Year: 2019

Following the recent news about the Badoo and Bumble and Badoo exit there is more consolidation in the dating app space. It seems many dating apps are running for the exits ahead of the launch of dating on Facebook.

The Dating.com Group – an investment of SDVentures – has acquired Dil Mil, a San Francisco-based dating app for expats from India and other South Asian countries. The acquisition was via a combination of cash and Dating.com Group stock. According to Dating.com, the deal values the company at up to $50 million. 

CEO and founder KJ Dhaliwal will continue to manage the company and will join Dating.com Group’s M&A and Strategy committees, as well as the Dating.com Group Advisory Board.

Dil Mil has effectively become the ‘Tinder for South Asians’, has over 1 million users in the US, UK, & Canada, and has spread its influence both via the app, as well as events, music, and art. It’s run campaigns with Bollywood superstars like Shilpa Shetty, “Love is” with leading South Asian influencers, and events like the Sessions Music Festival in New York City.

The portfolio of Dating.com Group already includes numerous brands including Dating.com, DateMyAge, LovingA, Tubit, AnastasiaDate, ChinaLove and others.

Dhaliwal said in a statement: “When we started Dil Mil, our vision was to empower the world to find love. I’m glad Dil Mil can continue to realize this vision with the support of Dating.com Group. As the dating app market becomes more competitive with companies like Facebook entering, we wanted to partner with a strong strategic player in this space.”

The idea for Dil Mil came to him after he realized his friends and family were having a hard time finding partners. He saw an opportunity to build a modern, reliable, safe platform specifically for South Asians to connect with each other. Existing methods like arranged marriages were outdated, while services offered by other apps were just not culturally appropriate.
 
Maria Sullivan (Vice President of Dating.com Group & Board Director at Dil Mil) commented: “Dating.com Group sees great potential in Indian and other South Asian markets. Dil Mil’s small yet talented team managed to build the leading company in its niche. The team will continue to manage the company while Dating.com Group will provide additional resources to help Dil Mil grow further. Dating.com Group plans to continue to acquire successful companies in the social discovery space.”

On average, Indians have the highest family income and postgraduate education ratio among foreign-born populations in America. The Indian diaspora is the largest in the world (30 million people). Continued growth is also expected since India is on pace to have the world’s largest population, surpassing China around 2027.

Following the recent news about the Badoo and Bumble and Badoo exit there is more consolidation in the dating app space. It seems many dating apps are running for the exits ahead of the launch of dating on Facebook.

The Dating.com Group – an investment of SDVentures – has acquired Dil Mil, a San Francisco-based dating app for expats from India and other South Asian countries. The acquisition was via a combination of cash and Dating.com Group stock. According to Dating.com, the deal values the company at up to $50 million. 

CEO and founder KJ Dhaliwal will continue to manage the company and will join Dating.com Group’s M&A and Strategy committees, as well as the Dating.com Group Advisory Board.

Dil Mil has effectively become the ‘Tinder for South Asians’, has over 1 million users in the US, UK, & Canada, and has spread its influence both via the app, as well as events, music, and art. It’s run campaigns with Bollywood superstars like Shilpa Shetty, “Love is” with leading South Asian influencers, and events like the Sessions Music Festival in New York City.

The portfolio of Dating.com Group already includes numerous brands including Dating.com, DateMyAge, LovingA, Tubit, AnastasiaDate, ChinaLove and others.

Dhaliwal said in a statement: “When we started Dil Mil, our vision was to empower the world to find love. I’m glad Dil Mil can continue to realize this vision with the support of Dating.com Group. As the dating app market becomes more competitive with companies like Facebook entering, we wanted to partner with a strong strategic player in this space.”

The idea for Dil Mil came to him after he realized his friends and family were having a hard time finding partners. He saw an opportunity to build a modern, reliable, safe platform specifically for South Asians to connect with each other. Existing methods like arranged marriages were outdated, while services offered by other apps were just not culturally appropriate.
 
