Category: UNCATEGORIZED

12 Apr 2019

LumApps raises $24M Series B for its ‘social intranet’

LumApps, the “social intranet” for the enterprise, has closed $24 million in Series B funding. The round is led by previous backer IdInvest, and will be used to scale LumApps’ global sales and marketing and accelerate product development.

Founded in Paris in 2012 — and now also with offices in London, Tokyo, San Francisco and New York — LumApps has developed a social web-styled intranet for enterprises to let company employees better connect and collaborate.

The solution integrates with both G Suite, Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Sharepoint, and is accessible via mobile. Overall, it is designed to serve as a central hub for personalized content, social communications, work tools and enterprise applications.

“We launched LumApps Social Intranet solution in 2015, after our historical customer Veolia asked us to create a platform based on their needs,” “LumApps founder and CEO Sébastien Ricard tells me. “We quickly realized there was a massive demand for modern intranets from all companies, to transform internal communications and the employee experience”.

That’s because, he says, communication within an enterprise is challenging, spread across disparate tools such as email, live chat, and social networks – solutions that are typically disconnected and siloed. This is especially true in large enterprises, where finding information and reaching the right people can be very difficult.

“Our dream was to enable access to useful information in one click, from one place and for everyone. Just that simple. We wanted to build… a solution that bridged [an] intranet and social network, with the latest new technologies. A place that users will love”.

At its core, Ricard says LumApps goes further than just solving common business challenges, including fostering a collaborative workplace where employees are more engaged and more productive. “Every large company is building their digital workplace, and it’s critical that they have a central intranet that houses all employee communications, news, memos, applications, etc. from the corporate team but also from peers”.

That mission appears to be working, evidenced by today’s Series B funding and a customer base that spans enterprises small and large. Companies using LumApps include Veolia, Valeo, Air Liquide, Colgate-Palmolive, The Economist, Schibsted, EA, and Logitech. The intranet software has on-boarded more than 4 million users globally.

Adds Ricard: “As a French entrepreneur, it has always been a dream to build such a global success,” says Ricard. “We encountered highs and lows, especially in 2016 when we started in the U.S. and lived our first year of setbacks. Why? All we had was our product and we didn’t yet understand the culture and market specifics. It took time to hire American talent to structure everything and build a solid base… Now we have a team of 150-plus people worldwide with a special focus on the U.S.”

12 Apr 2019

Uber has already made billions from its exits in China, Russia and Southeast Asia

Uber’s exits from China, Russia and Southeast Asia were billed as failures from the company, but the ride-sharing giant has already made billions on paper from those moves, according to its IPO filing.

Uber released its much-anticipated S1 on Thursday U.S. time and reporters and analysts are frantically digging into a treasure trove of previously-unreleased details. A number of sections on Uber’s global divestitures begin to paint a clear picture of the strategy that Uber employed when leaving China, Russia and Southeast Asia in recent years.

In each case, Uber decided to leave the market but, upon doing so, take a stake in its rival business in exchange for the assets it had remaining. Today, those holdings are collectively worth a cool $12.5 billion on paper, with a least $3 billion in gains so far.

China: $7.95 billion

China was Uber’s first tactical exit and it saw the company sell to local giant Didi Chuxing in August 2016

The Uber filing shows the U.S. firm took an 18.8 percent take in Didi. That, Uber estimates, has since been reduced to around 15.4 percent due to subsequent fundraising from Didi, which last publicly announced a $5.5 billion raise one year ago — previously, it raised $4 billion at the end of 2017.

Didi’s $56 billion valuation means it is the third highest valued startup in the world behind only ByteDance, parent of TikTok, and Uber, which it counts as an investor

The really interesting part of the filing its Uber’s estimate for the value of its Didi stake: that was $5.97 billion as of the end of 2017, and $7.95 billion at the end of last year. That’s a $2 billion paper increase in just one year, although the Uber filing doesn’t provide a value for the initial merger deal. Didi is also in the money having invested $1 billion into Uber in exchange for

One notable piece is that an investigation into whether the deal constitutes a monopoly is still ongoing, some two and a half years after the transaction was first announced.

“It is not clear how or when that proceeding will be resolved,” Uber notes in its document.

