Author: azeeadmin

Betterment, the New York-based automated advisory service for wealth management, is adding FDIC-insured checking and savings account services through partnerships with several banks.

“It’s the culmination of something we’ve been working on for a long time.,” says Betterment chief executive and founder, Jon Stein. 

While the money management services company has long been one of the dominant forces in fintech — alongside its competitor Wealthfront — one key piece of its offering had been missing. That was its ability to operate as a bank and have an even better window into the finances of its customers.

With the addition of these services, Betterment in some ways completes its financial services puzzle. Historically, says Stein, there were two segments to financial services. Banking for labor and wealth management and financial services for the owners of production. Over time, in the 70s and 80s, deregulation opened aspects of financial services to working class investors, but the industry didn’t evolve to serve those customers.

“I believe that the average American is very poorly served by both institutions,” says Stein. “Banks make money off of net interest margins, putting you into debt, or annoyance fees. On the other hand, most of the trading firms also make money when you do bad things. I believe that people need a cash advisor. One who aligns with them in a fiduciary sense and helps them make the most of their savings.”

Like other investment management and financial services startups in the fintech space that focus on savings and investing, Betterment has seen tremendous growth through the financial downturn caused by the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We saw net new customers even in the worst weeks of March,” says Betterment founder and chief executive Jon Stein . “And more people were depositing. Twenty five percent more people were depositing than withdrawing. Just among millennials that number was thirty six percent.” 

To date, Betterment has amassed some $22 billion in assets under management and Stein says the financial services company has seen 40% growth year over year in the company’s topline.

Now, with the new FDIC -insured checking account, that number is likely to grow.

“We’re partnered with NBKC to provide checking accounts,” says Stein. “For the savings product it’s a broker-deposit product we’re working with over a dozen banks on to bring the best rates we can find to our customers.”

Right now that means no ATM fees at any location in the world. The accounts also come with no overdraft or other checking fees; no minimum balance requirements; no foreign transaction fees; and mobile checking deposits. The accounts are insured up to $250,000 for the checking accounts and $1 million for an individual savings account. Joint accounts are insured up to $2 million.

Debit cards can be unlocked from an account holders phone and money can be transferred between Betterment accounts.

The savings and checking accounts may be handled by different banking providers, but the company said that it will sweep money between them for customers. “We’ll try to push as much as we can into the savings vehicle,” says Stein.

“The bigger picture thing is that we’re a cash advisor. We’re going to be telling you how to invest that,” says Stein.  “We’ll suggest that, ‘Hey you might want to set up your retirement goals… or it’s time to start saving for college… It feels like everyone is adding a debit card these days… for us it’s always been part of the vision to be the central part of our financial relationship.”

Facebook Avatars, which lets users customize a virtual lookalike of themselves for use as stickers in chat and comments, is now available across Europe, the company said today.

The social giant’s Avatars, a clone of Snapchat’s popular Bitmoji, was first unveiled last year and introduced to users in Australia. The feature is aimed at making engagements on Facebook fun, youthful, visually communicative, and “more light-hearted.” Users can create their avatar from the sticker tray in the comment section of a News Feed post or in Messenger.

As my colleague Josh Constine wrote last year, “Avatars aren’t quite as cute or hip to modern slang as Bitmoji. But they could still become a popular way to add some flare to replies without resorting to cookie-cutter emoticons or cliche GIFs.”

Scores of companies including Xiaomi have attempted to replicate Bitmoji feature in recent years — though no one has expanded it like Snapchat. Earlier this year, Snapchat introduced Bitmoji TV, 4-minute comedy cartoons with users’ avatars.

A Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch that Avatars was available in Australia and New Zealand prior to Tuesday’s announcement. The company has not disclosed how users have received the feature.

“We don’t usually share specific stats for adoption but as we begin to roll it out more widely, we look forward to getting feedback from people using it in Europe so we can iterate on it and improve over time,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch.

More to follow…

For better or worse, digital identity management services — the process of identifying and authenticating users on networks to access services — has become a ubiquitous part of interacting on the internet, all the more so in the recent weeks as we have been asked to carry out increasingly more of our lives online.

