Category: UNCATEGORIZED

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.

Rocket Lab is getting ready to fly its tenth mission, delayed from its first launch window last week and now making its second attempt. Aside from being a milestone 10th mission (dubbed ‘Running Out of Fingers,’ ha), this will be the first time that Rocket Lab includes technology designed to help it eventually recover and reuse elements of its launch vehicle.

After first designing its Electron launch platform as a fully expendable spacecraft, meaning it could only do one way trips to bring cargo to orbit, Rocket Lab announced that it would be moving towards rocket reusability at an event hosted by CEO and founder Peter Beck in August. To make this happen, the company will be developing and testing the tech necessary to recover Electron’s first-stage rocket booster over the course of multiple missions.

To be clear, this mission has the primary goal of delivering a number of small satellites on behalf of paying customers, including microsatellites from Alba Orbital and a Tokyo -based company called ALE that is using microsatellites to simulate particles from meteors. But Rocket Lab will also be testing recovery instrumentation loaddd on board the Electron vehicle, including guidance and navigation systems, as well as telemetry and flight computer hardware. This will be used to gather real-time data about the process of re-entry for Electron’s first stage, and Rocket Lab will also attempt to make use of a reaction control system to control the orientation of the booster as it re-enters.

While this mission will only test those elements of the recovery system, eventually, the goal is to have the Electron first-stage re-enter and deploy a parachute to slow its descent, after which it’ll be intercepted by a helicopter and caught mid-air, with the helicopter effectively towing it to its final drop-off point. It’s a different approach from SpaceX’s powered propulsive landing, but one that’s quite a bit easier from a technical perspective, and mad possible by the lighter weight of the Electron booster, vs. the larger and heavier SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage.

Rocket Lab has completed what’s known as a ‘wet dress rehearsal,’ which is basically a simulated run-up to launch with propellant loaded into the actual rocket, and should be ready to go for later this week, provided conditions are favorable and all other factors remain clear for launch.

You can watch the launch live right here:

Seventeen, lieblings. That’s how many days stand between you and Disrupt Berlin 2019, which takes place on 11-12 December. Here’s a pro tip for savvy investors. Use this time to jumpstart your networking strategy and make the most of your two days at Disrupt. How? We have a plan for that.

More on that in a minute, but first an important reminder. If you don’t have a ticket yet, get a move on. The deadline to buy your early-bird pass is 8 November at 11:59 p.m. (CEST). Beat the clock and you can save up to €500.

Alright back to the plan. Hundreds of early-stage startups will exhibit their tech products, services and platforms in Startup Alley. This presents investors with both a huge opportunity and a challenge. The good news? We’ve posted the first batch of Startup Alley exhibitors at Disrupt Berlin. You can explore the list, narrow the possibilities and do your research before you even pack your suitcase.

Don’t forget that Startup Alley is also the place to meet and greet our recently announced TC Top Picks. TechCrunch editors sorted through hundreds of applications and chose up to five exceptional startups to come to Disrupt Berlin that represent the best of each of these categories: AI/Machine Learning, Biotech/Healthtech, Blockchain, Fintech, Mobility, Privacy/Security, Retail/E-commerce, Robotics/IoT/Hardware, CRM/Enterprise and Education.

Now, combine your pre-Disrupt prep with CrunchMatch, our free business match-making platform that helps you find, connect and schedule meetings with people based on mutual business goals and interests. When the platform goes live (we’ll notify you), fill out your profile outlining specific roles, goals and the type of people you want to meet. Investor profiles might include investment categories, preferred funding stage and geographic preferences. Founders would list category, stage, location, funding status, etc.

CrunchMatch will suggest meetings and send out invitations (which recipients can easily accept or decline). You can also use CrunchMatch to reserve meeting spaces where you can network in comfort and relative quiet.

Strategic planning helps you save time and improve efficiency. No more time wasted talking to the wrong people. And you’ll have more time to take in other important aspects of Disrupt — like watching an outstanding cadre of startups compete in the Startup Battlefield. Or maybe you want to listen in as experts discuss Brexit. Check out the Disrupt Berlin agenda to find what else strikes your fancy.

