Author: azeeadmin

Ribbit Capital, the financial technology investment firm whose portfolio includes hits like the no-fee mobile investment platform Robinhood; cryptocurrency wallet and marketplace provider Coinbase; and Root Insurance, the automotive insurance platform that just joined the billion-dollar startup club; is raising $420 million for its latest fund, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The fund would be Ribbit’s fifth foray out with limited partners and its $420 million target is only a nominal increase from the $300 million it had set out to raise for its fourth fund last year.

That kind of restraint is remarkable in itself. But with the portfolio of hits Ribbit has amassed, the firm would be forgiven for attempting to raise double its current target.

Ribbit founder, Meyer (Micky) Malka, did not respond to a request for comment.

Coinbase alone is now worth at least $8 billion on paper, and no one laughs when chief executive Brian Armstrong says that his company’s goal is to become the New York Stock Exchange of crypto securities.

Robinhood, another one of Ribbit’s portfolio darlings, is flirting with a $6 billion valuation after its latest funding round earlier this year — and has become synonymous with stock trading for a new generation of investors (despite some criticism about its business model).

Then there are other bets the company has made in the financial services space. Along with Andreessen Horowitz and Battery Ventures, Ribbit made an investment in Cross River Bank, a financial services institution that provides a good chunk of the fintech businesses in the U.S. with their sole link into the world of regulated financial institutions. It was the originator for over $2 billion worth of loans for Max Levchin’s lending business, Affirm (another Ribbit portfolio company, now worth $2 billion) and Upstart (a fintech company that, shockingly, did not make its way into Ribbit’s portfolio).

Lest we forget, there’s another multi-billion-dollar portfolio company in the Ribbit portfolio. The company was also an early investor in Credit Karma, now a $4 billion juggernaut that was founded by a former management trainee at a Pizza Hut.

Just to make the math easier, that’s four companies worth more than $20 billion (on paper) that Ribbit can count in its latest portfolio. Not bad for a fund angling for only $420 million.

Ribbit launched its first fund in 2012, targeting a humble $90 million, when the latest financial technology investment boom was just getting started.

The brainchild of Malka, Ribbit has never really been a fund that claims the spotlight, but Malka has been a financial wizard since the age of 19.

That’s when he co-founded a securities and investment broker-dealer, Heptagon Group, which serviced the U.S. and Malka’s home market of Venezuela. In 1998, Malka created the first online brokerage for financial services in Latin America, Patagon.com. After its acquisition in 2000 for more than $700 million, Malka served as an interim chief executive officer for OpenBank, a Spanish and German online bank.

Malka has been steeped in financial services in both North America and South America and his portfolio not only reflects his knowledge, but also his roots. Malka is still active in Latin American investments, and some of the fintech portfolio that he’s amassed includes up-and-comers in South America’s fintech community, too. Look at Guiabolso, a promising startup that combines Mint, LendingClub and Credit Karma into a single service.

The interest in finance dates back to an early age. Malka likes to recount a story from when he was eight years old and wrote a letter to the tooth fairy asking for money for a lost tooth… Except Malka had certain conditions.

“I wrote, ‘Here is my tooth, please, I do not want to receive bolivars, I will only accept dollars,’” Malka told the online magazine, Ozy.

That passion for finance and attention to detail hasn’t changed in the intervening years.

“Banks have proven to be difficult environments for innovation to flourish, resulting in an antiquated financial services industry that remains relatively untouched by the technology-driven evolution transforming other markets ranging from social media sharing to professional enterprise services,” said Malka, in a statement announcing the launch of his first fund. “The technology to unlock this innovation is in place, and there are entrepreneurs around the world with groundbreaking ideas that have the potential to turn this industry on its head. What’s lacking is the investment, will and expertise to develop and make them reality. It is going to require focused investment to ignite this change, and Ribbit is here to answer the call.”

Turns out those rumors that Beats wouldn’t have anything to show off during today’s big Apple event weren’t 100 percent true. Granted, there was no mention of the headphone maker during the event itself. Instead, the company sent out a bit of an also-ran press release as things were still unfolding here in Cupertino.