Used correctly, they help ensure that it’s really you logging into your online banking service; used badly, you feel like you can’t innocently watch something silly on YouTube without being watched yourself. Altogether, they are a huge business: worth $16 billion today according to Gartner but growing at upwards of 30% and potentially as big as $30.5 billion by 2024, according to the latest forecasts.

Now, a company called ForgeRock, which has built a platform that is used to help make sure that those accessing services really are who they say are, and help organizations account for how their services are getting used, is announcing a big round of funding to continue expanding its business amid a huge boost in demand.

The company is today announcing that it has raised $93.5 million in funding, a Series E it will use to continue expanding its product and take it to its next step as a business, specifically investing in R&D, cloud services and its ForgeRock Identity Cloud, and general global business development.

The round is being led by Riverwood Capital, and Accenture Ventures, as well as previous investors Accel, Meritech Capital, Foundation Capital and KKR Growth, also participated.

Fran Rosch, the startup’s CEO, said in an interview that this will likely be its final round of funding ahead of an IPO, although given the current static of affairs with a lot of M&A, there is no timing set for when that might happen. (Notably, the company had said its last round of funding — $88 million in 2017 — would be its final ahead of an IPO, although that was under a different CEO.)

This Series E brings the total raised by the company to $230 million. Rosch confirmed it was raised as a material upround, although he declined to give a valuation. For some context, the company’s last post-money valuation was $646.50 million per PitchBook, and so this round values the company at more than $730 million.

ForgeRock has annual recurring revenues of more than $100 million, with annual revenues also at over $100 million, Rosch said. It operates in an industry heavy with competition, with some of the others vying for pole position in the various aspects of identity management including Okta, LastPass, Duo Serurity and Ping Identity.

But within that list it has amassed some impressive traction. In total it has 1,100 enterprise customers, who in turn collectively manage 2 billion identities through ForgeRock’s platform, with considerably more devices also authenticated and managed on top of that.

Customers include the likes of the BBC — which uses ForgeRock to authenticate and log not just 45 million users but also the devices they use to access its iPlayer on-demand video streaming service — Comcast, a number of major banks, the European Union and several other government organizations. ForgeRock was originally founded in Norway about a decade ago, and while it now has its headquarters in San Francisco, it still has about half its employees and half its customers on the other side of the Atlantic.

Currently ForgeRock provides services to businesses related to identity management including password and username creation, identity governance, directory services, privacy and consent gates, which they in turn provide both to their human customers as well as to devices accessing their services, but we’re in a period of change right now when it comes to identity management. It stays away from direct-to-consumer password management services and Rosch said there are no plans to move into that area.

These days, we’ve become more aware of privacy and data protection. Sometimes, it’s been because of the wrong reasons, such as giant security breaches that have leaked some aspect of our personal information into a giant database, or because of a news story that has uncovered how our information has unwittingly been used in ‘legit’ commercial schemes, or other ways we never imagined it would.

Those developments, combined with advances in technology, are very likely to lead us to a place over time where identity management will become significantly more shielded from misuse. These could include more ubiquitous use of federated identities, “lockers” that store our authentication credentials that can be used to log into services but remain separate from their control, and potentially even applications of blockchain technology.

All of this means that while a company like ForgeRock will continue to provide its current services, it’s also investing big in what it believes will be the next steps that we’ll take as an industry, and society, when it comes to digital identity management — something that has had a boost of late.

“There are a lot of interesting things going on, and we are working closely behind the scenes to flesh them out,” Rosch said. “For example, we’re looking at how best to break up data links where we control identities to get access for a temporary period of time but then pull back. It’s a powerful trend that is still about four to five years out. But we are preparing for this, a time when our platform can consume decentralised identity, on par with logins from Google or Facebook today. That is an interesting area.”

He notes that the current market, where there has been an overall surge for all online services as people are staying home to slow the speed of the coronavirus pandemic, has seen big boosts in specific verticals.

Its largest financial services and banking customers have seen traffic up by 50%, and digital streaming has been up by 300%, and government services have also been spiking, in part because many services that hadn’t been online are now developing online presences or seeing much more traffic from digital channels than before. Unsurprisingly, its customers in hotel and travel, as well as retail, have seen drops, he added.

