Year: 2018

Innoviz, a developer of light detection and ranging technologies for computer vision and autonomous vehicles, is getting a toehold in China, the world’s fastest growing auto market, through a partnership with the Chinese automotive supplier HiRain Technologies.

From offices in Beijing, Chicago, Detroit, Shanghai, Tianjin HiRain serves as a global supplier to some of China’s largest automakers and has already been a gateway to success for another Israeli company developing sensing technology for vehicle manufacturers — Mobileye .

That company has half of its business coming from China and has won 9 of its supplier agreements with different automakers in the country through its HiRain partnership, according to people with knowledge of the company.

For the three year old Innoviz, the opportunity to expand its list of suppliers to include one of China’s leaders was too good of an opportunity to pass up, said chief executive officer Omer Keilaf.

“China is helping lead the way towards the autonomous vehicle future, and HiRain is one of the most influential companies in the Chinese automotive industry. Last year, around 26 million vehicles were manufactured in China, making it by far the largest automotive manufacturing country in the world,” said Keilaf, in a statement. “The HiRain team has extensive experience with driver assistance and autonomous driving systems in China and we are honored to partner with them.”

It’s the latest in a series of strategic moves for Innoviz, which already counts Aptiv, Magna International and Samsung as its partners for supplying automakers in the U.S., Europe and other international markets. The company had its first win with BMW earlier this year, and will be providing LiDAR for the automakers autonomous vehicles in 2021.

“LiDAR is one of the most critical technologies for automated driving systems, and we partnered with Innoviz because not only is its technology more advanced than other LiDAR solution, but the company has proven it can deliver on its promises,” said Yingcun Ji, the chief executive of HiRain, in a statement. “Innoviz’s cutting-edge LiDAR will help us expand our leadership position within the Chinese automotive industry and continue to blaze a trail towards the autonomous driving future.”

The opportunity to expand driverless vehicle technologies in China extends far beyond the country’s established automakers like SAIC Motors, Chang’an Motors, FAW Group and Dongfeng Motor or more recent upstarts like Geely and BYD . Technology companies including Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu all have an interest in developing autonomous vehicles, and new electric car companies like Byton, Nio, WM Motor, and Xiaopeng Motors. Some of these new companies are counting on government subsidies of $8,400 per vehicle, to bring electric, autonomous technology to China’s congested and polluted streets.

Behind HiRain and its OEM relationships, Keilaf said there were as many as 20 other development programs that the company was exposed to in China.

“We are going to sell the LiDAR in this collaboration that will let us get to the volume to drive our process and get early revenues,” Keilaf said.

When it comes to autonomous vehicle standards, China is racing ahead, said Keilaf. The country wants to get to Level 3 autonomy in most of its vehicles by 2020 and level 4 autonomy in 2021.

As for other markets, like the U.S., Keilaf said the development of autonomous vehicles will continue to happen quickly, but in very specific markets. And that the growth wouldn’t be hindered by recent fatalities caused by failures in autonomous vehicle systems from Uber and Tesla (two companies that have been aggressively pushing driverless vehicle programs).

“It makes everybody understand better what is needed to make things the right way,” Keilaf said of the accidents. “The way I see it, autonomous driving will come soon. But autonomous driving is a very big term.”

For Keilaf, autonomy is going to appear in markets like the U.S. first in specific applications like shuttles around colleges, airports, or closed communities. Simultaneously some advanced autonomous technologies will take to the roads in the form of long haul convoys for shipping and logistics, and finally in industrial applications for agriculture and mining.

Founded in early 2016, Innoviz has over 150 employees worldwide and is backed by $82 million in venture funding.

European Union institutions have reached a political agreement over an update to the bloc’s telecoms rules that’s rattled the cages of incumbent telcos.

Agreement was secured late yesterday after months of negotiations between the EU parliament and Council, with the former pushing for and securing a price cap on international calls within the bloc — of no more than 19 cents per minute. Texts will also be capped at a maximum of 6 cents each, Reuters reports.

