Year: 2019

Risk and compliance management platform VComply announced today that it has picked up a $2.5 million seed round led by Accel Partners for its international growth plan. The funding will be used to acquire more customers in the United States, open a new office in the United Kingdom to support customers in Europe and expand its presence in New Zealand and Australia.

The company was founded in 2016 by CEO Harshvardhan Kariwala and has customers in a wide range of industries, including Acreage Holdings, Ace Energy Solutions, CHD, the United Kingdom’s Department of International Trade and Burger King. It currently claims about 4,000 users in more than 100 countries. VComply is meant to be used by all departments in a company, with compliance information organized into a central dashboard.

While there are already a roster of governance, risk and compliance management solutions on the market (including ones from Oracle, HPE, Thomson Reuters, IBM and other established enterprise software companies), VComply’s competitive edge may be its flexibility, simple user interface and easy deployment (the company claims customers can on-board and start using the solution for compliance tasks in about 30 minutes). It also seeks out smaller companies whose needs have not been met by compliance solutions meant for large enterprises.

Kariwala told TechCrunch in an email that he began thinking of creating a new risk and compliance solution while working at his first startup LIME Learning Systems, an education management platform, after being hit with a $4,000 penalty due to a non-compliance issue.

“Believe me, $4,000 really hurts when you’re bootstrapped and trying to save every single cent you can. In this case, I had asked our outsourced accounting partners to manage this compliance and they forgot!” he said. After talking to other entrepreneurs, he realized compliance posed a challenge for most of them. LIME’s team built an internal compliance tracking tool for their own use, but also shared it with other people. After getting good feedback, Kariwala realized that despite the many governance, risk and compliance management solutions already on the market, there was still a gap in the market, especially for smaller businesses.

VComply is designed so organizations can customize it for their industry’s regulations and standards, as well as their own workflow and data needs, with competitive pricing for small to medium-sized organizations (a subscription starts at $3,999 a year).

“Most of the traditional GRC solutions that exist today are expensive, have a steep learning curve and entail a prolonged deployment. Not only are they expensive, they are also rigid, which means that organizations have little to no control or flexibility,” Kariwala said. “A GRC tool is often looked at as an expense, while it should really be treated as an investment. It is particularly the SMB sector that suffers the most. With the current solutions costing thousands of dollars (and sometimes millions), it becomes the least of their priorities to invest in a GRC platform, and as a result they fall prey to heightened risks and hefty penalties for non-compliance.”

In a press statement, Accel partner Dinesh Katiyar said “The first generation of GRC solutions primarily allowed companies to comply with industry-mandated regulations. However, the modern enterprise needs to govern its operations to maintain integrity and trust, and monitor internal and external risks to stay successful. That is where VComply shines, and we’re delighted to be partnering with a company that can redefine the future of enterprise risk management.”

b8ta, the retail as a service startup that has partnered with the likes of Google and Macy’s, is getting into the kids’ toys space. As part of a new joint venture with Tru Kids Brands, which owns Toys “R” Us, b8ta will bring its expertise in experiential retail to the iconic children’s toy store. Both entities will own 50% of the venture.

After about eight to ten months of working together, b8ta and Tru Kids Brands are pulling back the curtains on what they’ve been working on. With these new stores, parents and kids can expect theaters for movies and video games, a treehouse where kids can play, STEAM workshops and more. The first two stores, which will open in November in Houston and New Jersey, are about 6,500 square feet with future stores being closer to 10,000-square feet. For context, these are much smaller than the size of the Toys “R” Us stores people became used to, which were about 30,000-square feet.

b8ta’s solution offers brands that want a physical presence with an experiential-driven store that comes with software for checkout, inventory, point of sale, inventory management, staff scheduling services and more. That means toy brands will have the option to pay to showcase their products in an interactive way Toys “R” Us. Those brands can then manage their in-store experiences and give customers the options to buy things in the store, or direct them to buy online.