“ForgeRock’s comprehensive platform is very well-positioned to capitalize on the enormous opportunity in the Identity & Access Management market,” said Jeff Parks, co-founder and managing partner of Riverwood Capital, in a statement. “ForgeRock is the leader in solving a wide range of workforce and consumer identity use cases for the Global 2000 and is trusted by some of the largest companies to manage millions of user identities. We have seen the growth acceleration and are thrilled to partner with this leadership team.” Parks is joining the board with this round.

As people move into months of sheltering in place, many are doubling down on cooking at home. But not everyone is always happy about it. Today, a company that makes products that can help them bypass at least some of that effort but still eat nutritiously is announcing a fundraising to continue growing its business.

YFood, a Munich-based startup that creates and sells complete-nutrition drinks, drink powders and snack bars, has raised €15 million (around $16 million), money that it plans to use to continue investing in product development and more innovative distribution of its food.

The investment is being led by Felix Capital, the London firm that has been investing big in direct-to-consumer startups as part of a bigger e-commerce push. Strategically, New Zealand-based global dairy co-operative Fonterra is also participating in this round, along with previous investors Five Seasons Ventures and New Ground Ventures.

The company is not disclosing its valuation but we understand that it’s in the region of $100 million and — as has been the case for other startups — was flat on its last round (a seed round), due to the effect of COVID-19. Notably, much of its previous fundraising — €5 million before now — is still in the bank because the startup is already profitable, having grown revenues by more than 300% in the last year.

Based out of Munich, Germany, and strongest in the DACH region of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, YFood has started to expand to more European countries and is investing in boosting its online presence, which already has some 200,000 customers; and to grow relationships with retail partners that can help with delivery.

While focusing on distribution is key for any D2C e-commerce startup at all times, it’s especially key at the moment, as a result of how much business-as-usual has been disrupted — and not “disrupted” in a good way, even though that has been something regularly celebrated in the tech world.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, YFood had been selling through 13,000 retailers, and also had a business of selling its products via vending machines as well (another retail channel that I imagine will be hard-hit by the current public health crisis).

But just as a would-be competitor like Soylent was borne out of the founder’s own need for fast nutrition at a time when he was working hard in the tech industry and didn’t love to cook and eat, those vending machines were actually the fillip for starting YFood, co-founders Ben Kremer and Noël Bollmann told me in an interview this week.

The two had been working in investment banking, and working late hours, they found that there were precious few options for them when they got hungry and needed sustenance fast.

“We had a problem we were solving for ourselves,” Bollmann said. “All there was were candy machines and the choice was Snickers or crisps. We couldn’t understand why fast eating always had to be unhealthy. That was the inspiration.”

The company’s next steps are likely to involve creating a wider range of products that bring in more savoury options for getting their complete nutrition — since not everyone has a sweet tooth or wants a candy bar or milkshake replacement. And much further down the line, it’s potentially going to consider how to better make itself accessible and used to populations who would be unlikely to ever consider having meals-in-a-drink but might love the idea of adding something to what they’re already eating to give it a nutrition boost, not unlike a vitamin supplement.

“We have never tried to attack the social aspect of cooking,” said Kremer. “Our products shouldn’t replace good meals. This is about tackling unhealthy eating habits, and providing solutions that are affordable to meet the demands of that product category.”

Like many other startups and food businesses, YFood has been stepping up its own efforts to provide supplies to frontline workers. In its case it has so far donated €100,000 worth of ready-to-drink meals to medical staff currently very short on time to shop, cook and eat.

Apple said today it is launching its services App Store, Apple Podcasts, iCloud, and Apple Music to dozens of additional markets in Africa, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Middle East among others in what is one of the biggest geographical expansions from one of the world’s biggest firms.

The App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Podcasts, and iCloud are now available in 20 additional nations, whereas the iPhone-maker’s music streaming service, Apple Music, has launched in an additional 52 countries.

Apple said Music streaming service includes locally curated playlists including Africa Now, Afrobeats Hits, Ghana Bounce and, as an introductory offer, it is offering a six-month free trial on Music in the newly launched markets.