Finally, the original deal included a clause forbidding Didi from making “certain investments outside of Asia” for a six-year period. The company breached that — it acquired Uber rival 99 in Brazil and expanded its business into Mexico, among other moves — which saw Uber take back some shares, although its net gain was only $152 million.

Didi has struggled over the last 18 months so safety concerns bubbled to the fore following the murder of two female passengers last year. Operationally, too, there have been challenges. Didi reportedly lost $1.6 billion last year — that’s more than Uber — and it reshuffled the organization by laying off 15 percent of its staff recently. Despite buying out Uber, it is up against increased competition after a consortium of automakers inked a $1.45 billion ride-hailing joint-venture while new government rules have made the business of ride-hailing, and in particular recruiting drivers, more challenging in China.

Still, as China’s dominant firm and with an increasingly global presence, you’d imagine that Uber’s stake is likely to become more lucrative in the future.

Southeast Asia: $3.22 billion

Uber’s exit from Southeast Asia in March 2018 never seemed a copy of its China play, where it was burning a reported $1 billion a year. Instead, I argued that the deal was actually a win for the U.S. firm because it took a decent slice of Grab as part of the agreement and Uber’s filings show that is already proving to be the case.

Uber noted that the exit deal saw it take an initial 30 percent stake for $2.28 billion, which has since diluted to around 23 percent following Grab fundraising, which remains ongoing with a goal of $6.5 billion for its Series H. (That may be why the Uber stake was initially announced as 23 percent rather than 30 percent.)

Grab’s most recent valuation was $14 billion, according to sources, which means Uber’s stake is already worth $3.22 billion, a nearly $1 billion jump on paper in just a year.

Uber’s investment in Grab has already made it a $1 billion profit in just over one year

With the company in a dogfight with Go-Jek, its Indonesia rival that’s backed by the likes of Google and Tencent, it seems unlikely that Grab and key shareholder SoftBank will do anything other than keep on raising. That’ll likely dilute Uber — which, as a shareholder rather than an investor, isn’t likely to invest again — but it’ll increase Grab’s valuation and thus the value of Uber’s stake.

That leads us to the next detail of Uber’s Grab investment: its stake is classified as “available-for-sale debt security.” That’s to say that Uber could potentially dispose of its stake in the future.

Indeed, the Uber filing notes a clause in the deal that would allow the U.S. firm to sell “all or a portion of its investment back to Grab for cash” if the company hasn’t gone public by March 25 2023, five years after the deal.

That’s the first real line in the sand that we’ve seen for a Grab IPO and, with a buyback already expensive as Uber’s stake is worth more than $3 billion, the clock is ticking.

Russia: $1.4 billion

Finally, Uber’s third tactical retreat is Russia, where it formed a joint venture with local rival Yandex.taxi in July 2017. The combined business covers ride-hailing and food delivery in over 127 cities in Russia.

That gives it a different kind of relationship to its deals with Didi and Grab, where it one of many minority shareholders, and Uber’s S1 gives fewer details of the Russia JV.

Yandex, like Uber, is testing self-driving vehicles that could used in its taxi service in the future

What we do know is that Uber estimates its share of the business is 38 percent, a slice that it says is worth $1.4 billion. That’s a valuation of around $3.68 billion which is on par with the $3.7 billion that the companies announced at the time of the deal. Like the other deals, the business is the dominant one in a huge market — Russia has a population of more than 140 million people — so it stands to reason that the business will grow and thus Uber’s value within it will increase.

Yandex, the parent of Yandex.taxi, also stands to gain and not just from the joint venture. Uber allocated the company two million shares (then worth $54 million) which, at a proposed $55 per share, would more than double to $110 million at IPO and that’s not counting its potential value in the future.

A change with Careem acquisition

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that Southeast Asia would be the company’s last global retreat, and he seems to have been good to his word so far. Indeed, Uber announced its largest acquisition last month with a planned $3 billion purchase of Middle East-based rival Careem, which is present in 15 markets.

The Uber filing explains that the deal, which has not been completed, is $3.1 billion with around $1.4 billion in cash.

“We have structured the acquisition and proposed integration of Careem with the goal of preserving the strengths of both companies, including opportunities to create operating efficiencies across both platforms. We expect to share consumer demand and driver supply across both platforms, thereby increasing network density and reducing wait times for consumers and drivers in the region, while simultaneously achieving synergies from combining back-end support functions and shared technology infrastructure,” Uber wrote in a statement.