While roaming charges for EU travelers were abolished across the bloc last summer, the parliament was concerned that charges for calls and texts between EU Member States is often disproportionately high — hence pushing for the cap, which was not in the original EC proposal.

The Commission proposed a new European Electronic Communications Code back in 2016, to modernize telecoms rules that had stood since 2009 — to take account of technology and market shifts, and align the rules with its wider Digital Single Market strategy.

The proposal broadly focused on pushing for consistency in spectrum policy and management; reducing regulatory fragmentation; ensuring a level playing field for market players and protections for consumers; and incentivizing investment in high-speed broadband networks.

And on the incentivization front, the new rules agreed yesterday update the powers of national regulators to act against dominant players — such as by being able to impose access to their network.

For a case study on why such interventions might be necessary you could look at the fiber investment and network-access foot-dragging of a former incumbent telco such as BT in the UK, for example, which has long favored eking out copper. While its network infrastructure division OpenReach was last year ordered to be legally separated — around a decade after it was functionally separated by the regulator. Yet complaints over BT’s lack of investment in broadband infrastructure and access for rivals to its networks have, nonetheless, persisted.

On the consumer front, the new EU telecoms Code also includes measures intended to make it easier to change service provider and keep the same phone number; measures around tariff transparency to make it easier for people to compare contractual offers, and the ability to terminate a contract without incurring additional costs; as well as additional protections around bundled services.

For operators there are deregulation measures for co-investments — intended to promote “risk sharing in the deployment of very high capacity networks”. And the Code sets wireless spectrum licenses at at least 20 years — also intended to give carriers the “predictability” they need to speed up 5G and fiber deployments.

Though this is shorter than operators had hoped, and the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) — whose membership is made up of incumbent telcos such as BT — has been quick to voice its displeasure, describing the code as a “missed opportunity“, and complaining that it adds extra complexity while also failing to incentivize investment.

“The Code will not ignite the much needed rush to invest in 5G and fibre networks and it will add complexity to an already burdensome system,” it writes. “The agreed law foresees only limited progress on spectrum policy, a complex and watered down compromise on incentivising fibre investment, uncertain triggers for imposing regulatory remedies and no fair playing field for digital services users and providers.”

Smaller, fiber-to-the-home broadband players are sounding much happier though…

ETNO also criticizes what it describes as “the unfortunate decision to regulate intra-EU calls” — arguing this is an unjustified, populist measure, and sniping that it creates legal uncertainty by setting what it couches as “a highly dangerous precedent for all other European industries”.

That’s not the view of the European Consumer Organization, BEUC, which describes the measure as “a good next step towards a real single market for consumers”.

“Consumers should no longer have to worry about excessive costs when calling another EU country from home. The end of roaming charges was a big first step, but it did not deal with the high costs of phone calls to another EU country when at home,” its director general, Monique Goyens, told us in a statement.

“Market concentration is bad for prices and consumer choice. A small group of players should not be able to take control of the market. Thanks to what has been agreed, national regulators can take measures to intervene and maintain a healthy level of competition,” she added.

“Telecom services regularly rank among the top most complained-about markets. This new law upgrades some important consumer protection measures. Telecom clients will for instance be able to end their contract early and choose a better deal.”

And of course the Commission is putting a positive spin on the outcome, two years on from its proposal to modernize the rules.

In a statement welcoming the end of the negotiations, Andrus Ansip, the VP in charge of the Digital Single Market, said: “This agreement is essential to meet Europeans’ growing connectivity needs and boost Europe’s competitiveness. We are laying the groundwork for the deployment of 5G across Europe.”

In another supporting statement, Mariya Gabriel, commissioner for digital economy and society, described the new rules as “bold and balanced” — saying they would provide “faster access to radio spectrum, better services and more protection for consumers, as well as greater investment in very high speed networks”.

While political accord on the new telecoms code has indeed been reached between the EU institutions, members of the EU parliament and Council still need to vote to adopt it — after which the bloc’s Member States will have two years to transpose it into their national laws.