Maria Sullivan (Vice President of Dating.com Group & Board Director at Dil Mil) commented: “Dating.com Group sees great potential in Indian and other South Asian markets. Dil Mil’s small yet talented team managed to build the leading company in its niche. The team will continue to manage the company while Dating.com Group will provide additional resources to help Dil Mil grow further. Dating.com Group plans to continue to acquire successful companies in the social discovery space.”

On average, Indians have the highest family income and postgraduate education ratio among foreign-born populations in America. The Indian diaspora is the largest in the world (30 million people). Continued growth is also expected since India is on pace to have the world’s largest population, surpassing China around 2027.

Lionel Messi, who’s still arguably the greatest soccer player in the world, signed his first contract with FC Barcelona when he was thirteen years old. Although he grew up in a small town in central Argentina, he had captured the attention of some of the world’s most famous soccer teams when he was only eleven years old.

While Messi’s rags to riches story is the stuff that sports dreams are made of, it’s impossible for the world’s best teams to get a window into all of the world’s best players, thanks to the game’s incredibly low barrier to entry. Anyone can play soccer. All a kid needs is something to serve as a ball and enough space to run. And, in all, the sport boasts some 4 billion players and fans around the world.

Now there’s an app called Gloria which is trying to ensure that anyone who plays — and has access to a smartphone — can get noticed.

Victoire Cogevina and Matias Castello co-founded the company a year ago in San Francisco and have just raised an undisclosed pre-seed round from investors including Initialized Capital, the Los Angeles-based firm Muse Capital, and angel investors including my boss’ boss Guru Gowrappan, the chief executive of Verizon Media Group (hi ultimate boss).

As a result of the investment Initialized’s Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, is taking a seat on the company’s board of directors.

Gloria co-founders, Matias Castello and Victoire Cogevina, and Initialized co-founder Alexis Ohanian

Cogevina and Castello met and bonded over their shared Argentine history (both co-founders were born there) and love of the world’s most popular sport. Castello’s father actually played for Racing, the team that Cogevina supported back home.

A former sports agent in Argentina, Cogevina had relocated to San Francisco to start up the company and, after several months, convinced Castello to leave his position at Facebook and join her at the company full time.

“What we’re bringing is an alternative to those few things that already exist for kids,” says Castello. “If they’re very talented they integrate into an academy [but] you need quite a bit of money. It costs money to join those things. That adds to the problem that it’s hard to get discovered.”

There’s also a bandwidth issue for the club teams themselves. The best funded teams, like Boca Juniors and River Plate have extensive scouting networks. A country like Argentina has between 3 million and 3.5 million players, says Castello, and scouts see maybe 50,000 players per year.

Currently, athletes looking for their big break are either discovered on YouTube or pay their way to attend some of the academies that exist where they can get noticed, says Cogevina. Gloria, meanwhile is purpose built for soccer clubs, thanks to assistance from people like the scouting director for U.S. club team, the Seattle Sounders.

“We know how much academies to get discovered cost,” says Castello. “They can cost $20,000 to $50,000 that’s very high to paying $2.99 a month for a pro feature in an app.”

Currently in beta, app is free to use, and athletes can set up profiles just as they would for a social network. Future versions of the app will have professional tools like additional coaching features, the two co-founders said.

Gloria is starting off in Argentina, where the company has already signed up a few of the nation’s biggest soccer clubs as customers.

Lionel Messi, who’s still arguably the greatest soccer player in the world, signed his first contract with FC Barcelona when he was thirteen years old. Although he grew up in a small town in central Argentina, he had captured the attention of some of the world’s most famous soccer teams when he was only eleven years old.

While Messi’s rags to riches story is the stuff that sports dreams are made of, it’s impossible for the world’s best teams to get a window into all of the world’s best players, thanks to the game’s incredibly low barrier to entry. Anyone can play soccer. All a kid needs is something to serve as a ball and enough space to run. And, in all, the sport boasts some 4 billion players and fans around the world.

