application of various behind-the-scenes technologies up to now — as engineers have gone about collecting and using people’s data without telling them how, why and what they’re actually doing with it.

Therefore, the key issue is about the abuse of trust that has been an inherent and seemingly foundational principle of the application of far too much cutting edge technology up to now. Especially, of course, in the adtech sphere.

And which, as Gartner now notes, is coming home to roost for the industry — via people’s “growing concern” about what’s being done to them via their data. (For “individuals, organisations and governments” you can really just substitute ‘society’ in general.)

Technology development done in a vacuum with little or no consideration for societal impacts is therefore itself the catalyst for the accelerated concern about digital ethics and privacy that Gartner is here identifying rising into strategic view.

It didn’t have to be that way though. Unlike ‘blockchain’ or ‘digital twins’, ethics and privacy are not at all new concepts. They’ve been discussion topics for philosophers and moralists for scores of generations and, literally, thousands of years. Which makes engineering without consideration of human and societal impacts a very spectacular and stupid failure indeed.

And now Gartner is having to lecture organizations on the importance of building trust. Which is kind of incredible to see, set alongside bleeding edge science like quantum computing. Yet here we seemingly are in kindergarten…

It writes: “Any discussion on privacy must be grounded in the broader topic of digital ethics and the trust of your customers, constituents and employees. While privacy and security are foundational components in building trust, trust is actually about more than just these components. Trust is the acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation. Ultimately an organisation’s position on privacy must be driven by its broader position on ethics and trust. Shifting from privacy to ethics moves the conversation beyond ‘are we compliant’ toward ‘are we doing the right thing.”

The other unique thing about digital ethics and privacy is that it cuts right across all other technology areas in this trend list.

You can — and should — rightly ask what does blockchain mean for privacy? Or quantum computing for ethics? How could the empowered edge be used to enhance privacy? And how might smart spaces erode it? How can we ensure ethics get baked into AI-driven development from the get-go? How could augmented analytics help society as a whole — but which individuals might it harm? And so the questions go on.

Or at least they should go on. You should never stop asking questions where ethics and privacy are concerned. Not asking questions was the great strategic fuck-up condensed into Facebook’s ‘move fast and break things’ anti-humanitarian manifesto of yore. Y’know, the motto it had to ditch after it realized that breaking all the things didn’t scale.

Because apparently no one at the company had thought to ask how breaking everyone’s stuff would help it engender trust. And so claiming compliance without trust, as Facebook now finds itself trying to, really is the archetypal Sisyphean struggle.

NowRx, an on-demand pharmacy solution of sorts, just closed a $7 million Series A round via the SeedInvest crowdfunding platform. The company had previously raised a $3 million seed round.

As the on-demand industry flourished and NowRx co-founder Cary Breese surrounded himself with people from the pharmacy industry, Breese said it became clear to him that there was “no reason why [an on-demand pharmacy] can’t work.”

Launched in 2016, NowRx is a full-fledged on-demand pharmacy solution. Though, it’s technically more of an on-demand prescription medication startup that functions using what it describes as a virtual pharmacy. Since its launch, NowRx has delivered more than 50,000 prescriptions from 1,900 doctors. With 8,500 customers, NowRx does about $5 million a year in annual revenue.

NowRx, which is licensed to fill prescriptions in California and certified via the SureScripts pharmacy management software, enables doctors to electronically fill prescriptions for on-demand delivery in the San Francisco Bay Area (not, however, in the city of SF). Patients can then either request free same-day or one-hour delivery for $5.

With the additional funding, NowRx plans to expand outside of California late next year or early 2020. In order to do that, it will need to open new warehouses and pharmacy facilities.

Breese said he went the crowdfunding route because the terms are better, he didn’t have to give up a board seat, and there were no onerous entrepreneurial adverse terms.

NowRx, an on-demand pharmacy solution of sorts, just closed a $7 million Series A round via the SeedInvest crowdfunding platform. The company had previously raised a $3 million seed round.

As the on-demand industry flourished and NowRx co-founder Cary Breese surrounded himself with people from the pharmacy industry, Breese said it became clear to him that there was “no reason why [an on-demand pharmacy] can’t work.”