The App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple Podcasts and iCloud are now available in the following countries and regions:

• Africa: Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Libya, Morocco, Rwanda, and Zambia.
• Asia-Pacific: Maldives and Myanmar.
• Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia.
• Middle East: Afghanistan (excluding Apple Music) and Iraq.
• Oceania: Nauru (excluding Apple Music), Tonga, and Vanuatu.

Apple Music is expanding to the following countries and regions:

• Africa: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Chad, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Tunisia.
• Asia-Pacific: Bhutan.
• Europe: Croatia, Iceland, and North Macedonia.
• Latin America and the Caribbean: the Bahamas, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Turks and Caicos, and Uruguay.
• Middle East: Kuwait, Qatar, and Yemen.
• Oceania: Solomon Islands.

“We’re delighted to bring many of Apple’s most beloved Services to users in more countries than ever before,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and International Content, in a statement.

“We hope our customers can discover their new favorite apps, games, music, and podcasts as we continue to celebrate the world’s best creators, artists, and developers,” he added.

App Store is now available in 175 countries and regions, whereas Apple Music has reached 167 markets.

Samsung Electronics announced today that its blood pressure monitoring app for Galaxy Watches has been approved by South Korean regulators. Called the Samsung Health Monitor, the app will be available for the Galaxy Watch Active2 during the third quarter, at least in South Korea, and added to upcoming Galaxy Watch devices.

TechCrunch has contacted Samsung for more information on when the app, which uses the Galaxy Watch Active2’s advanced sensor technology, will be available in other markets.

It was cleared by South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for use as an over-the-counter, cuffless blood pressure monitoring app. The app first has to be calibrated with a traditional blood pressure cuff, then it monitors blood pressure through pulse wave analysis. Users need to recalibrate the app at least once every four weeks.

According to a recent report by IDC, in the last quarter of 2019, Samsung wearables ranked third in terms of shipments, behind Apple and Xiaomi, with volume driven by its Galaxy Active watches. Samsung has sought to differentiate its smartwatches with a focus on health and fitness monitoring, including sleep trackers.

Voyage has cleared a regulatory hurdle that will allow the company to expand its self-driving service from the private roads of a retirement community in San Jose, Calif. to public roads throughout the rest of the state.

The California Public Utilities Commission issued a permit Monday that gives Voyage permission to transport passengers in its self-driving vehicles on the state’s public roads. The permit, which is part of the state’s Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service pilot, puts Voyage in a new and growing group of companies seeking to expand beyond traditional AV testing. Aurora, AutoX, Cruise, Pony.ai, Zoox and Waymo have all received permits to participate in the CPUC’s Drivered Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service Pilot program.

The permit also puts Voyage on a path toward broader commercialization.

The company was operating six autonomous vehicles — always with a human safety driver behind the wheel — in The Villages, a community of more than 4,000 residents in San Jose, Calif. (Those activities have been suspended temporarily under a statewide stay-at-home order prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.) Voyage also operates in a 40-square-mile, 125,000-resident retirement city in central Florida.

Voyage didn’t need a CPUC permit because the community is made up of private roads, although CEO Oliver Cameron said the company wanted to adhere to state rules regardless of any technicalities. Voyage was also motivated by a grander ambition to transport residents of The Villages to destinations outside of the community.

“We want to bring people to all the things that live outside The Villages, facilities like hospitals and grocery stores,” Voyage CEO Oliver Cameron told TechCrunch in an interview Monday.

Voyage’s strategy was to start with retirement communities — places with specific customer demand and a simpler surrounding environment. The demographic that Voyage serves has an average age of 70. The aim isn’t to change its customer base. Instead, Cameron wants to expand the company’s current operational design domain to give Voyage a bigger reach.

The end goal is for Voyage’s core customers — people Cameron dubs power users — to be able to use the service for everything from heading to a neighbor’s house for dinner to shopping, doctor’s visits and even the airport.