Now there’s an app called Gloria which is trying to ensure that anyone who plays — and has access to a smartphone — can get noticed.

Victoire Cogevina and Matias Castello co-founded the company a year ago in San Francisco and have just raised an undisclosed pre-seed round from investors including Initialized Capital, the Los Angeles-based firm Muse Capital, and angel investors including my boss’ boss Guru Gowrappan, the chief executive of Verizon Media Group (hi ultimate boss).

As a result of the investment Initialized’s Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, is taking a seat on the company’s board of directors.

Gloria co-founders, Matias Castello and Victoire Cogevina, and Initialized co-founder Alexis Ohanian

Cogevina and Castello met and bonded over their shared Argentine history (both co-founders were born there) and love of the world’s most popular sport. Castello’s father actually played for Racing, the team that Cogevina supported back home.

A former sports agent in Argentina, Cogevina had relocated to San Francisco to start up the company and, after several months, convinced Castello to leave his position at Facebook and join her at the company full time.

“What we’re bringing is an alternative to those few things that already exist for kids,” says Castello. “If they’re very talented they integrate into an academy [but] you need quite a bit of money. It costs money to join those things. That adds to the problem that it’s hard to get discovered.”

There’s also a bandwidth issue for the club teams themselves. The best funded teams, like Boca Juniors and River Plate have extensive scouting networks. A country like Argentina has between 3 million and 3.5 million players, says Castello, and scouts see maybe 50,000 players per year.

Currently, athletes looking for their big break are either discovered on YouTube or pay their way to attend some of the academies that exist where they can get noticed, says Cogevina. Gloria, meanwhile is purpose built for soccer clubs, thanks to assistance from people like the scouting director for U.S. club team, the Seattle Sounders.

“We know how much academies to get discovered cost,” says Castello. “They can cost $20,000 to $50,000 that’s very high to paying $2.99 a month for a pro feature in an app.”

Currently in beta, app is free to use, and athletes can set up profiles just as they would for a social network. Future versions of the app will have professional tools like additional coaching features, the two co-founders said.

Gloria is starting off in Argentina, where the company has already signed up a few of the nation’s biggest soccer clubs as customers.

Artiphon, the startup that previously raised more than $1 million on Kickstarter for a device called the Instrument 1, has launched a new campaign for its latest invention, Orba.

Co-founder and CEO Mike Butera said the Instrument 1 and Orba share “the same DNA,” namely his vision to help music-making become more accessible to everyone, regardless of training or experience.

“I want beginners to feel like pros, but also for pros to feel like beginners again,” Butera told me. “For me, this is just the next step in how we do that.”

With Orba, the Artiphon team has created something that’s smaller and more affordable than the Instrument 1 (which the company still plans to support), and that allows its owner to accomplish more without any software. Butera described it as “a radical simplification of what an instrument can be.”

Orba is a circular device that you can hold in one or two hands — Butera said his team was thinking about game controllers, but also “grapefruits and bowls of miso soup.”

The simplicity comes from the fact that the device’s surface is divided into only eight touch pads — but thanks to Orba’s different modes (drum, bass, chord and lead), plus a variety of touch and motion sensors, you can tap, stroke and shake it to make a wide range of different sounds.

You can play Orba on its own by using the on-board synth, or you can connect it to the Orba app, and to other music software like GarageBand.

Artiphon plans to ship the first Orba devices in April of next year. They will eventually cost $99, but they’re currently available through Kickstarter as a $79 early bird special. (Once the early bird runs out, Orba will still be discounted at $89 for Kickstarter backers.) Artiphon is looking to raise $50,000 through this campaign — it’s already halfway there as I write this.

As for why Artiphon still crowdfunding after raising a seed round earlier this year, Butera said the campaign is “not really about finding the right investors, it’s about finding the right customers.”