Synthego, a provider of gene editing services for genomics research and experimentation, has launched a new suite of products that give researchers access to edited genetic material to make experimenting with programmable biology easier.

The company’s new service will provide researchers with genetic material that has already been edited using the CRISPR process so that scientists can test their hypotheses around new treatments for diseases or new expressions of genetic traits faster.

“Gene editing technologies like CRISPR have dramatically improved how researchers make genomic modifications. As with many new biological tools, not everyone has the access, time and ability to learn and use CRISPR efficiently to get the results they want. Due to these barriers, there is significant demand for products that make CRISPR accessible to the masses so researchers can focus on experimental outcomes rather than method development,” said George Church, Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, in a statement. 

CRISPR technology allows scientists to edit genetic material to suppress or promote certain biological traits and has broad applications from material science to energy to agriculture to health.

What Synthego is offering is basically gene editing as a service, according to the company’s chief executive Paul Dabrowski.

There are two basic functions that people use CRISPR for, said Dabrowski. The first is to remove a gene or function and the second is adding a function to genetic material.

Both of those processes involve three (very complicated) steps. First scientists have to identify the gene that they want to target and then understand what genetic material within that gene they want to target for removal. Then a research team would need to identify and procure the reagents and components they need to edit a gene. Finally, the team would need to figure out whether the edit was made successfully and watch for results when the edited genetic material is cultivated.

“There are about 100 ways to make it go wrong,” says Dabrowski.

Synthego’s first set of products were designed to simplify the process for identifying and designing genetic material for experimentation. This next set of tools are supposed to help scientists by providing them with the material they want to observe or experiment with.

“Tell us the gene you want modified and we will give you the modified gene with the full analysis,” Dabrowski said.

Right now, Synthego’s genetic material are just for research purposes only, Dabrowski said. “The overall point here is that we’re trying to speed up the development process and make things better.”

The new tools are significant because they’re among the first in the industry to guarantee the efficacy of genetically modified material. “We’ve been at this for five or six years getting all of this working,” he said. “The high throughput allows us to collect data and understand what’s going on in relatively unprecedented ways. We’re able to predict some outcomes prior to doing the gene edit.”

Ultimately, the goal is to bring down the cost of targeted gene therapies and make them accessible for everyone, not just the billionaires that Synthego counts among its backers (the company is backed by venture firms including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and 8VC — the investment firm launched by Palantir and Addepar founder Joe Lonsdale).

“The access to clinical gene therapies can’t be million dollar drugs,” says Dabrowski. “These need to be closer to a vaccine. The potential in the next year or two is to start curing thousands of diseases, but you can see how these products are all about access… Either these things become million dollar medicines or we need to change how we think.”

The Europas Unconference & Awards is back on 3 July in London and we’re excited to announce major European investor Saul Klein, founder and partner of LocalGlobe, is joining as a main speaker. He’ll be talking about his ideas for startups in this new era, as well as bringing Zinc.vc, his new initiative to back ‘startups for good’.

Saul is a Founding Partner at Localglobe, a seed fund focussed on helping London’s great most ambitious founders build game-changing businesses. Previously, Saul was a Partner at Index Ventures from 2007 until May 2015. In 2012 David Cameron appointed Saul to be the UK’s first tech envoy to Israel and a Technology Business Ambassador.

Saul is a serial entrepreneur with two decades of experience building and exiting companies in the US, Israel and Europe. He has a passion for working with seed and early-stage businesses. Most recently Saul co-founded Kano and Seedcamp, as well as a co-founder and original CEO of Lovefilm International (acquired by Amazon). He was also part of the original executive team at Skype (acquired by eBay).

Additionally, we’ll also be joined by Eileen Burbidge of Passion Capital, the early-stage VC fund based in London. She brings extensive operational experience to her investment activities gleaned from business and product roles at Yahoo!, Skype, Apple and elsewhere.