The CPUC authorized in May 2018 two pilot programs for transporting passengers in autonomous vehicles. The first one, called the Drivered Autonomous Vehicle Passenger Service Pilot program, allows companies to operate a ride-hailing service using autonomous vehicles as long as they follow specific rules. Companies are not allowed to charge for rides, a human safety driver must be behind the wheel and certain data must be reported quarterly.

The second CPUC pilot would allow driverless passenger service — although no company has yet to obtain that permit.

Under the permit, Voyage can’t charge for rides. However, there might be some legal wiggle room. Voyage can technically charge for rides within The Villages; in fact, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic-related shutdown, the company had started charging for a ride-hailing service.

Rides outside of The Villages would have to be free, although it’s unclear if the company could charge for mileage or time until the vehicle left the community.

Voyage has aspirations to take this further. The company is also applying for a traditional Transportation Charter Permit, which is required for limousine, bus and other third-party charter services. Cameron said the company had to go through the stringent application process for the CPUC’s Drivered AV permit first.

The CPUC programs shouldn’t be confused with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which regulates and issues permits for testing autonomous vehicles on public roads — always with a safety driver. There are 65 companies that hold autonomous vehicle testing permits issued by the DMV. Companies that want to participate in the CPUC program must have a testing permit with the DMV.

Over the weekend, Silicon Valley leader Marc Andreessen broke his usual silence and gave some advice to Silicon Valley: It’s time to build. The famed investor urged CEOs, entrepreneurs and investors alike to welcome new companies into their circles.

The blog post details high-flying pieces of advice that could each land in a unique angle depending on where you sit. But as venture capitalists rush to prove they are open for business, the true test these days is a bit more grounded: cut checks and signed term sheets.

The words are eerily similar to the thesis of NextView Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital firm, and its new remote accelerator program, announced today.

“During this current COVID crisis, we have seen many VCs publicly saying that they are ‘open for business,’ but we wanted to put our money where our mouth is,” according to partner David Beisel.

Using money earmarked from its current fund, NextView will invest $200,000 for an 8% stake in fewer than 10 pre-seed and seed startups. The program will be fully virtual and is investing in founders that drive change in the “everyday lives of everyday people.”

Rob Go, the co-founder of NextView, tweeted about the launch today.

The NextView accelerator is launching at a time when historical incubators like Y Combinator and 500 Startups are rethinking their independent strategies. Today Y Combinator announced its upcoming batch will be fully remote, and last month 500 Startups said it is scrapping its cohort model.

The firm also publicly said what it didn’t like about traditional accelerator programs, like big batch sizes and flashy demo days.

“Accelerators were at their best when they were small and intimate. YC’s initial batch was just eight companies,” Beisel said about the small number of participants. “But over time, accelerators became more of a numbers game.”

Beisel added, “traditional accelerator demo days originated as a way to showcase startups to follow-on investors, but eventually evolved into an elaborate show attempting to satisfy many constituents.”

Still, an unavoidable truth about demo days is that it connects startups to founders and ideally that first check. What happens to deal success when you don’t have a buzzy room of journalists, venture capitalists and bright lights on founder faces?

After YC and 500 Startups hosted their first-ever virtual demo days this year, we’ve heard grumblings of mixed results. Y Combinator last week changed from always investing in YC graduates to reviewing on a case by case basis, hinting at conservatism within the accelerator.

NextView also approaches post-accelerator funding conservatively. The firm says it will connect its small cohort to next-round investors, but will “intentionally not lead the next round of financing.” The firm is being upfront about its choice to not lead follow-on investing to “avoid potential signaling issues for future financings.” The company will participate with at least pro-rata for all companies in any subsequent round of financing to help the cohort.

An optimistic read of this decision is that NextView is viewing its accelerator as a separate function of its investment firm and wants to be more of a helper than a robust pipeline for deal flow. Alternatively, it could mean that the firm doesn’t want to over-promise capital in an unpredictable time for the economy. And in the chance that it does find a gem within this batch, it would be surprising for NextView to not invest in the company.

The bottom line is that NextView is launching an accelerator and investing in startups during a time when many are not. So while we’ll wait to see how successful the firm is in cultivating young startups with ripe returns, for now it’s building. And in today’s new normal, building is a welcome sign.