He added, “I think it’s just responsible for the product designer to go straight to the customer.”

eBay this morning announced it’s selling its ticket marketplace StubHub to Swiss ticket reseller viagogo for a cash price of $4.05 billion. The deal will merge StubHub U.S.-based marketplace with viagogo, which serves a worldwide audience as a ticket marketplace for live, sport, music, and entertainment events for fans in Europe, Asia, Australia, and Latin America.

The combined entity will sell hundreds of thousands of tickets across over 70 countries, eBay says.

The plan to sell of StubHub was initially sparked by activist investors, Elliott Management Corp. and Starboard Value LP, who began to pressure eBay to exit businesses that weren’t a part of its core marketplace, including StubHub’s ticketing and eBay’s classified ads businesses. StubHub, Elliot had said, could be worth between $3.5 billion and $4.5 billion — and the deal announced today puts the price right in the middle of that range.

eBay has been challenged over the past few years as it has tried to move away from its roots of being an online auction marketplace, to instead battle with e-commerce giants like Amazon. But its stock price had risen just 18% following its 2015 split from PayPal, The Wall Street Journal reported in January.

Meanwhile, eBay has owned StubHub since buying the company in 2007 for $310 million, as a way to more directly invest in the secondary market for tickets, many of which were being resold on eBay itself. The company also in 2016 acquired Spain’s Ticketbis with the goal of further expanding StubHub’s footprint outside the U.S.

As of Q3, StubHub drove $306 million in revenue and gross merchandise volume of $1.2 billion. At the time of its earnings announcement, eBay said it anticipated an update on the StubHub business before the next quarterly earnings.

“We believe this transaction is a great outcome and maximizes long-term value for eBay shareholders,” said Scott Schenkel, interim chief executive officer of eBay Inc., in a statement. “Over the past several months, eBay’s leadership team and Board of Directors have been engaged in a thorough review of our current strategies and portfolio, and we concluded that this was the best path forward for both eBay and StubHub. We firmly believe in the StubHub business and we are excited about its future growth potential with viagogo as its owner.”

Eric Baker, viagogo’s founder and CEO, had also co-founded StubHub while in business school but left at the time of its acquisition. The deal, then, makes for an interesting full circle with StubHub being returned to an original founder.

“It has long been my wish to unite the two companies. I am so proud of how StubHub has grown over the years and excited about the possibilities for our shared future,” Baker said. “Buyers will have a wider choice of tickets, and sellers will have a wider network of buyers. Bringing these two companies together creates a win-win for fans – more choice and better pricing,” he added.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the deal, ahead of eBay’s formal announcement.

A security researcher has found an exposed database on the internet belonging to online printing giant Vistaprint.

Security researcher Oliver Hough discovered the unencrypted database last week. There was no password on the database, allowing anyone to access the data inside. The database was first detected by exposed device and database search engine Shodan on November 5, but it may have been exposed for longer.

Hough tweeted at the company to warn of the security lapse, but has not heard back.

Vistaprint, owned by Netherlands-based parent Cimpress, quietly took the database offline after TechCrunch reached out but did not comment by our deadline. Robert Crosland, a spokesperson for Vistaprint, confirmed the exposure affected customers in the U.S., the U.K. and Ireland.

“This is unacceptable and should not have happened under any circumstances – especially to a fast-paced technology organization like ours that continues to innovate on behalf of our customers. We’re currently carrying out a full investigation to understand what happened and how to prevent any future recurrence. At this time, we do not know whether this data has been accessed beyond the security researcher who found it,” the spokesperson said.

The company said it will inform customers of the security lapse — many of whom are protected under the strict GDPR data protection rules.

The database contained five tables stored with data on more than 51,000 customer service interactions, such as calls to customer service or chats with an online support agent. The data also included personally identifiable information, including names and contact information, which could identify individual customers.

One table named “cases” contained incoming customer queries, including the customer’s name, email address, phone number, and the date and time of their interaction with customer service. Many of those customer service interactions were as recent as mid-September.