In addition to Passion Capital, Eileen is also the Chair of TechNation UK, which is the British government-backed organisation supporting digital business across the UK. She is also HM Treasury’s Special Envoy for FinTech appointed by then Chancellor George Osborne; Tech Ambassador for the Mayor of London’s office and served on former Prime Minister David Cameron’s Business Advisory Group.

Eileen was made an MBE for services to Business in June 2015 and holds a BSc Engineering degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

You’ll also hear from angels and investors including Seedcamp’s Carlos Eduardo Espinal; Accel Partners’ Andrei Brasoveanu; Jeremy Yap; Candice Lo of Blossom Capital; Scott Sage of Crane Venture Partners; Tugce Ergul of Angel Labs; Stéphanie Hospital of OneRagtime; Connect Ventures’ Sitar Teli and Jason Ball of Qualcomm Ventures.

There will be more speakers and panel sessions as the event takes shape.

Crypto and Blockchain will be a major theme this year, and we’re bringing together many of the key players. TechCrunch is once again the key media partner, and if you attend The Europas you’ll be first in the queue to get offers for TC events and Disrupt in Europe later in the year.

You can also potentially get your ticket for free just by sharing your own ticket link with friends and followers. See below for the details and instructions.

To recap, we’re jumping straight into our popular breakout sessions where you’ll get up close and personal with some of Europe’s leading investors, founders and thought leaders.

The Unconference is focused into zones including AI, Fintech, Mobility, Startups, Society, and Enterprise and Crypto / Blockchain.

Our Crypto HQ will feature two tracks of panels, one focused on investing and the other on how blockchain is disrupting everything from financial services, to gaming, to social impact to art.

We’ve lined up some of the leading blockchain VCs to talk about what trends and projects excite them most, including Outlier Ventures’ Jamie Burke, KR1’s George McDonaugh, blockchain angel Nancy Fenchay, Fabric Ventures’ Richard Muirhead and Michael Jackson of Mangrove Capital Partners.

Thinking of an ICO vs crowdfunding? Join Michael Jackson on how ICOs are disrupting venture capital and Ali Ganjavian, co-founder of Studio Banana, the creators of longtime Kickstarter darling OstrichPillow to understand the ins and outs of both.

We’ve also lined up a panel to discuss the process of an ICO – what do you need to consider, the highs, the lows, the timing and the importance of community. Linda Wang, founder and CEO of Lending Block, which recently raised $10 million in an April ICO, joins us.

We are thrilled to announce that Civil, the decentralised marketplace for sustainable journalism, will be joining to talk about the rise of fake news and Verisart’s Robert Norton will share his views on stamping out fraud in the art world with blockchain. Min Teo of ConsenSys will discuss blockchain and social impact and Jeremy Millar, head of Consensys UK, will speak on Smart Contracts.

Our Pathfounders Startup Zone is focused purely on startups. Our popular Meet the Press panel is back where some of tech’s finest reporters will tell you what makes a great tech story, and how to pitch (and NOT pitch them). For a start, TechCrunch’s Steve O’Hear and Quartz’s Joon Ian Wong are joining.

Sound great? You can grab your ticket here.

All you need to do is share your personal ticket link. Your friends get 15% off, and you get 15% off again when they buy.

The more your friends buy, the more your ticket cost goes down, all the way to free!

The Public Voting in the awards ends 11 June 2018 11:59: https://theeuropas.polldaddy.com/s/theeuropas2018

We’re still looking for sponsor partners to support these editorially curated panels.

Please get in touch with Petra@theeuropas.com for more details.