“I think there is an interesting mash up between experiential retail that b8ta has been perfecting in its store with those hands-on experiences,” Tru Kids Brands CEO Richard Berry told TechCrunch. “Having the ability for brands to showcase things and give them online experiences too.”

This joint venture comes after Tru Kids Brands announced the return of Toys “R” Us in February, following the toy store shuttering its operations in the U.S. last year. For b8ta, it seems to have found a niche with struggling retailers. Last June, Macy’s acquired a minority stake in b8ta and used it to enhance some of its spaces. That came during a time when Macy’s was closing a bunch of its stores.

With Toys “R” Us, b8ta saw this as an opportunity to expand into the kids category.

“As you may recall, we had mentioned we were interested in taking our business model and our approach to designing stores in other categories,” b8ta CEO Vibhu Norby told TechCrunch. “Last year, we took a serious interest in the kids space. Around the same time, we heard the news aout what happened at Toys ‘R’ Us and thought it was interesting.”

Fast forward a bit to when Norby was introduced to Berry, and that’s when they landed on the idea for a joint-venture to operate Toys “R” Us in the U.S. Next year, the companies will open additional locations in high-traffic areas throughout the U.S. To date, b8ta has raised $39 million in funding from Macy’s, Sound Ventures, Khosla Ventures and others.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was all set to launch its Chandrayaan-2 mission to deliver a rover to the Moon’s South Pole last week, but a “technical snag” observed during the last hour of launch prep put a hold on those plans. Now, ISRO has officially set a new date for the launch: Monday, July 22, 2019 at 2:43 PM IST (5:13 AM EST).

Chandrayaan-2 will aim to deliver a lunar orbiter to the Moon, which will have a lunar lander and rover on board. It’ll be the first attempt by any space agency to soft land a rover at the Moon’s South Pole, as well as India’s first attempt at this kind of soft decent, where a lander attempts to control its path the moon’s surface and touch down gently, instead of an orbiter essentially just firing an impact-shielded vessel at the surface with research equipment on board. India will become only the fourth country to have managed this kind of Moon landing, if the mission is successful.

We’ll provide a live stream closer to the launch date, and it should be quite the sight to see when the GSLV Mk-III rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft makes its way to orbit.

Intel announced a deep partnership with SAP today around using advanced Intel technology to optimize SAP software tools. Specifically the company plans to tune its Intel Xeon Scalable processors and Intel Optane DC persistent memory for SAP’s suite of applications.

The multi-year partnership includes giving SAP early access to emerging Intel technologies and building a Center of Excellence. “We’re announcing is a multi-year technology partnership that’s focused on optimizing Intel’s platform innovations… across the entire portfolio of SAP’s end-to-end enterprise software applications including SAP S/4HANA,” Rajeeb Hazra, corporate vice president of Intel’s Enterprise and Government Business told TechCrunch.

He says that this will cover broad areas of Intel technology including CPU, accelerators, data center, persistent memory and software infrastructure. “We’re taking all of that data-centric portfolio to move data faster, store data more efficiently, and process all kinds of data for all kinds of workloads,” he explained.

The idea is to work closely together to help customers understand and use the two sets of technologies in tandem in a more efficient manner. “The goal here is [to expose] a broad portfolio of Intel technologies for the data-centric era, close collaboration with SAP to accelerate the pace of innovation of SAP’s entire broad suite of enterprise class applications, while making it easier for customers to see, test and deploy this technology,” he said.

Irfan Kahn, president of Platform and Technologies at SAP says this partnership should help deliver better performance across the SAP suite of products including SAP S/4HANA, its in-memory database product. “Our expanded partnership with Intel will accelerate our customers’ move to SAP S/4HANA by allowing organizations to unlock the value of data assets with greater ease and operate with increased visibility, focus and agility,” Kahn said in a statement.

Hazra says that this is part of a broader enterprise strategy the company has been undertaking for many years, but it is focusing specifically on SAP for this agreement because of its position in the enterprise software ecosystem. He believes that by partnering with SAP at this level, the two companies can gain further insight that could help customers as they use advanced technologies like AI and machine learning.