The big reason the brand got no love during today’s event: these aren’t new products, really. Rather, they’re color updates to two of Beats’ existing lines. In fact, the new shades were designed to match Apple’s new hardware. Fittingly, the headphones are priced to match their corresponding handsets.

The $300 over-ear Beats Solo 3 Wireless now come in satin gold and Satin silver to match the new colors for the iPhone XS/XS Max, while the $60 urBeats3 earphones are available in yellow, blue and coral to match the cheaper iPhone XR.

The latter also sport a Lightning cable, so you don’t have to futz with the dongle (which is a fun phrase). They also snap together magnetically, so they can be worn around the neck.

The new Beats Solo 3 Wireless colors are shipping now and the urBeats3 are coming later this fall.

Uber has broken up with the bits and atoms logo it unveiled in 2016. This morning, the company updated their website and app with a brand spankin’ new logo as part of a rebrand it’s rolling out in the coming months.

The move comes two days after Uber tapped former Coca-Cola executive Rebecca Messina to lead marketing efforts.

Characterized by its use of all-caps and thick, bold strokes, the ride-hailing giant’s branding has always felt a bit hostile. Its new font, also unveiled today, is much more modern and friendly. And finally, Uber has done away with UBER and welcomed Uber.

The latest logo is the company’s simplest yet. A spokesperson told TechCrunch they want to be “easily recognizable,” which is why they are dumping the symbol and going for the most straightforward imagery possible.

“We’re excited to unveil a new, simplified logo for the Uber app that brings back the U, is easily recognizable, and is scalable across the 660 plus cities we serve,” they said.

This is at least the fourth logo Uber has cycled through in its roughly nine-year history (even the company spokesperson wasn’t quite sure how many logos they’ve had). The first I can remember was just the U, then it was the bits and atoms logo. Here’s a look, from newest to oldest. 

[gallery ids="1711398,1711397,1711396,1711421"]

Uber has been working on the updates for the last nine months, presumably under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s lead. He’s been at the company as CEO for just over a year now and has spent a good chunk of that time cleaning up founding CEO Travis Kalanick’s mess. A rebrand only makes sense when you are trying to shed a company of its less-than-stellar reputation.

Worth $62 billion, Uber is the most valuable private company in the world.

Apple always drops a few whoppers at its events, and the iPhone XS announcement today was no exception. And nowhere were they more blatant than in the introduction of the devices’ “new” camera features. No one doubts that iPhones take great pictures, so why bother lying about it? My guess is they can’t help themselves.

To be clear, I have no doubt they made some great updates to make a good camera better. But whatever those improvements are, they were overshadowed today by the breathless hype that was frequently questionable and occasionally just plain wrong. Now, to fill this article out I had to get a bit pedantic, but honestly, some of these are pretty egregious.

“The world’s most popular camera”

There are a lot of iPhones out there, to be sure. But defining the iPhone as some sort of decade-long continuous camera, which Apple seems to be doing, is sort of a disingenuous way to do it. By that standard, Samsung would almost certainly be ahead, since it would be allowed to count all its Galaxy phones going back a decade as well, and they’ve definitely outsold Apple in that time. Going further, if you were to say that a basic off-the-shelf camera stack and common Sony or Samsung sensor was a “camera,” iPhone would probably be outnumbered 10:1 by Android phones.

Is the iPhone one of the world’s most popular cameras? To be sure. Is it the world’s most popular camera? You’d have to slice it pretty thin and say that this or that year and this or that model was more numerous than any other single model. The point is this is a very squishy metric and one many could lay claim to depending on how they pick or interpret the numbers. As usual, Apple didn’t show their work here, so we may as well coin a term and call this an educated bluff.

“Remarkable new dual camera system”

As Phil would explain later, a lot of the newness comes from improvements to the sensor and image processor. But as he said that the system was new while backed by an exploded view of the camera hardware, we may consider him as referring to that as well.