Launched in 2016, NowRx is a full-fledged on-demand pharmacy solution. Though, it’s technically more of an on-demand prescription medication startup that functions using what it describes as a virtual pharmacy. Since its launch, NowRx has delivered more than 50,000 prescriptions from 1,900 doctors. With 8,500 customers, NowRx does about $5 million a year in annual revenue.

NowRx, which is licensed to fill prescriptions in California and certified via the SureScripts pharmacy management software, enables doctors to electronically fill prescriptions for on-demand delivery in the San Francisco Bay Area (not, however, in the city of SF). Patients can then either request free same-day or one-hour delivery for $5.

With the additional funding, NowRx plans to expand outside of California late next year or early 2020. In order to do that, it will need to open new warehouses and pharmacy facilities.

Breese said he went the crowdfunding route because the terms are better, he didn’t have to give up a board seat, and there were no onerous entrepreneurial adverse terms.

Some of the most sensitive U.S. government departments and agencies still aren’t using a basic email security feature that would significantly cut down on incoming spam or phishing emails.

Fifteen percent of all U.S. government domains still aren’t employing DMARC, or domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance policy on their domains, which email systems use to verify the identity that the sender of an email is not an impersonator.

New data from security firm Agari shows that out of over a thousand federal domains, 75 percent have a DMARC policy that either monitors, quarantines to your spam folder or entirely rejects all spoofed emails.

But the CIA, the NSA, and the Department of Defense are among the outliers still haven’t rolled out DMARC across their web domains.

That’s despite Tuesday’s deadline for BOD 18-01, a directive issued by Homeland Security that ordered the rollout of DMARC a year ago, following complaints by a leading Democratic senator.

BOD 18-01 aimed to improve email and cybersecurity across the federal government by introducing email encryption (STARTTLS) and doubling down on use of HTTPS certificates across the government. By cranking up the DMARC settings to its safest by outright rejecting unverified email, government departments would comply with the directive by bouncing any unauthenticated email from user inboxes.

That may not sound too important, but it means that now that a sizable portion of the federal government — and intelligence agencies — aren’t protected against an easy class of impersonated emails.

According to Agari’s breakdown:

• CIA has 9 out of 10 domains without a DMARC record;
• Neither of the NSA’s two domains have DMARC records;
• The White House’s Executive Office of the President has half of its domains lacking a DMARC record’
• The Director of National Intelligence, which co-ordinates the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus, also has all 17 domains without a DMARC record;
• Defense Dept. has 32 out of 35 domains without a DMARC record;
• And even Homeland Security, which instituted the policy, has 3 out of 33 domains without a DMARC record.

And those are the worst contenders. Only a handful of departments are fully compliant.

Proofpoint, which issued similar research Monday with approximately the same data — said that it estimates about 60 percent of the federal government are fully compliant with the directive.

The government isn’t the only outlier. Only one-third of the Fortune 500 are said to use DMARC on their domains.

Some of the most sensitive U.S. government departments and agencies still aren’t using a basic email security feature that would significantly cut down on incoming spam or phishing emails.

Fifteen percent of all U.S. government domains still aren’t employing DMARC, or domain-based message authentication, reporting, and conformance policy on their domains, which email systems use to verify the identity that the sender of an email is not an impersonator.

New data from security firm Agari shows that out of over a thousand federal domains, 75 percent have a DMARC policy that either monitors, quarantines to your spam folder or entirely rejects all spoofed emails.

But the CIA, the NSA, and the Department of Defense are among the outliers still haven’t rolled out DMARC across their web domains.

That’s despite Tuesday’s deadline for BOD 18-01, a directive issued by Homeland Security that ordered the rollout of DMARC a year ago, following complaints by a leading Democratic senator.

BOD 18-01 aimed to improve email and cybersecurity across the federal government by introducing email encryption (STARTTLS) and doubling down on use of HTTPS certificates across the government. By cranking up the DMARC settings to its safest by outright rejecting unverified email, government departments would comply with the directive by bouncing any unauthenticated email from user inboxes.