“This partnership is [significant for us] given SAP’s focus and position in the markets that they serve with enterprise class applications, and the importance of what they’re doing for our core enterprise customers in those areas of the enterprise. This includes the emerging areas of machine learning and AI. With their suite [of products], it gives those customers the ability to accelerate innovation in their businesses by being able to see, touch, feel and consume this innovation much more efficiently,” he said.

A long-running European antitrust investigation into whether Qualcomm used predatory pricing when selling UMTS baseband chips about a decade ago has landed the chipmaker with a fine of €242 million (~$271M) — aka, 1.27% of its global revenue for 2018.

The EU regulator concluded Qualcomm used abusive pricing to force its main rival at the time, UK-based company Icera, out of the market — by selling certain quantities of three of its UMTS chipsets below cost to two strategically important customers: Chinese tech companies Huawei and ZTE.

Commenting on the decision in a statement, competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, said: “Baseband chipsets are key components so mobile devices can connect to the Internet. Qualcomm sold these products at a price below cost to key customers with the intention of eliminating a competitor. Qualcomm’s strategic behaviour prevented competition and innovation in this market, and limited the choice available to consumers in a sector with a huge demand and potential for innovative technologies. Since this is illegal under EU antitrust rules, we have today fined Qualcomm €242M.“

Qualcomm has come out fighting in response — dismissing what it dubs as the Commission’s “novel theory” and saying it plans to appeal.

It also says it will provide a financial guarantee in lieu of paying the fine while this appeal is pending.

The case — which was triggered by a complaint filed by Icera — dates back to 2015, and relates to Qualcomm business practices between 2009 and 2011. The baseband chipsets in question were used over the period for connecting smartphones and tablets to cellular networks, including 3G networks, and for both for voice and data transmission.

The Commission says Icera had been offering advanced data rate performance vs Qualcomm’s chipsets, thereby posing a threat to the latter’s business.

The EU regulator found Qualcomm held a dominant position in the global market for UMTS baseband chipset between 2009 and 2011 — when it had a marketshare of around 60% (almost 3x that of its biggest competitor), as well as on the high barriers to entry to the market — such as significant initial investments in R&D for designing such chipsets  and IP barriers given the volume of related patents Qualcomm holds.

European competition rules mean those holding a dominant position in a market have a special responsibility not to abuse their powerful position by restricting competition.

The Commission says its conclusion that Qualcomm engaged in predatory pricing during the probe period is based on a price-cost test for the three Qualcomm chipsets concerned; and “a broad range of qualitative evidence demonstrating the anti-competitive rationale behind Qualcomm’s conduct, intended to prevent Icera from expanding and building market presence”.

“The results of the price-cost test are consistent with the contemporaneous evidence gathered by the Commission in this case,” it writes. “The targeted nature of the price concessions made by Qualcomm allowed it to maximise the negative impact on Icera’s business, while minimising the effect on Qualcomm’s own overall revenues from the sale of UMTS chipsets. There was also no evidence that Qualcomm’s conduct created any efficiencies that would justify its practice.

“On this basis, the Commission concluded that Qualcomm’s conduct had a significant detrimental impact on competition. It prevented Icera from competing in the market, stifled innovation and ultimately reduced choice for consumers.”

In May 2011 Icera was acquired for $367M by US tech company Nvidia — which the Commission notes then decided to wind down the baseband chipset business line in 2015.

In its press release responding to the decision, Qualcomm’s Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel, comes out throwing punches — claiming the Commission’s theory is without precedent and “inconsistent”.

“The Commission spent years investigating sales to two customers, each of whom said that they favored Qualcomm chips not because of price but because rival chipsets were technologically inferior.  This decision is unsupported by the law, economic principles or market facts, and we look forward to a reversal on appeal,” he writes. “The Commission’s decision is based on a novel theory of alleged below-cost pricing over a very short time period and for a very small volume of chips. There is no precedent for this theory, which is inconsistent with well-developed economic analysis of cost recovery, as well as Commission practice.