It’s not actually clear what in the hardware is different from the iPhone X. Certainly if you look at the specs, they’re nearly identical:

If I said these were different cameras, would you believe me? Same F numbers, no reason to think the image stabilization is different or better, and so on. It would not be unreasonable to guess that these are, as far as optics, the same cameras as before. Again, not that there was anything wrong with them — they’re fabulous optics. But showing components that are in fact the same and saying it’s different is misleading.

Given Apple’s style, if there were any actual changes to the lenses or OIS, they’d have said something. It’s not trivial to improve those things and they’d take credit if they had done so.

The sensor of course is extremely important, and it is improved: the 1.4-micrometer pixel pitch on the wide-angle main camera is larger than the 1.22-micrometer pitch on the X. Since the megapixels are similar we can probably surmise that the “larger” sensor is a consequence of this different pixel pitch, not any kind of real form factor change. It’s certainly larger, but the wider pixel pitch, which helps with sensitivity, is what’s actually improved, and the increased dimensions are just a consequence of that.

We’ll look at the image processor claims below.

“2x faster sensor… for better image quality”

It’s not really clear what is meant when he says this. “To take advantage of all this technology.” Is it the readout rate? Is it the processor that’s faster, since that’s what would probably produce better image quality (more horsepower to calculate colors, encode better, and so on)? “Fast” also refers to light-gathering — is that faster?

I don’t think it’s accidental that this was just sort of thrown out there and not specified. Apple likes big simple numbers and doesn’t want to play the spec game the same way as the others. But this in my opinion crosses the line from simplifying to misleading. This at least Apple or some detailed third party testing can clear up.

“What it does that is entirely new is connect together the ISP with that neural engine, to use them together.”

Now, this was a bit of sleight of hand on Phil’s part. Presumably what’s new is that Apple has better integrated the image processing pathway between the traditional image processor, which is doing the workhorse stuff like autofocus and color, and the “neural engine,” which is doing face detection.

It may be new for Apple, but this kind of thing has been standard in many cameras for years. Both phones and interchangeable-lens systems like DSLRs use face and eye detection, some using neural-type models, to guide autofocus or exposure. This (and the problems that come with it) go back years and years. I remember point-and-shoots that had it, but unfortunately failed to detect people who had dark skin or were frowning.

It’s gotten a lot better (Apple’s depth-detecting units probably help a lot), but the idea of tying a face-tracking system, whatever fancy name you call it, in to the image-capture process is old hat. What’s in the XS may be the best, but it’s probably not “entirely new” even for Apple, let alone the rest of photography.

“We have a brand new feature we call smart HDR.”

Apple’s brand new feature has been on Google’s Pixel phones for a while now. A lot of cameras now keep a frame buffer going, essentially snapping pictures in the background while the app is open, then using the latest one when you hit the button. And Google, among others, had the idea that you could use these unseen pictures as raw material for an HDR shot.

Probably Apple’s method is a different, and it may even be better, but fundamentally it’s the same thing. Again, “brand new” to iPhone users, but well known among Android flagship devices.

“This is what you’re not supposed to do, right, shooting a photo into the sun, because you’re gonna blow out the exposure.”

I’m not saying you should shoot directly into the sun, but it’s really not uncommon to include the sun in your shot. In the corner like that it can make for some cool lens flares, for instance. It won’t blow out these days because almost every camera’s auto-exposure algorithms are either center-weighted or intelligently shift around — to find faces, for instance.

When the sun is in your shot, your problem isn’t blown out highlights but a lack of dynamic range caused by a large difference between the exposure needed to capture the sun-lit background and the shadowed foreground. This is, of course, as Phil says, one of the best applications of HDR — a well-bracketed exposure can make sure you have shadow details while also keeping the bright ones.

Funnily enough, in the picture he chose here, the shadow details are mostly lost — you just see a bunch of noise there. You don’t need HDR to get those water droplets — that’s a shutter speed thing, really. It’s still a great shot, by the way, I just don’t think it’s illustrative of what Phil is talking about.