The data also contained information hidden from the customer. Each customer service interaction in the “cases” table appeared to have graded the customer’s query based off keywords picked from their query. That helped to determine the customer’s “sentiment”, which then described their complaint as either “negative” or “neutral”. The data also included the “priority” of a customer’s interaction, allowing it to be pushed higher in the queue.

Another table named “chat” contained thousands of customers’ line-by-line online chat interactions with support agents, but also contained information about the customer’s browser and network connection, where they were located, and what operating system they used, and their internet provider.

Some of the recorded chat logs also contained sensitive information like order numbers and postal tracking numbers, but there were no passwords or financial data in the exposed database.

The “emails” table contained entire email threads with customers detailing problems or other issues with their orders. And, the “phone” table contained specific information about each call, including the date and time, how long the customer was kept on hold, a written transcript of the call — often including details of the customer’s orders — and an internal link (which we could not access) to the recording of the call.

The data also contained some account information, including work email addresses and some phone numbers belonging to Vistaprint customer service staff.

According to Hough, the database was not currently sending or receiving data. The database was named “migration,” suggesting the database was used to temporarily store data while it was moved customer records from one server to another.

But it’s not clear why the database was exposed and left online without a password.

It’s the latest example of a security lapse involving lax internal data controls. This year alone, several data exposures have put millions of customers at risk, including online game ‘Magic: The Gathering”, a popular online ‘camgirl’ site, as well as job searching site Monster.com and IT giant Tech Data.

Updated with a statement from Vistaprint.

Related stories:

• A network of ‘camgirl’ sites exposed millions of users and sex workers – TechCrunch
• ‘Magic: The Gathering’ game maker exposed 452,000 players’ account data – TechCrunch
• More than 1 million T-Mobile customers exposed by breach – TechCrunch
• A huge database of Facebook users’ phone numbers found online – TechCrunch
• Monster.com says a third party exposed user data but didn’t tell anyone – TechCrunch
• An anonymous hentai porn site exposed over a million users’ emails – TechCrunch

Lime will become the first major micromobility operator to launch scooters in Africa. Early next year, Lime will roll out electric scooters in Cape Town, South Africa.

Unlike its model in the U.S. and Europe where it deploys scooters on public sidewalks, Lime will deploy its initial fleet of scooters at privately-owned locations throughout the city.

“Cape Town is helping lead the way forward on technology and innovation in Africa, and we’re excited to be a part of that story,” Lime Global Head of Operations and Strategy Wayne Ting said in a press release. “Our mission is to improve urban living through sustainable, affordable transportation, and we’re looking forward to extending meaningful mobility access and reduced carbon emissions to South Africans living in and traveling to Cape Town.”

Lime, however, will not be the only company operating micromobility services on the continent.  Baddel, for example, operates a bike-share program in El Gouna, Egypt. Startup Smoove also operates bike-share in Marrakech, Morrocco. While competitor Bird has yet to deploy scooters in Africa, the company has expressed interest in deploying electric scooters on the continent.

“I definitely am keen to get that solution there as well because there is especially a very young and innovative population there that are very quick to adopt new solutions,” Bird Head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa Patrick Studener told me last July.

In the coming weeks, Lime says it will also deploy scooters in the United Arab Emirates, as well Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Lime’s Abu Dhabi launch will mark Lime’s third market in the Middle East.

Shuttl, a startup that runs an app-based bus aggregator service in India, said on Monday that it has raised $18 million in a new financing round as it looks to scale its business in the country.

Toyota Tsusho Corporate and SPARX Group, through its Mirai Creation Fund II, funded Shuttl’s Series C financing round, the four-year-old startup said. Shuttl — which is based in Gurgaon — has been backed by Amazon and raised about $66.5 million to date.

Shuttl operates about 1,800 buses that clock over 100,000 rides each day in six cities in India. Customers book their rides through the app and on-board the bus through specified bus stations.

The buses on the platform are equipped with a range of safety features such as an emergency button that automatically slows down the bus until completely stopping at the nearest bus stop. It also offers a live feed that any passenger could share with their loved ones.