“Contrary to the Commission’s findings, Qualcomm’s alleged conduct did not cause anticompetitive harm to Icera, the company that filed the complaint. Icera was later acquired by Nvidia for hundreds of millions of dollars and continued to compete in the relevant market for several years after the end of the alleged conduct. We cooperated with Commission officials every step of the way throughout the protracted investigation, confident that the Commission would recognize that there were no facts supporting a finding of anti-competitive conduct.  On appeal we will expose the meritless nature of this decision.”

The size of the fine being issued to Qualcomm — which is dwarfed by the $1.23BN fine also handed out to the company by EU regulators a year ago (for iPhone LTE chipset related market abuse) — has been calculated on the basis of the value of its direct and indirect sales of UMTS chipsets in the European Economic Area, with the Commission also factoring in the duration of the infringement it found to have taken place.

In addition to being fined, the Commission decision orders Qualcomm not to engage in the same or equivalent practices in the future.

It’s the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, so it’s no surprise that Google’s daily doodle celebrates this milestone today. To mark the event, Google teamed up with NASA and Michael Collins, the astronaut who piloted the remained on the command module while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the moon.

Besides the usual doodle and animation, Google’s team created a video with Collins in which he narrates the sequence of events from his perspective. Not a lot of people can say that they orbited the moon while sipping on a hot cup of coffee, after all.

It’s a fun video to watch, maybe precisely because it features Collins, who most people probably don’t know all that much about.

Earlier this month, Google also launched a couple of other Apollo 11-themed experiences, including an AR recreation of the command module that you can see after you search for ‘Apollo 11’ on your Android or iOS phone.

Plaid has always been about helping developers build financial applications. Up until now that has involved standard checking and savings, and more recently investments. Today, they are introducing a new product called Liabilities endpoint to help developers build applications around debt. For starters, they are taking aim at a big problem in the US, student loan debt.

The product will expand to cover other kinds of debt over time, but the company wanted to start with student loans because of the depth of the problem. “We’re launching with student loan data given the crisis levels it has reached in the U.S., where it is the second largest debt category behind mortgage. Today, over 44 million people, hold $1.6 trillion in outstanding loans,” Plaid’s Kate Adamson wrote in a blog post introducing the new product.

She added that this level of debt is having an impact on people’s ability to save for larger life milestones like getting married, buying a home and saving for retirement. Plaid says that it is launching this new product to help developers build applications that will in turn help borrowers better manage their debt.

To do this, the new API gives developers access to data from a number of large student loan debt managers including Navient, Nelnet, FedLoan, Great Lakes and others. Eventually, they hope to layer on other types of debt services, so that developers can build applications with a total view of a person’s debt, and perhaps suggest ways to reduce it more quickly, or understand how the accruing interest is adding to their overall debt load.

The Liabilities product along with the investments tool introduced earlier this year shows that Plaid is trying to expand into a full service financial technology platform. Among the companies using Plaid to power their apps are Transferwise, Venmo, Acorns, Robinhood and Expensify.

The company has raised over $350 million since it launched in 2012. The most recent round at the end of last year was for $250 million at a $2.65 billion valuation.

Smartphones have become a creative playground thanks to cameras and innovative apps, such as PicsArt. With PicsArt, anybody can add filters, stickers and tweak photos and videos in many different ways. It has been a massive hit with 130 million monthly active users. And that’s why I’m excited to announce that PicsArt founder and CEO Hovhannes Avoyan is joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin.

PicsArt started with a simple app that lets you edit photos before sharing them. There are many companies in this space, including VSCO, Snapseed and Prisma. But PicsArt has managed to become a cultural phenomenon in many countries including China.

If you’re thinking about editing a photo or video in one way or another, chances are you can do it in PicsArt. In addition to traditional editing tools (cropping, rotating, curves, etc.), you can add filters, auto-beautify your face, change your hair color, add stickers and text, cut out your face and use masks just like in Photoshop… I’m not going to list everything you can do because it’s a long list.