That may not sound too important, but it means that now that a sizable portion of the federal government — and intelligence agencies — aren’t protected against an easy class of impersonated emails.

According to Agari’s breakdown:

• CIA has 9 out of 10 domains without a DMARC record;
• Neither of the NSA’s two domains have DMARC records;
• The White House’s Executive Office of the President has half of its domains lacking a DMARC record’
• The Director of National Intelligence, which co-ordinates the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus, also has all 17 domains without a DMARC record;
• Defense Dept. has 32 out of 35 domains without a DMARC record;
• And even Homeland Security, which instituted the policy, has 3 out of 33 domains without a DMARC record.

And those are the worst contenders. Only a handful of departments are fully compliant.

Proofpoint, which issued similar research Monday with approximately the same data — said that it estimates about 60 percent of the federal government are fully compliant with the directive.

The government isn’t the only outlier. Only one-third of the Fortune 500 are said to use DMARC on their domains.

Amazon announced today that it has invested $10 million in Closed Loop Fund, which finances the creation of recycling infrastructure and services in U.S. cities. In a statement, the e-commerce behemoth claimed that its investment will keep one million tons of recyclable material out of landfills and “eliminate the equivalent of two million metric tons of CO2 by 2028, equivalent to shutting down a coal-fired power plant for six months.”

Founded in 2014, Closed Loop Fund invests in companies and organizations working on services, infrastructure, or technology that will make recycling accessible to more communities in the U.S. Only a few cities have made recycling mandatory and in many municipalities, trucking trash to the landfill is still much cheaper than offering curbside recycling. According to Amazon’s announcement, about half of Americans “lack access to convenient, sufficient curbside recycling at their homes.” Over the next 10 years, Closed Loop Fund wants to save more than 8 million tons of waste from landfills by making recycling easier for 18 million households.

In a statement, Closed Loop Fund CEO Ron Gonen said “Amazon’s investment in Closed Loop Fund is another example of how recycling is good business in America. Companies are seeing that they can meet consumer demand and reduce costs while supporting a more sustainable future and growing good jobs across the country. We applaud Amazon’s commitment to cut waste, and we hope their leadership drives other brands and retailers to follow suit.”

As the largest online retailer in the U.S. by far, Amazon packages produce a massive amount of cardboard and packaging waste every year. More than 5 billion items were shipped through Amazon Prime last year, while the company’s fulfillment and shipping network increased by more than 30% in square footage.

The burden placed on overwhelmed municipalities and waste collection services that need to dispose of packaging from Amazon and other e-commerce stores has been dubbed the “Amazon Effect” and blamed for contributing to the decline in the cardboard recycling rate. According to the American Forestry and Packaging Association, the recycling rate for cardboard fell to 88.8% in 2017 from 92.9% in 1999.

Amazon claims its Frustration-Free Packaging program, which offers brands incentives to use less wasteful packaging, has eliminated more than 244,000 tons of packaging materials and made it possible to avoid more than 500 million shipping boxes since launching 10 years ago. But with its rapid pace of growth—Amazon is expected to reach $258.22 billion in U.S. retail sales this year, accounting for 49.1 percent of all online retail spending in the country and 5 percent of all retail sales—there is still a lot of work to do if it really wants to stop contributing to packaging waste.

TechCrunch Disrupt is the world’s biggest and most impactful tech startup conference, and we can’t wait to bring the hype to Berlin.

We’re very proud of the show we’ve put together and are thrilled to give you a look at what’s in store.

Editor’s Note: Not all of our speakers are included on this agenda as we like to keep a couple tricks up our sleeves. ;)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29

Morning

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Racing to the Future with Lucas Di Grassi (Roborace)

Hear from Roborace’s new CEO and former F1 driver Lucas Di Grassi on how Roborace is merging human driving and artificial intelligence to build a better racing series. Including a sneak peak at their latest vehicle! Main Stage @ 9:05AM

A New Start with Anne Kjaer-Riechert (ReDI School of Digital Integration), Aline Sara (NaTakallam)