That’s certainly a new approach for Uber worldwide and, post IPO, it’ll be interesting to watch it actively play a role in consolidating other businesses into its own rather than going the other way. Still, those three global retreats are likely to pay off handsomely despite being billed as the result of failure.

A graphic from Uber’s filing shows its global presence, and the importance of its investments in China, Russia and Southeast Asia

12 Apr 2019

China’s largest stock photo provider draws fire over use of black hole image

While the world marvels at the first black hole image ever taken, a Chinese photo-sharing community is setting off a huge public outcry over its use of the landmark photo and a wider debate over copyrights practices in China.

As soon as the European Southern Observatory released the black hole photo on April 10, Visual China Group (VCG), China’s leading stock image provider that’s compared to Getty Images and owns Flikr’s one-time rival 500px, made the image available for sale in its library without attribution to the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (EHT), an array of radio telescopes that captured the image of the black hole.

“This is an editorial image. Please call 400-818-2525 or consult our customer service representative for commercial use,” said a note for the black hole image on VCG’s website.

Internet users took to social media slamming VCG for monetizing a photo intended for free distribution among the human race. Most of images on ESO are, according to the organization, under the Creative Commons license.

Unless specifically noted, the images, videos, and music distributed on the public ESO website, along with the texts of press releases, announcements, pictures of the week, blog posts and captions, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided the credit is clear and visible.

VCG swiftly revised the note to say the black hole photo should not be used for commercial purposes, but Pandora’s box was already open. The incident sparked a plethora of comments on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, condemning VCG’s opportunist business practice. The site is said to often play the role of the victim to obtain financial compensation, and it does so by seeking damages from users who inadvertently use a public domain photo that VCG has preemptively copyrighted.

Shares of VCG plummeted 10 percent Friday morning in Shanghai, giving it a market cap of 17.66 billion yuan ($2.63 billion).

Assets of VCG’s massive content library range from logos of large tech companies like Baidu, all the way to the Chinese national flag.

“Does your company also own copyrights to the national flag and national emblem?” remarked the Chinese Communist Youth League on its official Weibo account in a snarky response to VCG’s unscrupulous licensing practice.

The price tag of the national emblem image is, lo and behold, no less than 150 yuan ($22) for use in a newspaper article and at least 1,500 yuan ($220) on a magazine cover.

Screenshot: The image of the Chinese national emblem was for sale on VCG at 150 yuan to 1500 yuan

“Copyrights protection should definitely be promoted. The question is, why is VCG allowed to price photos of the black hole and the likes out of the market? Why is it able to exploit loopholes?” Du Yu, a Beijing-based freelance technology journalist, said to TechCrunch.

TechCrunch has reached out to ESO for comments and will update the story once we hear back.

Government intervention soon followed on the heels of online criticisms. On April 11, the cyberspace watchdog of Tianjin, where VCG’s parent company is based, ordered the photo site to end its “illegal, rule-breaking practices.”

VCG apologized on April 12 in a company statement, admitting the lack of oversight over its contracted contributors who allegedly uploaded the images in question. “We have taken down all non-compliant photos and closed down the site voluntarily for a revamp in accordance with related laws,” said VCG.

11 Apr 2019

Disney shows off its upcoming Disney+ streaming service

Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming strategy took center stage today at the company’s investor day. That strategy includes Hulu (where the recently-closed Fox acquisition has given Disney a contyrolling stake), ESPN+ and the Indian streaming service Hotstar, but executives spent most of their time hyping the upcoming launch of Disney+.

For one thing, they confirmed that unlike Hulu and ESPN+, Disney+ will be entire ad-free, making all its money from subscriptions. Kevin Mayer, Disney’s direct-to-consumer chairman also said the company will is also “likely” to offer a bundle of Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+ at a discounted product.

Mayer and other Disney executives also offered the first look at what they said is a “working prototype” of the Disney+ service. To a large extent, it looked like any other streaming app, but they made it clear that all the content will be available to download for offline viewing.