The result is an app packed with features that lets you express yourself, create visual storytelling and improve your social media skills. If you’re an Instagram user, chances you’ve seen more than one photo that has been edited using PicsArt.

While the app is free with ads, users can also subscribe to a premium subscription to unlock additional features. And PicsArt is not just about editing as you can also use the app as its own social network.

PicsArt is based in the U.S. and has raised $45 million over the years. But the company is also betting big on Armenia with a big engineering team over there.

And it’s a natural fit as Hovhannes Avoyan is originally from Armenia. In addition to PicsArt, he has founded many successful startups in the past — Lycos, Bertelsmann, GFI, Teamviewer and Helpsystems. Many entrepreneurs would have a hard time founding just one of these companies, so I can’t wait to hear how Avoyan manages to work on so many different products and turn those products into successes.

Buy your ticket to Disrupt Berlin to listen to this discussion and many others. The conference will take place on December 11-12.

In addition to panels and fireside chats, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield to compete for the highly coveted Battlefield Cup.

Hovhannes Avoyan is a serial entrepreneur, investor and scholar. He is the founder and CEO of PicsArt, the #1 photo and video editing app and community with more than 130 million monthly active users. PicsArt is backed by Sequoia Capital, Insight Venture Partners, DCM and Siguler Guff. The company employs more than 350 people and is headquartered in San Francisco with offices across the globe in Yerevan, Armenia; Los Angeles; Beijing; and an AI Lab in Moscow.

Avoyan brings more than 25 years of experience in computer programming and global business management. Prior to PicsArt, Avoyan founded five other startups, all of which had successful acquisitions by global companies including Lycos, Bertelsmann, GFI, Teamviewer, and Helpsystems.

He is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s Bertelsmann Senior Executive's program. He received his B.S. and M.S. from the State Engineering University of Armenia and his M.A. in Political Science and International Affairs from the American University of Armenia. He’s also a frequent speaker at business conferences on topics ranging from business strategy to international team building and Al.

Business travel SaaS startup, TravelPerk, has announced it’s more than doubled the $44M Series C round we wrote about just nine months ago — taking in a further $60M from its existing investors, which brings the round to $104M, and the business’ total raised to date to $134M.

Investors increasing the size of their Series C commitment are Kinnevik, partners of DST Global, Target Global, Felix Capital, Sunstone, and LocalGlobe.

A mere three years ago the 2015-founded, Barcelona-based startup had bagged a $7M Series A — with a pitch to take the pain out of business travel booking.

Since then it’s been on a major growth tear. Co-founder and CEO Avi Meir says this momentum is behind the Series C expansion.

“We grew faster than expected,” he tells TechCrunch. “Unit economics are fantastic. Investors have been pushing us to inject more funding, accelerate our growth, and expand faster. We weren’t looking for more runway.

“We always knew that expanding this round was an option depending on performance, and as we exceeded even our most optimistic targets, we had the choice to stay on our same path or become even more aggressive.”

“The team has grown 250% since January and bookings on the platform have increased by 300%,” he adds. “The number of active users has grown by 150% this year compared to last. When you look at those two numbers side-by-side, it demonstrates that not only are we adding customers, but our existing ones are booking more often.”

TravelPerk now has more than 2,000 customers for its business travel booking platform — including some very familiar names n the European startup scene, such as Adyen, Farfetch, Transferwise, Sumup, GetYourGuide and Glovo.

It’s not disclosing the latest valuation of the business but Meir says it’s more than doubled in the last eight months — due to “rapid growth”.

He’s also not sharing the GMV target for the year — but says it’s 300% higher than last year.

The extra Series C funds will be ploughed into further fuelling its European expansion.

It is also trailing “major product additions in the coming weeks and months” — which TravelPerk claims will bring “a new level of disruption to the pricing structure of an industry that is still dominated by outdated solutions that make business travel expensive and painful”.