The world has been shocked by the plight of refugees from both war zones and natural disasters in the last few years. But the tech world has stepped up to the plate to assist refugees and NGOs, in this case with ReDI School’s hugely successful code school for refugees and NaTakallam’s global platform for refugees to teach languages. Main Stage @ 9:25AM

In The Money with Pieter van der Does (Adyen)

Payments company Adyen has achieved that rare thing all startups hope for but many do not achieve: it went public as a profitable company with a huge IPO pop. Hear how a startup quietly built up a payments empire under the radar, out of Amsterdam. Main Stage @ 9:45AM

Regaining Momentum in Europe with Saul Klein (LocalGlobe)

Saul Klein has long had an outsized imprint on Europe’s tech scene, as an operator, founder and investor, as well as the mastermind behind the global meet up concept OpenCoffee and the “YC of Europe,” Seedcamp. We’ll talk with Klein about creating a sustainable ecosystem, as well as how Europe now competes against faster-growing markets, including in China. Main Stage @ 10:05AM

STARTUP BATTLEFIELD

The hottest startups compete for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 USD, and eternal glory. Main Stage @ 10:50AM

Bootstrapping Your Way To The Top with Denys Zhadanov (Readdle)

Readdle, a strartup out of Ukraine, has racked up 100 million downloads of its popular PDF app, and is now making a bold move into other productivity tools, all without a single dime of funding. It can be done! Hear Denys Zhadanov tell his startup’s story. Main Stage @ 11:55AM

STARTUP BATTLEFIELD

The hottest startups compete for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 USD, and eternal glory. Main Stage @ 1:15PM

Afternoon

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Sharing the Ride-Sharing Industry with Daniel Ramot (Via), and other speakers to be announced

It’s time to say it: there won’t be a single global leader in the ride-sharing industry. Many companies will survive and compete in dozens of countries with different offerings. But how do you beat Uber at its own game? Main Stage @ 2:40PM

Pioneering Crypto with Jamie Burke (Outlier Ventures), Vinay Gupta (Mattereum), and other speakers to be announced

Investing in Crypto and Blockchain startups has never been hotter. We’ll hear from these key pioneers in the field who are feeling their way in this brand new arena. Main Stage @ 3:45PM

Making Everyone A Secondary VC with Kaidi Ruusalepp (Funderbeam)

As startups stay private longer and more people want to gamble on them, CEO Kaidi Ruusalepp will discuss the risks and rewards of would-be investors turning to Funderbeam’s secondary market. Main Stage @ 4:10PM

STARTUP BATTLEFIELD

The hottest startups compete for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 USD, and eternal glory. Main Stage @ 4:30PM

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30TH

Morning

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Going Global with Brynne Kennedy (Topia)

Topia’s Brynne Kennedy will discuss building the tools that enable companies to manage the 21st century mobile workforce. Main Stage @ 9:25AM

The European Fintech Fever with Ricky Knox (Tandem) and other speakers to be announced

Thanks to a unified market, fintech startups have boomed in Europe. And yet, with so many megarounds and startups doing the same thing, are we experiencing a fintech fever? Main Stage @ 9:45AM

Learning Languages and Building a Startup with Julie Hansen and Markus Witte (Babbel)

Babbel is now managing the top-grossing language learning app in the world. It’s a European success story. The company is now facing a new challenge: conquering the U.S. Main Stage @ 10:10AM

Building Your Next Car, Today with Laurin Hahn (Sono Motors), Ole Harms (MOIA)

The car industry has never been so exciting. Everybody is working on the car of the future, which will represent the perfect combination of automation, connectivity, electric motors and mobility services. But who will do it better: Startups or car giants trying to reinvent themselves? Including a sneak peak of Sono’s new vehicle. Main Stage @ 11:05AM

Becoming a “Unicorn Factory” with Philipe Botteri, Sonali De Rycker, Luciana Lixandru, and Harry Nelis (Accel)

Accel London has built a very strong brand in Europe over the past 18 years, with bets that include Deliveroo and Supercell. Yet staying relevant means continuing to bet on winners. How does Accel think about its heritage and its future, and what does that mean for the startups looking to work with the firm? Main Stage @ 11:30AM