SPEAKERS SO FAR:

Jamie Burke, Outlier Ventures

Jeremy Millar, ConsenSys

Linda Wang, Lending Block

Robert Norton, Verisart

George McDonaugh, KR1

Eileen Burbidge, Passion Capital

Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Seedcamp

Sitar Teli, Connect Ventures

Michael Jackson, Mangrove Capital Partners

Min Teo, ConsenSys

Steve O’Hear, TechCrunch

Joon Ian Wong, Quartz

Richard Muirhead, Fabric Ventures

Nancy Fechnay, Blockchain Technologist + Angel

Candice Lo, Blossom Capital

Scott Sage, Crane Venture Partners

Andrei Brasoveanu, Accel

Tina Baker, Jag Shaw Baker

Jeremy Yap

Candice Lo, Blossom Capital

Tugce Ergul, Angel Labs

Stéphanie Hospital, OneRagtime

Jason Ball, Qualcomm Ventures

The Europas Awards
The Europas Awards are based on voting by expert judges and the industry itself. But key to the daytime is all the speakers and invited guests. There’s no “off-limits speaker room” at The Europas, so attendees can mingle easily with VIPs and speakers.

Vote for your Favourite Startups

Public Voting is still humming along. Please remember to vote for your favourite startups!

Awards by category:

Hottest Media/Entertainment Startup

Hottest E-commerce/Retail Startup

Hottest Education Startup

Hottest Startup Accelerator

Hottest Marketing/AdTech Startup

Hottest Games Startup

Hottest Mobile Startup

Hottest FinTech Startup

Hottest Enterprise, SaaS or B2B Startup

Hottest Hardware Startup

Hottest Platform Economy / Marketplace

Hottest Health Startup

Hottest Cyber Security Startup

Hottest Travel Startup

Hottest Internet of Things Startup

Hottest Technology Innovation

Hottest FashionTech Startup

Hottest Tech For Good

Hottest A.I. Startup

Fastest Rising Startup Of The Year

Hottest GreenTech Startup of The Year

Hottest Startup Founders

Hottest CEO of the Year

Best Angel/Seed Investor of the Year

Hottest VC Investor of the Year

Hottest Blockchain/Crypto Startup Founder(s)

Hottest Blockchain Protocol Project

Hottest Blockchain DApp

Hottest Corporate Blockchain Project

Hottest Blockchain Investor

Hottest Blockchain ICO (Europe)

Hottest Financial Crypto Project

Hottest Blockchain for Good Project

Hottest Blockchain Identity Project

Hall Of Fame Award – Awarded to a long-term player in Europe

The Europas Grand Prix Award (to be decided from winners)

The Awards celebrates the most forward thinking and innovative tech & blockchain startups across over some 30+ categories.

Startups can apply for an award or be nominated by anyone, including our judges. It is free to enter or be nominated.

Instead of thousands and thousands of people, think of a great summer event with 1,000 of the most interesting and useful people in the industry, including key investors and leading entrepreneurs.

• No secret VIP rooms, which means you get to interact with the Speakers

• Key Founders and investors speaking; featured attendees invited to just network

• Expert speeches, discussions, and Q&A directly from the main stage

• Intimate “breakout” sessions with key players on vertical topics

• The opportunity to meet almost everyone in those small groups, super-charging your networking

• Journalists from major tech titles, newspapers and business broadcasters

• A parallel Founders-only track geared towards fund-raising and hyper-networking

• A stunning awards dinner and party which honors both the hottest startups and the leading lights in the European startup scene

• All on one day to maximise your time in London. And it’s sunny (probably)!

That’s just the beginning. There’s more to come…

Marley Spoon, the meal kit subscription service that competes with the likes of Blue Apron and HelloFresh, has filed for an IPO in Australia. The Berlin-headquartered company is aiming to raise 70 million Australian Dollars (approximately $53m), and has chosen to list on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in part because Australia is one of its strongest markets. It also operates in the U.S. and in four European countries, including Germany.

The IPO, which should complete in early July, will give Marley Spoon an indicative market capitalisation of ~200 million AUD (~$152m) on listing, priced at $1.42 per CDI. The majority of capital to be raised has already been placed with various public market institutional investors in Australia and a number of other eligible jurisdictions, while a minority will be made available to Australian resident investors via an allocation from their broker in a couple of week’s time, as per regulatory rules.