The service will also emphasize Disney’s portfolio of entertainment brands — there will be separate sections for Disney animation, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel and National Geographic. In each case, the speakers emphasized the existing library of films. Not all of those films will be available at launch, but many will be, with more added over the first couple years of operation (presumably as they’re freed up from deals with third parties like Netflix).

Disney+ rollout

Disney+ rollout

For example, Disney said that at launch, the service will include the entirety of the animation studio’s 13-film Signature collection, plus the first two Star Wars trilogies and “The Force Awakens,” plus “Captain Marvel” and other Marvel films.

In addition, Disney is creating a number of original shows for the service (much of it highlighted in clips and sizzle reals that were not included on the webcast). Those include a whole lineup of Marvel shows that Marvel President Kevin Feige said would be closely tied to the studio’s films, plus the Star Wars series “The Mandalorian” and a show about the “Rogue One” characters Cassian Andor and K-2SO.

As for when viewers will actually get to watch all this content, Disney Streaming President Michael Paull said the plan is to roll out across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America throughout 2021.

11 Apr 2019

Equity Shot: A deep dive into the Uber S-1

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

It’s time for another Equity Shot, a quick-take episode centered around a breaking news event. This time, as you already guessed, Kate Clark and I sat down to dig into the Uber S-1. It’s a huge, complex document, but we did our best to summarize what’s inside.

First, we talked through yearly results, looking back a half-decade into Uber’s revenue growth. In the filing, Uber reported 2018 revenues of $11.27 billion, net income of $997 million and adjusted EBITDA losses of $1.85 million. We highlighted those numbers, talked about operating losses and the company’s gyrating net results that included the positive impacts of various divestitures.

Yes, this S-1 required a bit more unpacking than most. We apologize for the frantic scrolling, we were pouring through the document live and we were a bit excited. This is an IPO that’s been talked about for years and will be easily one of the largest floats of all time.

Anyway, an S-1 brings insights to more than just a company’s financials, so we spent time highlighting key stakeholders, or, in other words, the people are are going to get really really really rich off Uber’s IPO. That includes Uber co-founder and chief executive officer Travis Kalanick, famous venture capital firms like the SoftBank Vision Fund and Benchmark, and more.

The IPO, remember, is expected to sell $10 billion in stock (primary and secondary) and value the company at $100 billion or more.

If 30 minutes digging through the S-1 wasn’t enough for you, don’t fret, we’ll be following the Uber IPO for weeks — probably months — to come.

Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple PodcastsOvercast, Pocket Casts, Downcast and all the casts.

11 Apr 2019

Marvel confirms upcoming streaming shows about Loki, Scarlet Witch and the Falcon

At today’s Disney InvestorDday, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige outlined the superheroic side of the upcoming streaming service Disney+.

That includes a number of original shows: “Wanda Vision,” which will star Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch and Paul Bettany as The Vision; “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” starring Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan as the titular characters; a Loki series starring Tom Hiddleston and an animated “What if?” series telling out-of-continuity stories, starting with episode about Peggy Carter becoming a super soldier.

While the development these shows had been reported on already, Feige’s presentation provided official word on the initial lineup. He also emphasized that unlike other Marvel TV series (say, on Netflix), these will be “major storylines set in the MCU,” with “ramifications” for other Disney+ series and big-screen Marvel adventures.

The service will include several series taking viewers behind-the-scenes of the Marvel universe, and parts of the Marvel movie library — many of those films are currently tied up in deals with third parties like Netflix, but at launch, the service will include both the first Marvel Studios film, “Iron Man,” and the most recent, “Captain Marvel.”

At least, that’s the most recent Marvel film for the next few weeks, until the release of “Avengers: Endgame.” Which Feige alluded to: “Post-‘Endgame,’ the MCU will be extremely different and extremely focused on Disney+.”

11 Apr 2019

Uber spent $457 million on self-driving and flying car R&D last year

Uber spent $457 million last year on research and development of autonomous vehicles, flying cars (known as eVTOLs) and other “technology programs” and will continue to invest heavily in the futuristic tech even though it expects to rely on human drivers for years to come, according to the company’s IPO prospectus filed Thursday.

R&D costs at Uber ATG, the company’s autonomous vehicle unit, its eVTOL unit Uber Elevate and other related technology represented one-third of its total R&D spend. Uber’s total R&D costs in 2018 were more than $1.5 billion.