“You can adjust the depth of field… this has not been possible in photography of any type of camera.”

This just isn’t true. You can do this on the Galaxy S9, and it’s being rolled out in Google Photos as well. Lytro was doing something like it years and years ago, if we’re including “any type of camera.” Will this be better? Probably – looks great to me. Has it never been possible ever? Not even close. I feel kind of bad that no one told Phil. He’s out here without the facts.

Well, that’s all the big ones. There were plenty more, shall we say, embellishments at the event, but that’s par for the course at any big company’s launch. I just felt like these ones couldn’t go unanswered. I have nothing against the iPhone camera — I use one myself. But boy are they going wild with these claims. Somebody’s got to say it, since clearly no one inside Apple is.

Check out the rest of our Apple event coverage here:

Tesla’s head of global finance is leaving the automaker, the latest high-level executive departure that comes just days after chief accounting officer Dave Morton resigned after barely a month on the job.

The departure was first reported by Bloomberg. Tesla confirmed to TechCrunch that Justin McAnear, whose official title was vice president of worldwide finance and operation, is leaving after three years. His last day is October 7.

“Several weeks ago, I announced to my team that I would be leaving Tesla because I had the chance to take a CFO role at another company,” McAnear said in a statement provided by Tesla. “I’ve truly loved my time at Tesla, and I have great respect for my colleagues and the work they do, but this was simply an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Any other speculation as to why I’ve left is simply inaccurate. I’ve been working with the team to ensure a smooth transition prior to my last day on October 7th, and a number of members of the team are stepping up to fill my role.”

A string of executives have left the company since the beginning of the year, including chief people officer Gaby Toledano, Sarah O’Brien, who headed up Tesla’s communications team, and the company’s senior vice president of engineering, Doug Field.

Tesla has hired some executives in recent months, such as a global director of vehicle delivery and CFO for China operations, but gaps still remain. Some high-level positions haven’t been filled, while others have been restructured.

CEO Elon Musk announced a series of promotions and job updates earlier this month that put more responsibility on a few key people. For instance, Kevin Kassekert previously headed up infrastructure development, a job that included leading the construction and development of Tesla’s gigafactory near Reno, Nevada. His new title is vice president of people and places, a position that gives him responsibility of human resources — a job that was once filled by Toledano — as well as facilities, construction and infrastructure. Tesla has more than 37,000 employees in facilities all over the world, including its factory in Fremont, California.

Musk also promoted Jérôme Guillen to president of automotive. Guillen will oversee all automotive operations and program management, as well as coordinate Tesla’s supply chain. Guillen previously headed up Tesla’s truck program and worldwide sales and service.

With Hurricane Florence rapidly approaching the southeastern seaboard, many are leaving the area and seeking accommodation inland. Hopefully people have shelter lined up, but for a handful of those that don’t, Airbnb hosts are offering their spare rooms for free.

Well over 300 hosts from Pennsylvania to Alabama are participating in Airbnb’s Disaster Response Program, by which they can easily offer their room or spare unit to people on the run from Mother Nature, free of charge. They don’t get anything out of it except presumably the satisfaction of helping someone in need.

The units available are listed here, and you can (and should) activate your own spot by logging in and finding the “urgent accommodation” option. Technically you can opt to charge instead of be free, but that would be a bit rotten in this situation.

You’ll need an account, of course, if you’re looking for a place to stay. You’ll have to work out with your host how long it’s possible to stick around for free. And anyone who takes advantage of this to fake out a generous host and go sightseeing on the back of a natural disaster is a scumbag. Don’t even think about it.

Three hundred spare rooms might not make a big dent in the thousands upon thousands looking for a place to stay, but it’s a nice example of a platform making it easy to generate a little social good. Airbnb has done this for lots of other disasters, but not everyone knows about it, so if you’re new to the system, consider signing up.

I’m sure somewhere out there, there’s someone who wants nothing more in this world than a circular Apple Watch. That person, I’m sad to report, was once again disappointed with the outcome of yet another Apple event. Circle-sporting invites and office buildings aside, the squircle works well for Apple, so it’s sticking around for the time being.