As with a number of other competing recipe kit services, the Marley Spoon proposition sees it deliver pre-portioned fresh ingredients for each recipe offered, so as to make it easier, more inspiring, and more cost-effective to cook at home. However, co-founder and CEO Fabian Siegel — who was previously co-CEO of online take-out marketplace Delivery Hero — has long argued that the weekly grocery shop, and to some extent restuarants, is the company’s direct competition.

To help with this, in the U.S. Marley Spoon has a partnership with Martha Stewart under the Martha & Marley Spoon brand. More recently, the company launched a cheaper, more mass-market offering called Dinnerly in a bid to make meal-kits less price sensitive and widen the product category’s appeal.

Siegel says the primary channel of customer acquisition is via customer referrals — for which no incentives are currently offered. In terms of paid marketing, Facebook trumps Google, since nobody really searches for recipe kits online and awareness that the product category exists at all is and remains the main challenge.

To that end, Marley Spoon claims 110,000 active customers across Australia, the U.S., Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands (about a tenth the size of HelloFresh in the U.S.), and has forecast revenue of 93 million Euros this year.

Regards the decision to list on ASX, as of March this year, Australia represented 37 per cent of its revenue, which is slightly ahead of the U.S. and Europe. Siegel also tells me Marley Spoon is already break-even in Australia and is expected to be profitable in the country in the second half of the 2018 financial year, a pattern the company is aiming to replicate in other markets.

Asked why Marley Spoon has shunned further VC or private equity funding, Siegel, who was previously a Partner at Rocket Internet’s venture arm GFC, says he wants to be in it for the long term, and that an IPO — which sees 34 per cent of the company listed — means that the management team retains control. “You shouldn’t just blindly do what other people do, you have to understand what venture capital means for you,” he says, noting that VC was crucial to start the business and get it off the ground, but now he has decided it is “not the right thing for us”.

Specifically, since the channel switch from offline to online hasn’t yet really happened — which Siegel says it will eventually — he believes an IPO buys Marley Spoon enough time to grow the company at the same pace as the market for online grocery develops, rather than spending excessively on customer acquisition and other short term growth strategies.

“It’s a unique approach… We are still at day one now and we still have to prove to ourselves and the rest of the world that this in the end will have been the better strategy,” he says, candidly. But if it is, there’s a lot more of the $6.1 trillion global grocery market to eat into.

This goes out to all the die-hard procrastinators. We’re just 24 hours away from TC Tel Aviv 2018, our inaugural day-long conference focused on mobility tech. The Israeli startup scene stands at the forefront of this rapidly changing frontier, and we’ve gathered some of Israel’s greatest thinkers, makers and investors to share their insight and expertise. You don’t want to miss this unique opportunity. Stop what you’re doing and buy your general admission ticket right now.

Where do your mobility interests lie? If you’re into the future of transportation, don’t miss your chance to hear Uri Levine and Dave Waiser. Maybe you’re all eyes and ears about how cars “see” and “hear.” In that case, be sure to catch the conversation with Omer David Keilaf and Rani Wellingstein. If security issues haunt your waking hours, tune in to be prepared as Yoav Levy and Ami Dotan discuss the future of cybersecurity threats.

That’s just a taste of the content we’ve packed into one stellar day. TC Tel Aviv presents a wide-ranging look at where mobility tech stands now — and where it’s going. Still curious? Check out the full conference agenda.

As if that weren’t enough to keep you busy, be sure to go to Startup Alley (making its Israeli debut), where you’ll find almost 100 early-stage startups. Companies in the Alley go beyond mobility to showcase products, services and platforms from a wide range of tech verticals, including AR/VR, robotics, fintech, biotech, artificial intelligence, blockchain and more. Check out the list of Startup Alley exhibitors.

Procrastinators, the 24-hour clock is running. TechCrunch Tel Aviv takes place June 7, 2018 at the Tel Aviv Convention Center, Pavilion 10. Don’t miss your chance to experience everything TC Tel Aviv has to offer. Go buy your ticket now.