Vestiaire Collective just closed another big round of funding in the middle of an economic crisis — the round closed in early April. The startup raised $64.2 million (€59 million) and the company has raised over $240 million over the year according to CrunchBase. Vestiaire Collective operates a marketplace of pre-owned fashion items. Users can both sell and buy clothes and accessories on the platform.

There’s a huge list of investors in today’s round — Korelya Capital, Fidelity International-managed funds, Vaultier7, Cuit Invest and existing investors Eurazeo (Eurazeo Growth and Idinvest Venture funds), Bpifrance, Vitruvian Partners, Condé Nast, Luxury Tech Fund and Vestiaire Collective CEO Matt Bittner are all participating.

With 9 million members across 90 countries, Vestiaire Collective has become a huge marketplace. And it makes sense that an e-commerce website focused on pre-owned items is working well. There has been a ton of backlash against fast fashion over the past few years.

People now also value circular business models as it becomes more affordable to refresh your wardrobe, especially during an economic crisis, and it is better for the environment.

As always, Vestiaire Collective will use the new influx of cash to expand to more countries. In particular, with Korelya Capital as a new backer, the company will expand to South Korea and Japan this year. While the company started in France, 80% of transactions are now cross-border transactions.

Originally, Vestiaire Collective asked you to send your items to its warehouses to check them before putting them on sale. The startup has been betting on direct shipping from the seller to the buyer in Europe and it has been working well. You can get reimbursed if there’s something wrong with what you ordered though.

Direct shipping has been available in Europe since September 2019 and it now represents over 50% of orders in the region. Up next, Vestiaire Collective will introduce direct shipping in the U.S. this summer and in Asia by the end of 2020.

A lot of startups have answered the call for more personal protective equipment (PPE) and other essentials to support healthcare workers in their efforts to curb the spread and impact of COVID-19. One of those is direct-to-consumer 3D-printed eyewear brand Fitz, which is employing its custom-fit glasses technology to build protective, prescription specs to frontline healthcare workers in need of the best protection they can get.

Fitz Protect is a version of Fitz’s eyesore that uses the same custom measurement tool Fitz created for use via its iOS app, made possible by Apple’s depth-sensing Face ID camera on newer iPhones and all iPad Pro models. The app allows virtual try-on, and provides millimeter-level accurate measurements for a custom fit. Protect is a version of the glasses that still supports a wide range of prescriptions, but that also extends further like safety glasses to provide more coverage and guard against errant entry of any fluids through the eyes.

Health care professionals are doing what they can to ensure their face, mouth, nose and eyes are protected from any coughs, sneezes or other droplet-spreading activity from COVID-19 patients that could pass on the infection. These measures have more broadly focused on face shields that feature a single transparent plastic sheet, and N95 masks (and alternatives when not available) to protect the mouth and nose.

Fitz CEO Gabriel Schlumberger explained via email that the design for Fitz Protect came from working frontline doctors in nurses from New York, LA and Texas who were all looking for something to source prescription protective eyewear.

“More than 60% of doctors are glasses wearers, and current guidance is for them to stop wearing contact lenses,” Schlumberger explained, adding that Fitz Protect is also designed to be worn in conjunction with a face shield, when that’s an available option, and provide yet another layer of defense.

“We heard from prescription glasses wearers that their standard glasses didn’t provide anywhere near adequate coverage, especially over the eyebrows, and in some cases they were adding cardboard cut-outs,” he said. “We leveraged our existing system to create something much better. ”

Fitz’s model also helps on the pricing side because it’s already designed to be an aggressively cost-competitive offering when compared to traditional prescription eyesore. Their glasses typically retail for just $95 including frames, lenses and shipping, and are also offered in a $185 per year unlimited frame membership plan. For doctors, nurses and hospital staff, the entire cost of Fitz Protect is being waived, and the company is seeking donations to help offset its own manufacturing costs, which currently stand at around $100 per set, though process improvements should bring that down according to Schlumberger as they expand availability.

Already, he said that nearly 3,000 healthcare professionals have signed up to receive a pair in their first week of availability, so they’re working on adding scale to keep up with the unexpected demand.