In fact, that was a bit of a broader theme with today’s announcements — most of the updated Apple brand magic is happening under the hood here. That said, there is one key distinction from an aesthetic standpoint this time around: the logical extension of Apple’s ongoing war against bezels.

The display is 30 percent larger than the one on the Series 3, by Apple’s count. The new watch isn’t “edge to edge” as some early leaks put it, but the bezel size has shrunk considerably. Here’s a side by side image, courtesy of Apple:

The 44mm version’s display now measures 977 sq mm (versus the 3’s 740 sq mm), while the 40mm case is 759 sq mm (to the 3’s 563 sq mm) — so the smaller version of the 4 actually has a larger display than the larger 3. The reduction of the bezel was less of an aesthetic decision and more about cramming more information into the Watch’s relatively limited real estate.

When you’re dealing with something small enough to fit on your wrist, you take every spare millimeter you can get. Also notable is the fact that Apple’s slimmed things down here to 10.7mm from 11.4mm. Honestly, I’m surprised the company didn’t spend a little more time on that. Again, with wearables, a few millimeters go a long way.

The back of the device looks a bit different, as well. That comes courtesy of the electrocardiogram. That bit got what was easily the biggest applause line of the Watch announcement. People didn’t have to wait for Apple to break that one down. The new sensor makes it possible to detect heart rhythm, in addition to rate. That’s going to be a big thing for users with certain heart diseases.

It’s also the latest indication of Apple’s ongoing focus on health in addition to fitness. Ditto for improvements to the gyroscope and accelerometer, which make it possible for the watch to detect falls and send out an emergency alert accordingly.

Better battery life is always a biggie for wearables. That’s obviously one of those pieces we’re going to have to wait until we get our review unit in order to test. According to Apple, the number should be roughly the same as what you’ll find on the Series 3 — amounting to around 18 hours or “all day,” per the included press material.

[gallery ids="1711325,1711324,1711316,1711314,1711308,1711327"]

There are other updates throughout, including a 2x faster chip (again, jury’s out until we can properly test) and a 50 percent louder speaker. Unlike the addition of LTE with last year’s model, the new features don’t jump out as earth-shaking updates over the previous model. Instead, the company’s just making the most well-rounded (so to speak) smartwatch that much better.

As ever, the Apple Watch is the one to beat.

Today was Apple’s big hardware event and the trillion dollar company had quite a lot to share about the future of some of its most profitable product lines.

While Apple boasted how its products had been completely redesigned and re-engineered, in reality, what was most notable about today’s Apple event is how Apple is choosing to design within the bounds of its past releases.

The new class of flagship iPhones, the XS and XS Max made hardware upgrades focused on durability and performance with a new chipset and not too much else. The first hardware design update in years for the Apple Watch update equated to a larger, rounded corner display and updates to the biometric sensors.

There were also a couple surprises though, here’s what we saw today.

 

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iPhone XS and XS Max

Apple’s latest and greatest iPhone didn’t reinvent the wheel after last year’s major refresh, but the flagship iPhone XS now has a plus size, though it’s not called the XS Plus.

The iPhone XS Max sports a 6.5 inch OLED display compared to the XS’s 5.8 display. It’s a massive screen and it’s the biggest that’s ever been on an iPhone. For comparison the iPad Mini’s screen is 7.9 inches so the XS Max is as phablet as phablets come.

The iPhone XS and XS Max are identical specs-wise with both toting Apple’s latest A12 bionic chipset, the only difference is the display and a $100 price bump for the larger phone.