Another mandatory feature requires drivers to identify themselves before starting the journey and take an instant alcohol test. Passengers, who are required to book a ticket in advance of riding the bus — different from how traditional buses operate in India — are also authenticated before they can get on with their rides.

These safety features have made the service especially popular among women, Amit Singh, cofounder and chief executive of Shuttl, told TechCrunch in a recent interview. More than 40% of Shuttl’s passengers are female, who find the rides on its buses a safer commute option. This is a promising feat, as women only make up for about 20% of India’s workforce, according to industry estimates.

Singh said that Shuttl, which recently added new routes in New Delhi, Chennai, and Kolkata, will use the fresh capital to grow within and beyond its circle of six cities.

Unlike Ola and Uber, Shuttl has been slow with its expansion. Singh explained that Shuttl’s business is different from any other app-based transportation service provider. “If they sign up a large number of drivers, they can service a city rather quickly. For buses, it is different. For one, a bus is not going to show up to a customer’s door. So you have to first figure out different routes. You have to identify a route, establish pick-up points, train drivers, and persuade customers to follow these routes,” he added.

But he is optimistic that Shuttl is inching closer to reaching “escape velocity” — which when it has hit, it would be able to scale at a faster pace.

In a statement, Shigeru Harada, chief operating officer for automotive division of Toyota Tsusho Corporation, said, “Shuttl has taken the lead in solving for traffic congestion and air pollution through a technology-enabled mass transport solution. We look forward to work together with them to disseminate relatively energy efficient MaaS solutions, such as Shuttl’s app-based mass transportation service, through our global network.”

Earlier this year, Shuttl started to provide meals on its buses. Singh said he continues to explore what all value-added services the startup could offer to customers and also to make best use of its logistics network.

As for numbers, Shuttl doubled its revenue in the fiscal year that ended in March. Its revenue crossed 100 crore Indian rupees, or $14 million.

In a letter released this morning from the HP, Inc. board of directors to Xerox, Corp, the company summarily rejected Xerox’s latest take-over offer, saying it significantly undervalues the company. At the same time, it left the door open for further negotiation.

In the letter, HP made it clear, it is not desperate for a buyer, and maintains it would be just fine without combining with Xerox. In fact, it would appear that it’s Xerox that is looking for a savior, even while attempting a hostile takeover of the company.

Indeed, HP is the much larger entity with a market cap exceeding $29 billion, while Xerox’s market cap is just under $8.5 billion. The company sent offer letters to HP on November 5th and 21st outlining its proposed takeover terms. HP rejected both offers.

In the latest letter, made public today, the board stated concerns about the size of the offer and Xerox’s ability to even afford a potential deal. “We reiterate that we reject Xerox’s proposal as it significantly undervalues HP.

“Additionally, it is highly conditional and uncertain. In particular, there continues to be uncertainty regarding Xerox’s ability to raise the cash portion of the proposed consideration and concerns regarding the prudence of the resulting outsized debt burden on the value of the combined company’s stock even if the financing were obtained,” the letter stated.

In addition, HP clearly wasn’t happy with Xerox’s negotiating stance, stating, “It is clear in your aggressive words and actions that Xerox is intent on forcing a potential combination on opportunistic terms and without providing adequate information,” the company wrote.

Yet for all the posturing, HP’s board didn’t shut down the idea completely, writing, “We remain prepared to study the potential value of a combination and to work quickly to learn more about your business trajectory. However, there are significant concerns about both the near-term health and long-term viability of your business that have a significant impact on Xerox’s value.”

HP cited poor financials including missing its revenue targets for four of the last five quarters with revenue falling from $10.2 billion to $9.2 billion in the trailing 12 months dating back to June 2018. Xerox projected this trend would continue into the next fiscal year.

Whether these companies will come to terms eventually remains unknown, but certainly under the proper conditions, there could be gains from combining the two printing giants into a single entity. For now, HP sees itself with the stronger hand, and it’s not folding for the first offer or two that comes along.