Year: 2020

Fintech startup Revolut has introduced a new trading feature for premium users. Starting today, Premium and Metal users can access gold exposure from the app.

Revolut works with a gold services partner (London Bullion Market Association) so that money that you spend on gold exposure is backed by real gold held by this partner. In other words, you’re not going to receive gold coins in the mail. You can just invest money based on the price of gold.

The startup has been building a financial hub and already lets you purchase cryptocurrencies and buy public shares. Gold is part of a new feature called Commodities.

There are multiple ways to invest in gold. You can purchase gold exposure directly at market price, set a limit price to auto-exchange gold when it reaches a certain price or get cashback in gold for Metal customers.

At any time, you can convert your gold investment back into fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies. If you spend money with your Revolut card and you only have gold, Revolut will use your gold exposure automatically. You can also transfer gold exposure to another Revolut user.

According to the company’s website, Revolut charges a 0.25% markup when you trade gold during the week and a 1% markup from Saturday at midnight to Monday at midnight U.K. time.

It’s worth noting that gold isn’t protected through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme in the U.K. “However, in the unlikely event of Revolut’s insolvency, all Precious Metals holdings will be sold and proceeds will be credited to your e-money account,” Revolut says. You’ll have to trust their word.

A few months ago, Atlassian acquired Code Barrel, the Sydney-based company behind the popular Automation for Jira low-code tool for — you guessed it — automating many aspects of Jira. Unsurprisingly, Atlassian then set out to integrate many of these features into the core Jira experience and today, the company is launching these new built-in automation features for all users of Jira Cloud.

“What’s really exciting about automation is that we’re bringing this no-code automation engine to all our customers. If you look at the industry, you know automation is typically seen as a premium feature — you have to pay a bit extra for it,” Matt Ryall, Atlassian’s head of product for Jira Software, told me. “We actually believe it’s a key part of how teams operate today is giving them the control over their own workflows, the ability to automate things in a no-code way, so that every team can automate their workflow and take the pain out of keeping work status information up to date, which is really what Jira does.”

While all Jira Cloud customers, including those on free plans, will get access to these features, paying users will get access to additional features, depending on their subscription level. The base functionality, however, is indeed available to all.

This means the roughly 65,000 customers that use Jira will be able to automate a lot of repetitive tasks like automatically closing tasks, send notifications when there is a high-priority issue, etc. All of this can be done with the help of a drag-and-drop tool that lets you define rules and workflows. Atlassian notes that this also works across multiple Jira Software and Service Desk projects.

What’s just as important, though, is that the tool now integrates with more third-party services. After acquiring Code Barrel, the Jira team focused on building out more of these integrations, which already included support for Microsoft Teams, Slack and Twilio before the acquisition. But now, the automation tools are connected to pretty much all of the data sources that Jira already integrated with, including the likes of Gitlab, GitHub, CircleCI and Jenkins. “It makes Jira much more of a source of truth for the whole organization,” said Ryall. “Now you can keep that data connected, keep the status of work up-to-date automatically based on events coming from the whole variety of tools.”

Looking ahead, Ryall told me that the team will focus on deeper integration with the core Jira experience, but maybe more importantly, it is also looking at how it can bring automation to more of Atlassian’s DevOps and collaboration tools.

Pride. Greed. Lust. Envy. Gluttony. Wrath. Sloth.

You’ve probably heard of the Seven Deadly Sins, but I bet you’ve never wondered how they apply to starting a company. The answer: surprisingly well!

Over the years, I’ve talked about the seven habits every company should try to avoid and the seven (non-biblical) virtues each company should strive for. Done right, they will help founders focus, save time and avoid some common — and painful — mistakes.

For the purpose of this post, I’ve paired each sin with its closest corresponding virtue.

Sin No. 1: Lust (don’t focus on what other companies have)

As a founder, you have to pay attention to your competitors. Just don’t let that attention turn into lust for what they have — whether it’s a flashy marketing campaign, a fancy office or a killer staff.

Executive lust: Lusting after leadership can be especially tempting. So your competitor hired a rockstar executive who seems to be doing all the right things. It’s easy to think you need your own COO, or CRO, or CCO right now — and they need to be just like the person filling that role at the other successful company that looks nothing like yours.