The iPhone XS starts at $999 for a 64GB version, while the 64GB iPhone XS Max starts at $1,099.

iPhone XS Specs

• 5.8″ (2436 x 1125) OLED display
• 143.6mm x 70.9mm x 7.7mm
• 177 grams
• Dual 12 megapixel back cameras
• 7 megapixel true depth camera module
• FaceID
• A12 Bionic chip
• IP68 water resistance
• Wireless charging
• 3D Touch
• Starts at $999

iPhone XS Max Specs (differences)

• 6.5″ (2688 x 1242) OLED display
• 157.5mm x 77.4mm x 7.7mm
• 208 grams
• Starts at $1099

[gallery ids="1711254,1711261,1711256,1711265,1711263,1711257,1711262"]

iPhone XR

While Apple’s iPhone X may have oozed premium luxury when it launched last year, boy, was it pricey. The next best option was the iPhone 8 line which felt like a pretty major step down in terms of design. This year the choice is a lot easier with the “edge-to-edge” iPhone XR which cuts down on priciness (it starts at $749) by using an LCD display as opposed to the more high-end OLED one found in the iPhone XS.

The XR may offer a tad less vibrant of an experience, but the large 6.1 inch LCD phone is sure to be Apple’s best seller thanks to how similar it is to the XS. The main areas where it falls short beyond display types are the single camera module and its lack of 3D Touch. The body of the XR is also made of aluminum as opposed to the stainless steel body on the XS.

iPhone XR Specs

• 6.1″ (1792 x 828) LCD display
• 150.9mm x 75.7mm x 8.3mm
• 194 grams
• Single 12 megapixel back camera
• 7 megapixel true depth camera module
• FaceID
• A12 Bionic chip
• IP67 water resistance
• Wireless charging
• Starts at $1749

 

[gallery ids="1711324,1711327,1711325,1711316,1710793,1710794,1710826,1711215,1711216,1710834"]

Apple Watch Series 4

After three years of under-the-hood upgrades, we finally got some changes to the look of the Apple Watch. The major story here is a new, larger curved edge display.

The small version has a 32 percent larger display, while the bigger one has a 35 percent bigger display. While the displays mainly cut into the bezels, the watches are a little larger even if their overall volume has shrunk due to growing a bit thinner on the wrist. 

The Series 4 has some crazy health-monitoring features, namely it now has the ability to perform electro-cardiograms in 30 seconds.

The 40mm Apple Watch starts at $399 while the LTE version starts at a pricey $499.

There were still plenty of things that we expected Apple to touch on that we heard diddly squat about. Where’s AirPower? Where are the new AirPods? What’s up with the MacBook Air? Any word on a cheaper HomePod? What about those rumored over-ear headphones? What about that AR headset we’ve been hearing about for years?

In the end, Apple can only share so much at each event, but even through the lens of past announcements this was a pretty quiet keynote.

Apple would have you believe that it’s not beholden to such trivial things as the market — roadmaps are long and the company’s always done its own thing. But the XR feels like as much a response to the first iPhone X than anything.

Last year’s flagship iPhone broke the $1,000 seal for the company. It was bound to happen, and certainly premium competitors like Samsung were racing in that direction with equal or greater speed. And while the $1,000 flagship is just a fact of life for early adopters, total sales numbers appear to have not hit the same heights as some predecessors.

The fact that the phone costs more on a per unit basis offset that, but moving to an all-premium product portfolio for a broad swath of the company’s user base. That’s where the XR comes in. Flashed onstage above in big, bright colors, I couldn’t help but be struck by the idea that the XR is, in its own way, the iPhone X version of the iPod Mini.

It’s cheaper, it’s smaller (than the Max at least) and it’s available in a broad array of neon swatches (blue, black, coral, yellow, white and Project Red). Perhaps it’s more of a playful take on the serious business of being an iPhone — but more importantly, for most users, it’s a way in to many of the iPhone X’s premium breakthroughs without having to spend an arm and a leg.

Better still, the XR looks like the iPhone X (and, for that matter, the XS). And that’s the whole point. The gulf is much smaller here than between the X and 8 — from a purely aesthetic standpoint, at least.

As we elbow one another out of the way in the standard post-Apple event media scrum, most of us had some trouble determining which was which, as they were all spread out along the same long table. The materials are different (stainless steel on the XS), but the colors are the real giveaway at first glance — well, that and the single camera on the back.