Uber filed its S-1 on Thursday, laying the groundwork for the transportation company to go public next month. This comes less than one month after competitor Lyft’s debut on the public market. Uber is listing under the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “UBER,” but has yet to disclose the anticipated initial public offering price.

Uber believes that autonomous vehicles will be an important part of its offerings over the long term, namely that AVs can increase safety, make rides more efficient and lower prices for customers.

However, the transportation company struck a more conservative tone in the prospectus on how and when autonomous vehicles will be deployed, a striking difference from the early days of Uber ATG when former CEO Travis Kalanick called AVs an existential risk to the business.

Uber contends there will be a long period of “hybrid autonomy” and it will continue to rely on human drivers for its core business for the foreseeable future. Uber said even when autonomous vehicle taxis are deployed, it will still need human drivers for situations that “involve substantial traffic, complex routes, or unusual weather conditions.” Human drivers will also be needed during concerts, sporting events and other high-demand events that will “likely exceed the capacity of a highly utilized, fully autonomous vehicle fleet,” the company wrote in the S-1.

Here’s an excerpt from the S-1:

Along the way to a potential future autonomous vehicle world, we believe that there will be a long period of hybrid autonomy, in which autonomous vehicles will be deployed gradually against specific use cases while Drivers continue to serve most consumer demand. As we solve specific autonomous use cases, we will deploy autonomous vehicles against them. Such situations may include trips along a standard, well-mapped route in a predictable environment in good weather.

Uber contends it is well-suited to balance that potentially awkward in-between phase when both human drivers and autonomous vehicles will co-exist on its platform.

“Drivers are therefore a critical and differentiating advantage for us and will continue to be our valued partners for the long-term,” Uber wrote.

Despite Uber’s forecast and more tempered tone, the company is pushing ahead on autonomous vehicles.

Uber ATG was founded in 2015 in Pittsburgh with just 40 researchers from Carnegie Robotics and Carnegie Mellon University . Today, Uber ATG has more than 1,000 employees spread out in offices in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto.

Uber acknowledged under the risk factors section of the S-1 that it could fail to develop and successfully commercialize autonomous vehicle technologies or could be undercut by competitors, which would threaten its ride-hailing and delivery businesses.

Uber’s view of which companies pose the biggest threat to the company was particularly interesting. The company named nearly a dozen potential competitors, a list that contained a few of the usual suspects like Waymo, GM Cruise and Zoox, as well as less-known startups such as May Mobility and Anthony Levandowski’s new company, Prontio.ai. Other competitors listed in the S-1 include Tesla, Apple, Aptiv, Aurora and Nuro. Argo AI, the subsidiary of Ford, was not listed.

ATG has built more than 250 self-driving vehicles and has three partnerships — Volvo, Toyota and Daimler — that illustrates the company’s mult-tiered strategy to AVs.

Uber has a first-party agreement with Volvo. Under the agreement announced in August 2016, Uber owns Volvo vehicles, has added its AV tech and plans to deploy those cars on its own network.

Its partnership with Daimler is on the other extreme. In that partnership, announced in January 2017, Daimler will introduce a fleet of its own AVs on the Uber network. This is similar to Lyft’s partnership with Aptiv.

Finally, there’s Toyota, a new partnership just announced in August 2018, that is a hybrid of sorts of the other two. Uber says it expects to integrate its autonomous vehicle technologies into purpose-built Toyota vehicles to be deployed on its network.

11 Apr 2019

Trifecta! SpaceX launches first mission on Falcon Heavy and lands all three boosters

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launch vehicle undertook its first commercial mission today, taking a communications satellite to orbit and proving the viability of its heavy-lift rocket platform. And as a piece de resistance, all three rocket cores autonomously landed themselves back on Earth and will soon be ready to fly again.

The mission is still underway, but the most dangerous moments are over with, and the system passed with flying colors. It’ll be some time before the second stage 2 burn and separation from the payload, at which point the mission will be considered a success.

The launch is a powerful endorsement of Falcon Heavy, which provides far more payload capacity, at far lower cost, than any competitor. New launch vehicles are being tested by SpaceX’s numerous competitors, but Falcon Heavy has the advantage of already existing and working as designed.