Think carefully about what you need, why and what role that person will play day in and day out. What strengths and weaknesses do they have? What gaps do you need to fill? And what matters most to your customers and your business? It’s also important to think about your stage and your go-to-market model. When it comes to personnel, one size never fits all.

Amazon today rolled out Alexa-enabled voice-powered shopping feature in India as the e-commerce giant looks for new ways to engage with customers in one of its key overseas markets.

The American giant said the feature, currently rolling out to Android users, is available “primarily in English” though it understands proper nouns and regional words across various languages.

“As we brought this functionality to Indian customers, we built custom functionality to cater to India’s unique requirements. We built this keeping the Indian customer at the center, optimizing for myriad accents and products relevant to the Indian customer,” an Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch.

This is the first time Amazon is bringing this feature outside of the U.S., the spokesperson said.

Customers will be able to use Alexa to search for items on the e-commerce platform, add them to the cart, and proceed to checkout — by saying commands such as “Alexa, show me sarees,” “Alexa, add saree to my cart,” and “Alexa, go to checkout.”

Once the order has been placed, users can check the whereabouts of the order through voice as well, by asking “Alexa, where is my delivery?”

Amazon has claimed in the past that its voice-enabled shopping feature is gaining traction, but according to one 2018 report, most users were not showing great appetite for this experience.

But India, where the company has vast presence and has invested over $5.5 billion in the local business, may provide the company with some breakthrough.

As hundreds of Indians came online in the last decade, many have gravitated toward voice to engage with apps and internet services and make searches as they are not comfortable with typing in English. Last year, Google reported that voice queries had grown by 270% over a year in India.

“Recognizing the opportunities, several well-known brands have enabled voice-activated search, including ride sharing apps, e-commerce sites, telcos, and car brands, to name a few,” it wrote in a blog post.

Speedinvest, a seed-stage VC headquartered in Vienna with offices in London, Berlin, Munich and San Francisco, recently disclosed a new €190 million fund that brings the firm’s total assets under management to more than €400 million.

Its remit remains largely the same: Speedinvest broadly targets fintech, deep tech, marketplaces, industrial tech, digital health and consumer tech startups, writing first checks between €50,000 and €1.5 million. Meanwhile, the VC has set aside €100 million of the fund for follow-on investments in its most promising portfolio companies.

A few days before the new fund was unveiled, I put questions to Speedinvest’s CEO, Oliver Holle (picture right), to dig deeper into the firm’s remit and investment thesis, and to learn more about how a VC hailing from Austria routinely punches above its weight.

TechCrunch: Speedinvest is a pan-European seed fund investing in tech companies, writing initial cheques from €50,000 up to €1.5 million but also with the capacity to follow at Series A. Can you perhaps be more specific with regards to the types of founders and startups you look for, and what key indicators are important for businesses that are so early?

Oliver Holle: Speedinvest prides itself on its conviction-driven, founder-centric investment style. What this means is that we are ready to go earlier than most seed-stage funds, based on less measurable traction metrics or KPIs. We have our own pre-seed practice focusing on writing small checks between €50-250,000, which is pretty much pre-everything, except for the founding team.

A leading civil liberties group is suing Homeland Security, claiming the agency is keeping the details of its airport face recognition program secret, which it says raises “profound civil liberties concerns.”

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit in a New York federal court on Thursday, demanding that the agency turns over records to understand the scope of its airport face recognition system. The group wants to know who Homeland Security works with — including private companies and airlines — as well as internal policies and guidance on how the system is used.

The face recognition system is part of a recent government initiative to scan the faces of travelers both arriving and departing the United States. Homeland Security claims the system will help crack down on immigration violations, such as visitors overstaying their visas. Although U.S. citizens can opt-out of having their faces scanned, it’s not always openly advertised.

Already more than a dozen U.S. airports have already rolled out the face scanning technology, with many more to go before the U.S. government hits its target of enrolling the largest 20 airports in the country by 2021.

Yet, the lawsuit says there has been “little information” related to the face scanning system, how it works, the nature of the airline partnerships, or about the privacy safeguards governing the processing and retention of the collected face data. The ACLU said that its recent Freedom of Information Act request to better understand the system has been ignored. Now it’s suing to ask a judge to turn over the documents.