Interestingly, the display is actually larger than on the XS. Not really sure why Apple went that route here, but as I speculated in the XS Max write-up, this could well have to do with supply chain issues. It probably just made more sense to stick with the iPhone X’s panel for the followup.

All of this means that the XR is a bit larger than the XS in all dimensions. Here’s that breakdown:

iPhone XS: 143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7 mm

iPhone XR: 150.9 x 75.7 x 8.3 mm

The XR definitely felt a bit thick in-hand, though just barely. Ditto for the weight, which is 6.84 ounces to the XS’s 6.24.

Design aside, there are plenty of downgrades from XS, to help Apple hit that $729 price point. The screen is the main thing, swapping the OLED for a “Liquid Retina HD display” — you know, an LCD. That after all, was the primary factor driving up the price on the iPhone X. The camera’s down to one lens here, as well, though the company’s worked on a few tricks akin to what we’ve seen on the Pixel — namely the ability to simulate a bokeh effect without a second depth camera.

[gallery ids="1711262,1711263,1711265,1711261,1711257,1711256,1711254"]

For most users, I suspect most of these elements won’t really be missed — unless, of course, you’ve already gotten comfortable with the iPhone X. While $749 is hardly “cheap” by the standards of mid-range handsets in 2018, it’s a pretty good entry-level price for an Apple handset. Also, don’t underestimate the importance of colors choices in the phone-buying process.

The XR feels like less of an afterthought, unlike the iPhone 8, which was hugely overshadowed by the iPhone X released alongside it. It looks and feels enough like the premium handset that, when coupled with the $250 price drop, it seems inevitable that Apple will sell a ton of the damn things.

Aston Martin is finally sharing some specs and a couple of teaser photos of the upcoming Rapide E, the British automaker’s first all-electric sports car. The upshot: It’ll be fast and rare.

The company will only make 155 of the Rapide E, which will be powered by an 800-volt battery system with 65 kilowatt-hour capacity. (Pretty sure that makes Aston Martin the first luxury car company to launch an 800-volt system.)

The battery, which will use more than 5,600 lithium-ion 18650 format cylindrical cells, is expected to have a range of more than 200 miles. The battery system will have a charging rate of a 185 miles per hour using a 400V outlet with 50kW charger. The car’s battery system does enable faster charging of 310 miles of range per hour for those using a 800V outlet delivering 100kW. CEO Andy Palmer told TechCrunch recently that translates to about 15 minutes to charge the battery 80 percent.

The big objective of this project — one that has been years in the making — is to build an electric vehicle that can deliver those V12-engined Rapide S feels. The company said engineers paid particular attention to the development and tuning of the electric powertrain, which Williams Advanced Engineering worked on, the chassis and software integration.

The Rapide E is expected to have a top speed of 155 miles per hour and be able to travel from 0 to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds, and from 50 to 70 mph in 1.5 seconds. The battery system powers two rear-mounted electric motors that produce a combined target output of just over 600 horsepower and 700 pound-feet of torque.

Aston Martin emphasized that drivers will be able to hit these performance targets regardless of how full the battery is. The aim, the company said, is for the Rapide E to drive a full lap of the famous Nürburgring “with absolutely no derating of the battery and the ability to cope with the daily demands of repeated hard acceleration and braking.”

Customer deliveries are set for the fourth quarter of 2019.

The Rapide E is a bridge of sorts to Aston Martin’s electric future. The Rapide E and the resurrected Lagonda brand will be built in the upcoming St. Athan production facility in the U.K. Lagonda will be Aston Martin’s electric brand, with production beginning in 2021.

“The Rapide E will help us understand the technology and the customer,” Palmer told TechCrunch during Monterey Car Week in August. Customers have agreed to work with the company to provide data and their experience of driving and owning an electric vehicle, Palmer said, adding that information will impact the upcoming Lagonda brand.

Aston Martin doesn’t advertise the price of the Rapide E, saying pricing is available once customers have applied. The company previously said it would be priced around $255,000.