It’s certainly true that won’t have to ask too many office workers before you’ll find someone more than willing to hate long and loud on legacy platforms their employer forces them to use when they need to book a work trip.

“In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be releasing products that give the business traveler more freedom and flexibility than ever before,” says Meir. “Meaning business travelers are not restricted by the rigid, outdated systems of the travel industry. With these releases, we’ll not be playing catchup with the leisure travel industry, but bringing to market features designed specifically for the business traveler.”

Given the sustained growth tear that’s encouraged its investors to increase their commitments, what about an IPO? Is that now fast looming on the horizon for TravelPerk?

“It’s a very natural path for us,” says Meir. “We don’t have a hard and fast plan, we’re focused on building a really big company that will be a market leader for years to come, and we’re certainly not at all focused on selling.”

“We want to be THE choice for the modern business traveler,” he adds. “A no-brainer choice for anyone booking, managing, reporting, or analyzing their business travel.”

Discussing the startup’s plans for the next year, he says they’ll aim to bolster their position with SMEs in Europe — and “expand outwards”

“We’re planning to have 430 people hired by the end of this year, and more than 580 by end of 2020 – that’s nearly doubling in a year,” he continues. “This is the plan as it stands today, I wouldn’t be surprised if next year is an even higher trajectory. Certainly that’s the pattern when I look back at our journey so far.”

Commenting in a statement, Antoine Nussenbaum, partner at Felix Capital added: “We are excited to see Avi and his team hitting and surpassing their objectives, as a result we are doubling up our investment as part of this large Series C.

“We’re delighted to be strengthening our relationship with TravelPerk and look forward to seeing the business continue to grow. We are particularly thrilled about the new features soon to be released which will materially transform the traveller experience — building on TravelPerk’s leadership position as the new standard for business travel.”

EBay said today it is buying a 5.5% stake in e-commerce marketplace Paytm Mall as the global firm makes another push to gain footprint in India’s fast-growing e-commerce market.

The two firms did not disclose financial terms of the deal, but a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that EBay has invested between $150 million to $200 million in Paytm Mall at a valuation of $3 billion, up from under $2 billion last year. Paytm Mall had raised about $650 million prior to today’s announcement, the source said.

The agreement will see more than a million products of EBay be made available for purchase to users on Paytm Mall, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO of Paytm said in a statement. “We will jointly select the inventory we want to bring here. It will be done in a month’s time,” he added. EBay will continue to operate its e-commerce site in India, the company said.

The deal could strengthen Paytm Mall’s position in India, where it competes with Walmart -owned Flipkart, and Amazon India. Online retail sales in India are expected to grow to about $72 billion in three years, according to research firm eMarketer.

Paytm Mall, which is backed by SoftBank, Alibaba, Ant Financial, and SAIF Partners, reported GMV sales of $188 million in 2018. In last one year, sales at the e-commerce arm of One97 Communications, which also runs Paytm wallet, has lost momentum after it cut down the lofty offers it was bandying out to customers, according to an Economic Times report.

Like Amazon and Flipkart, Paytm Mall operated on an inventory-led model in India, but has in recent months shifted to an offline-to-online model, wherein orders placed by customers are serviced from local brand stores. Paytm Mall claims to have over 100,000 seller partners on its platform.

This is EBay’s third investment in India. The company made its first investment in the country in Snapdeal in 2013, and then on Flipkart. After the Indian firm was acquired by Walmart for $16 billion, EBay sold its stake for $1.1 billion and relaunched its e-commerce site with cross-border trade as its new focus.

“We are deeply committed to India and believe there is huge growth potential and significant opportunity in this dynamic market,” said Jooman Park, Senior Vice President of EBay’s APAC business. “This new relationship will accelerate our cross-border trade efforts in a rapidly growing market, providing hundreds of millions of Paytm and Paytm Mall customers with access to EBay’s unparalleled selection of goods.”