Afternoon

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European Space Tech Comes of Age with Mike Collett (Promus Ventures), Rafal Modrzewski (ICEYE)

Mike Collett has built a reputation as a savvy investor in deep-technology software and is now an investor in one of Europe’s hottest space-tech startups, ICEYE, which ICEYE recently became the first company to launch a Synthetic-Aperture Radar satellite under 100 kilograms which can scan the globe in 3D. Where does space technology go from here? Main Stage @ 1:00PM

STARTUP BATTLEFIELD FINALS

The hottest startups compete for the Disrupt Cup, $50,000 USD, and eternal glory. Main Stage @ 1:45PM

Emerging Market Tech is About to Explode with Lizzie Chapman (Zestmoney) and Alan Mamedi (Truecaller)

With a $100M warchest, Truecaller has gone from a simple anti-spam service to a payments and chat service for huge new markets like India. Meanwhile, Zest is India’s first completely automated consumer digital lending platform which is giving consumers there new options in financing. We’ll get into how these two pioneers are expanding. Main Stage @ 3:30PM

Selling Fashion in a Post-Web World with Sophie Hill (Threads)

Threads, a startup out of London, has found the perfect way to sell to its target millennial customer: forget the web and focus on messaging apps instead. That bold choice has helped the company land tons of clients and millions in backing from VCs who want in on the action. Hear from founder Sophie Hills about how she got here, and what will come next. Main Stage @ 4:20PM

Can Starling Become the Next HSBC with Anne Boden (Starling Bank)

Starling has now convinced hundreds of thousands of people, but it is still far behind the biggest consumer banks. Anne Boden has worked in the banking industry for decades, so she knows what’s missing to jump from a small competitor to a dominant player. Main Stage @ 4:40PM

JobUFO, the Berlin-based startup that has built a video focussed app to help facilitate better job applications, has raised €2 million in seed funding. Leading the round is IBB and Hevella Capital, with the investment to be used for growth.

Claiming to re-invent the way companies handle the application process, JobUFO has developed an online/mobile application form that focuses on the personality of the candidate. This includes being asked to created a CV in a specific format and the ability to record or upload a personal application video. The JobUFO application form can be embedded anywhere online, such as a company’s career page or job ad, so that it becomes the preferred way to receive applications.

“The HR market is overloaded with too many information and recruiting tools,” JobUFO co-founder and CEO Thomas Paucker tells me when asked to describe the problem being tackled. “This makes it very hard to find the best process of applying to a job. That’s why everybody is writing the same motivational letters. You still need a laptop and there is no real first impression of yourself when you apply. Recruiters do not read motivational letters because someone else could have written it. The longer a recruiting process is, the higher the average dropout rate of an applicant”.

To remedy this, the JobUFO mobile app or web-version enables applicants to quickly create a “DIN-correct” CV in combination with a guided video of up to thirty seconds. Paucker says the idea is to be able to give a good first impression at the very moment the application is received. JobUFO powered applications are pushed directly into a company’s application tracking system via the JobUFO API.

“Recruiters get more and reliable applications without changing their daily routine,” he says. “Applicants get recommendations based on big data and are guided nearly fully automatically during their whole work life. Additionally we automate the communication between those two groups to focus on the main goal: filling the vacancy with someone who fits and likes the job”.

To that end, in two years since being founded, JobUFO has grown its customer base to over 30 well-known companies operating in Germany. They include Deutsche Bahn, Edeka, Evonik, Hertz, and Ikea. In 2018 alone, over 60,000 applications have been generated.

“Digitalisation is changing the recruiting sector,” adds Paucker, noting that younger applicants have no prior knowledge of a more traditional application process and are much more akin to using consumer apps such as Instagram and YouTube. “Since we guide the applicants directly through the application process, JobUFO is particularly popular with this younger target group,” he says.

In addition, the “talking application photos” concept is resonating with recruiters and HR managers since the last mile to the applicant is often the most time-consuming and least scalable. “The company sees the video as well as the checked data of the applicant directly in its own applicant management system. For both sides, this is an uncomplicated process that continues to spur us on to expand,” says the JobUFO CEO.