Disrupt Berlin 2019 takes place on 11-12 December. Whether you’re an investor searching for innovative startups, a founder looking for collaborators or you simply want to take in the latest tech ideas, researching the Startup Alley exhibitors listed here will help you make the most of your valuable time. We’ll see you in 17 days, lieblings!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt Berlin 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Scribd has raised $58 million in new funding led by growth firm Spectrum Equity.

The company first launched as a document-sharing service in 2007 before creating an e-book subscriptio in 2013. It now offers access to a library of e-books, audiobooks, newspapers and magazines for $8.99 per month. (Access is unlimited for most subscribers, but Scribd can cap the reading and listening of its most active users.)

At the beginning of this year, the company announced that it had more than 1 million paying subscribers. It also said it was seeing more than 100 million visitors each month (many of them brought in by the free document-sharing), it’s been profitable since 2017 and it’s bringing in $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Since then, the company has launched an original content initiative focused on works that are longer than a magazine article but shorter than a traditional book. It’s also started to create localized experiences for international markets like Mexico.

In the announcement, co-founder and CEO Trip Adler said the new funding “will enable us to continue to operate sustainably and efficiently while accelerating our growth, product innovations, content acquisition and continued investment in our employees.”

Scribd previously raised a total of $47.8 million in funding, according to Crunchbase, most recently in a Series D that was announced nearly five years ago.

Spectrum Equity, meanwhile, has backed companies like Ancestry, Grubhub, Headspace and SurveyMonkey.

“As a differentiated content library, including robust user-generated content and ebooks and audiobooks from top tier publishers, Scribd is poised to be the leading online subscription reading service for consumers across the globe,” said Spectrum Equity Managing Director Pete Jensen in a statement. “Spectrum has been fortunate to be a part of successfully scaling several digital content businesses, and we look forward to partnering with Trip and the entire management team to help make Scribd a part of readers’ everyday lives.”

In addition to announcing the funding, Scribd said it has hired Tony Grimmick as its first chief financial officer, Meghan Cochran as its first vice president of product and Patsy Mangan as its first vice president of people.

TookiTaki, a startup that develops machine learning-based financial compliance software, announced today it has raised a $11.7 million in additional Series A funding, led by Viola Fintech and SIG Asia Investment, with participation from Normura Holdings. Existing investors Illuminate Financial, Jungle Ventures and SEEDs Capital also returned for the extension, which brings TookiTaki’s total Series A (first announced in March) to $19.2 million.

The company is using the funding to enhance their anti-money laundering (AML) and reconciliation software, and to hire for its offices in the United States, Singapore and India.

In a press statement, Viola Fintech general partner Tomer Michaeli said “With almost twenty years’ experience that Viola has in the AML sector, we found Tookitaki’s approach to be very unique. Its pragmatic way of creating an overlay on top of legacy AML systems helps increase accuracy and significantly lower operating costs for financial institutions. Moreover, its regulator-ready ‘glass box’ solution shows an innovative approach and a deep understanding of the challenges in the modern AML solutions market.”

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TookiTaki was co-founded by CEO Abhishek Chatterjee and COO Jeeta Bandopadhyay in 2012. When TechCrunch reported on its seed round in 2015, the company provided data analytics to marketers. But it decided to focus its machine-learning platform for predictive analytics on regulatory compliance in late 2016 after realizing that there is a bigger business opportunity for vertical AI than a horizontal platform play, the founders told TechCrunch in an email.

Chatterjee was an associate at JP Morgan during the 2008 financial crisis and worked with U.S. regulators to make sure the bank’s products complied with new regulations. During that time, he says he realized that current anti-money laundering solutions reduced the effectiveness of compliance programs, and also struggled to keep up with the growth of digital banking and online transactions. Many legacy AML software had high false positive rates, TookiTaki’s founders say, and also missed activity by more sophisticated money launderers.

TookiTaki claims it reduces false positives for transaction monitoring by 50%, a result validated by Deloitte. Its software uses explainable machine learning models, which means their decisions are broken down in a way that can be easily understood by compliance staff, while providing them with the details they need for investigations. TookiTaki’s products can also help minimize costs by using a distributed computing framework, so it can be deployed in the cloud or on premise.

The software has two main modules: one that looks for suspicious transactions across different systems, and names screening, which screens for high-risk individual and corporate customers. Other TookiTaki features include machine learning algorithms that are constantly updating for new money laundering patterns and dividing alerts into low, medium and high-risk, making it easier for companies to figure out how to prioritize investigations.