MoloFinance, a London-based fintech that is developing a “fully digital” mortgage solution, has closed £3.7 million in seed funding. The round is led by Ubon Partners, a Nordic fund specialised in financial services, and will be used to launch the company’s first product release later this summer.

Initially targeting ‘Buy to Let’ mortgages — i.e. people looking to buy property as an investment — while the company works through its regulatory approval process with the FCA, MoloFinance wants to offer an end-to-end mortgage process that is entirely digital and with the ability to give a near-instant decision.

The idea, says the startup, is to provide a frictionless experience for the customer whilst helping to eliminate any unnecessary costs related to the current process. Once FCA approved, MoloFinance plans to begin offering residential mortgages, too.

“The problem is simple: getting a mortgage today is a terrible experience, a painful process, based on obsolete practices, outdated in any other consumer experience,” MoloFinance co-founder Francesca Carlesi tells me. “Just try to compare the 4-6 weeks paper-based process of getting a mortgage with the instant set up of a current account online now available in most challenger banks”.

Carlesi says the status quo is entirely unnecessary as the technology needed to offer something a lot better is already here. Furthermore, customers are more than ready and future generations will expect instant, digital mortgages. “At Molo we are simply making it happen now,” she says.

This has seen the MoloFinance team design a fully digital mortgage journey, where most decisions are automated, most of the information needed is sourced digitally, and where a transparent “robo-advisor” substitutes puts the interest of customers first. “The net result is that we give people what they deserve for the most important financial decision of their life: speed, ease and lower costs,” argues Carlesi.

Similar offerings are already up and running in the U.S. and Australia, but in the U.K. the most disruptive forces, in the form of Habito and Trussle, have taken aim at mortgage brokerage. Carlesi concedes that these companies “have done a great first step” that was hugely overdue and that they can be considered MoloFinance’s closest peers but that the business model is “radically different”.

“We are not a broker, we don’t intend to disrupt the broker market. We are instead focusing on the overall lending process, from beginning to the end, with the goal to make the overall process quick, easy and more convenient and ultimately provide fully digital instant mortgages online. So in short we tried to solve the full problem that customers face today. As solving only one part of it in our view doesn’t solve the problem at all”.

On how MoloFinance plans to generate revenue, Carlesi says the startup will take a small share of the money made from the interest that a customer pays on their mortgage, leaving the majority for its funding partners. It won’t charge customers any unnecessary additional fees (e.g. broker fees, arrangement fees).

What does leaving the EU’s Digital Single Market (DMS) mean for UK startups? No-one actually knows. That’s why three UK VCs are backing an initiative to assess the impact of what leaving the DSM could mean for UK tech startups, if, as is predicted, the UK does leave the EU next year.

The initiative is being led by LocalGlobe but also backed by Index Ventures and Atomico. You can fill out the short survey here.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May previously announced the UK will be leaving the DSM when it formally leaves the EU next year, but, according to sources who spoke to TechCrunch, no industry consultation took place on this decision.

The idea behind the DSM, launched in May 2015 and heavily backed by the UK Government at the time, was to tear down regulatory walls and move from 28 national ‘digital’ markets to a single one. The prediction was that this would contribute €415 billion per year to the EU’s economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

It’s been made one of the European Commission’s 10 political priorities and is made up of three policy pillars, as outlined below:

1. Improving access to digital goods and services
The Digital Single Market strategy seeks to ensure better access for consumers and business to online goods and services across Europe, for example by removing barriers to cross-border e-commerce and access to online content while increasing consumer protection.

2. An environment where digital networks and services can prosper
The Digital Single Market aims to create the right environment for digital networks and services by providing high-speed, secure and trustworthy infrastructures and services supported by the right regulatory conditions. Key concerns include cybersecurity, data protection/e-privacy, and the fairness and transparency of online platforms.

3. Digital as a driver for growth
The Digital Single Market Strategy aims at maximising the growth potential of the European Digital Economy, so that every European can fully enjoy its benefits – notably by enhancing digital skills, which are essential for an inclusive digital society.