A Homeland Security spokesperson did not immediately comment.

The lawsuit comes just months after the ACLU challenged an effort by Homeland Security to make the face recognition system mandatory for U.S. citizens. Homeland Security backed down from it plans shortly after.

Measurement firm Comscore announced this morning a partnership with Amazon-owned game streaming site, Twitch. The deal will see Comscore measuring video streaming activity across Twitch, including gaming and esports, as well as other audience viewing metrics. This will allow advertisers to get a better understanding of video viewing behavior on Twitch, which helps them in targeting their campaigns to reach key demographics.

Specifically, Comscore says it will measure things like minutes spent and content minutes per ad minute, which are important to advertisers. In time, the partnership will expand the integration to other areas — including a launch in additional markets outside the U.S. and Canada, where it’s going live now, as well as to category- and genre-level reporting.

Twitch today remains the No. 1 game streaming site, despite the recent losses of top streamers to rivals like Microsoft Mixer, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Live. Last year, Twitch competitors wooed away key talent like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wan, and Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios. In Q1 2020, Corinna Kopf left Twitch as well. As the losses climbed, Twitch saw its hours watched and streamed drop in Q4 2019.

The company is now fighting back. It just signed a deal to retain its top female streamer and 10th most popular overall streamer, Pokimane, earlier this month.

However, despite the talent loss, Twitch’s growth is continuing. The site is expected to top 40 million U.S. viewers next year, according to eMarketer. By 2023, it will reach 47 million. That’s made it too big for the tech giants to ignore, analysts said.

Twitch needs to prove its worth to the advertising community.

The site generated $230 million in ad revenue in 2018, which increased to $300 million last year, according to a report by The Information. But this fell far short of Twitch’s own internal goals, the report claimed. Today, the streaming service still continues to experiment with growth outside of the gaming vertical, with areas like classic TV streams and vlogging, but it has not made non-game streams a core part of the Twitch experience. Amazon also hasn’t capitalized on its acquisition, either to boost its own gaming unit’s titles or integrate Twitch’s live streams with its own video offerings or its Fire TV business.

“Our new partnership with Twitch is more proof of Comscore’s dedication to innovation within audience measurement and across screens,” said Carol Hinnant, Comscore’s Chief Revenue Officer, in a statement. “In a time where gaming and esports are gaining momentum, our partnership will ensure the industry can understand consumption and take advantage of trends in this space.”

In addition, while real-world gaming and esports events have been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, there’s potential for game streaming sites like Twitch to increase their viewership — even ahead of forecasts —  in the months ahead. We’ve already seen the coronavirus’s impact on the App Store, as users in China downloaded a record number of games last month during quarantines, for example. As more people globally stay home to stream, game and watch, video steaming sites are likely to grow, as well. 

Comscore is not the first measurement firm to take notice of Twitch. In 2018, Nielsen announced it would measure Twitch esports audiences by way of a panel.

Measurement firm Comscore announced this morning a partnership with Amazon-owned game streaming site, Twitch. The deal will see Comscore measuring video streaming activity across Twitch, including gaming and esports, as well as other audience viewing metrics. This will allow advertisers to get a better understanding of video viewing behavior on Twitch, which helps them in targeting their campaigns to reach key demographics.

Specifically, Comscore says it will measure things like minutes spent and content minutes per ad minute, which are important to advertisers. In time, the partnership will expand the integration to other areas — including a launch in additional markets outside the U.S. and Canada, where it’s going live now, as well as to category- and genre-level reporting.

Twitch today remains the No. 1 game streaming site, despite the recent losses of top streamers to rivals like Microsoft Mixer, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Live. Last year, Twitch competitors wooed away key talent like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wan, and Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios. In Q1 2020, Corinna Kopf left Twitch as well. As the losses climbed, Twitch saw its hours watched and streamed drop in Q4 2019.

The company is now fighting back. It just signed a deal to retain its top female streamer and 10th most popular overall streamer, Pokimane, earlier this month.