Meanwhile, Tech For UK is a new group which has been formed by over 100 UK tech industry leaders to back a ‘people’s vote’ on the terms of Brexit, which an option to remain in the EU. It’s currently canvassing for new supporters.

The group boasts a string of high-profile business leaders from the tech sector, including Martha Lane-Fox, best-known as the co-founder of Lastminute.com, Giles Andrews, one of the founders of peer-to-peer lending pioneer Zopa, and George Bevis, the CEO of Tide Bank. It also features leading venture capital and private equity investors, such as Simon Murdoch, the managing partner of Episode 1 Ventures.

The group says the loss of access to European LP funds like the European Investment Fund, the flight of talent which powers UK tech companies due to the uncertainty and scandal around immigration, plus the loss of access to the DSM are adversely affecting the UK tech industry.

(Interest declared: I’m also backing it).

Windows Collaboration Displays are one of the more interesting bits to come out of Microsoft’s Computex keynote today. The company hasn’t released a ton of information about the hardware platform. At first glance, they appear to be similar to Microsoft’s own Surface Hub digital whiteboard offering, but are actually “a non-compute peripheral extending the PC desktop experience to room scale,” according to the company. In other words, they function more along the lines of a large display, rather than a stand alone unit. 

The system is built around Microsoft 365 tools and is designed to work with the company’s software offerings like Office, Teams and Whiteboard. Sensors on the board utilize the company’s Azure IoT spatial intelligence capabilities. There’s a long blog post about that tech over here, but the system essentially uses room measurements to build adaptive models.

“For example,” the company explains, “in an office environment spatial intelligence can enable better management of heating, cooling, and room-booking systems based on how the space is actually used.”

Microsoft has already signed up a couple of third-party hardware manufacturers to build Collaboration Displays, including Sharp (pictured above) and touchscreen display maker, Avocor. The systems will feature both touchscreen and pen inputs, stereo speakers, a camera and a far-field microphone sytem. 

Those products will be available at some point later this year. No word on cost, but Microsoft is promising “low price points,” which likely means they’ll come in under the Surface Hub, which starts at $9,000. 

If you have an essential Internet of Things device running Windows 10 IoT Core Service, you don’t want to be worried about security and OS patches over a period of years. Microsoft wants to help customers running these kinds of devices with a new program that guarantees 10 years of updates.

The idea is that as third-party partners build applications on top of the Windows 10 IoT Core Services, these OEMs, who create the apps, can pay Microsoft to guarantee updates for these devices for a decade. This can help assure customers that they won’t be vulnerable to attack on these critical systems from unpatched applications.

The service does more than provide updates though. It also gives OEMs the ability to manage the updates and assess the device’s health.

“The Windows IoT Core service offering is enabling partners to commercialize secure IoT devices backed by industry-leading support. And so device makers will have the ability to manage updates for the OS, for the apps and for the settings for OEM-specific files,” Dinesh Narayanan, director of business development for emerging markets explained.

It gives OEMs creating Windows-powered applications on machines like healthcare devices or ATMs this ability to manage them over an extended period. That’s particularly important as these devices tend to have a more extended usage period than say a PC or tablet.”We want to extend support and commit to that support over the long haul for these devices that have a longer life cycle,” Narayanan said.

Beyond the longevity, the service also provides customers with access to the Device Update Center where they can control and customize how and when the devices get updated. It also includes another level of security called Device Health Attestation that allows the OEMs to evaluate the trustworthiness of the devices before they update them using a third party service.

All of this is designed to give Microsoft a foothold in the growing IoT space and to provide an operating system for these devices as they proliferate. While predictions vary dramatically, Gartner has predicted that at least 20 billion connected devices will be online in 2020.

While not all of these will be powered by Windows, or require advanced management capabilities, those that do can be assured if their vendor uses this program that they can manage the devices and keep them up-to-date. And when it comes to the Internet of Things, chances are that’s going to be critical.