However, despite the talent loss, Twitch’s growth is continuing. The site is expected to top 40 million U.S. viewers next year, according to eMarketer. By 2023, it will reach 47 million. That’s made it too big for the tech giants to ignore, analysts said.

Twitch needs to prove its worth to the advertising community.

The site generated $230 million in ad revenue in 2018, which increased to $300 million last year, according to a report by The Information. But this fell far short of Twitch’s own internal goals, the report claimed. Today, the streaming service still continues to experiment with growth outside of the gaming vertical, with areas like classic TV streams and vlogging, but it has not made non-game streams a core part of the Twitch experience. Amazon also hasn’t capitalized on its acquisition, either to boost its own gaming unit’s titles or integrate Twitch’s live streams with its own video offerings or its Fire TV business.

“Our new partnership with Twitch is more proof of Comscore’s dedication to innovation within audience measurement and across screens,” said Carol Hinnant, Comscore’s Chief Revenue Officer, in a statement. “In a time where gaming and esports are gaining momentum, our partnership will ensure the industry can understand consumption and take advantage of trends in this space.”

In addition, while real-world gaming and esports events have been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, there’s potential for game streaming sites like Twitch to increase their viewership — even ahead of forecasts —  in the months ahead. We’ve already seen the coronavirus’s impact on the App Store, as users in China downloaded a record number of games last month during quarantines, for example. As more people globally stay home to stream, game and watch, video steaming sites are likely to grow, as well. 

Comscore is not the first measurement firm to take notice of Twitch. In 2018, Nielsen announced it would measure Twitch esports audiences by way of a panel.

Measurement firm Comscore announced this morning a partnership with Amazon-owned game streaming site, Twitch. The deal will see Comscore measuring video streaming activity across Twitch, including gaming and esports, as well as other audience viewing metrics. This will allow advertisers to get a better understanding of video viewing behavior on Twitch, which helps them in targeting their campaigns to reach key demographics.

Specifically, Comscore says it will measure things like minutes spent and content minutes per ad minute, which are important to advertisers. In time, the partnership will expand the integration to other areas — including a launch in additional markets outside the U.S. and Canada, where it’s going live now, as well as to category- and genre-level reporting.

Twitch today remains the No. 1 game streaming site, despite the recent losses of top streamers to rivals like Microsoft Mixer, Facebook Gaming, and YouTube Live. Last year, Twitch competitors wooed away key talent like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wan, and Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios. In Q1 2020, Corinna Kopf left Twitch as well. As the losses climbed, Twitch saw its hours watched and streamed drop in Q4 2019.

The company is now fighting back. It just signed a deal to retain its top female streamer and 10th most popular overall streamer, Pokimane, earlier this month.

However, despite the talent loss, Twitch’s growth is continuing. The site is expected to top 40 million U.S. viewers next year, according to eMarketer. By 2023, it will reach 47 million. That’s made it too big for the tech giants to ignore, analysts said.

Twitch needs to prove its worth to the advertising community.

The site generated $230 million in ad revenue in 2018, which increased to $300 million last year, according to a report by The Information. But this fell far short of Twitch’s own internal goals, the report claimed. Today, the streaming service still continues to experiment with growth outside of the gaming vertical, with areas like classic TV streams and vlogging, but it has not made non-game streams a core part of the Twitch experience. Amazon also hasn’t capitalized on its acquisition, either to boost its own gaming unit’s titles or integrate Twitch’s live streams with its own video offerings or its Fire TV business.

“Our new partnership with Twitch is more proof of Comscore’s dedication to innovation within audience measurement and across screens,” said Carol Hinnant, Comscore’s Chief Revenue Officer, in a statement. “In a time where gaming and esports are gaining momentum, our partnership will ensure the industry can understand consumption and take advantage of trends in this space.”

In addition, while real-world gaming and esports events have been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, there’s potential for game streaming sites like Twitch to increase their viewership — even ahead of forecasts —  in the months ahead. We’ve already seen the coronavirus’s impact on the App Store, as users in China downloaded a record number of games last month during quarantines, for example. As more people globally stay home to stream, game and watch, video steaming sites are likely to grow, as well. 

Comscore is not the first measurement firm to take notice of Twitch. In 2018, Nielsen announced it would measure Twitch esports audiences by way of a panel.