All planned launch events went as planned, though high winds delayed takeoff yesterday. After takeoff at about 6:35 local time in Cape Canaveral, the two first stages detached and made a picture-perfect landing at LZ-1 and LZ-2; the center core landed on the the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You. The latter was a bit of a nailbiter, as the video cut out just as the center core booster’s retro began to light the pad. But good signal a handful of seconds later revealed the final third of the trifecta.

It must be said that the crowd was going absolutely wild basically from T-0 to T+10 minutes, when the center core landed. Landing all three has never been done, and drone ship landings have led to some of SpaceX’s most public (not to say embarrassing) failures.

Currently the LV is in a cruise state before a second burn takes it to the desired orbit, after which Arabsat-6A will continue under its own power. It is also possible that SpaceX will catch the fairings, though that isn’t as sure a thing for several reasons.

We’ll keep this post updated with the latest.

11 Apr 2019

The importance of seating at the investor meeting

We just finished YCombinator. Surrounding Demo Day, we went to a lot of investor meetings. Such conversations are usually well-choreographed and methodical but their physical conditions can be variable and random. The following will massively (though subtly) impact the flow of a meeting

1. Furniture
2. Room layout
3. Where people sit

Despite the outsized impact the above can have on the outcome, their configuration is often haphazard. I have been documenting my findings for you.

Before I continue, I should mention that I think a lot about seating. I spoke to NPR once about where to sit at dinner. Maybe I think about it too much.

My previous article outlines basic tactics for unassigned seat selection at the dinner table. Pitch meetings aren’t usually held at a dinner table (thankfully), but many of the same seating principles apply. Investor meetings introduce notable differences:

  • Table size is rarely optimized for party size
  • Conversation is semi-structured, as opposed to freeform
  • There are two “sides” (and sometimes one is outnumbered)

Here are some of the configurations we’ve encountered so far:

The Bistro

This is a simple and common seating arrangement. However, it’s rare to see a meeting room with a tiny layout like this in an office. More often, these are encountered off-site, where noise conditions and crowd dynamics are dangerously unpredictable and volatile.

The Casual Friday

This array can work pretty well, but there is only one appropriate seating arrangement (shown). It’s easy to get this wrong – for example, if only one person sits on the couch, it can feel like they’re in trouble. (Worse: everyone could sit on the couch.)

The Planetarium

It’s difficult to know where to sit in a room like this, due to the awkwardness of sitting directly next to someone you’ve just met. Therefore, empty chairs are used as comfort-spacers, which create unnaturally long distances between parties.

The Awkward Line

This shouldn’t happen, but it can (sometimes as a result of the door’s position, and entry timing). If it does, it’s extremely awkward for the person in the middle of the conversation. It’s worth excusing yourself and reentering if this occurs.

The Job Interview

There are two things going on here: a weird room layout (confrontational array) and bad positioning of the remote participants. Remote participants are inevitable, but they should be positioned with eye-lines in mind.

The Tear Drop

Of the conditions I’ve seen so far, this was my favorite. The table’s unexpected and natural shape puts all parties at ease and obliquely prevents confrontational discussion angles. I’d never seen a tear drop table before, but it was the best.

The I Thought The Meeting Was Today

At least you “got the time back”, as we used to say at Facebook.

The Hard to Schedule

As intimidating as this looks, it’s actually perfectly optimized for what it is (a full partner meeting). That’s the key: the space should be optimized for the conversation that’s going to take place inside.


There were countless other arrays but mostly just variations on the above themes.

Pitch meetings are not normal meetings; the conditions in which they occur should be hyper-considered. As we’ve seen, if they’re not, the collateral impact on the dynamics of the conversation can range from plain awkwardness to subconscious adversariness.

Both investor and entrepreneur have honed their performances – the conversation itself – over many years. Each side knows exactly how to execute their part in the pitch meeting dance. But the stage itself – the meeting room – lags woefully behind in terms of optimization. This is an opportunity!

The best restaurants understand how physical conditions impact experience. The same should apply in the meeting room. The conditions should be optimized. Dialed-in.

If I were an investor, I would think about this a lot. Which is probably why I’m not an investor.

But if you are, perhaps this was helpful.

This post was originally published on AC

11 Apr 2019

Robocaller firm Stratics Networks exposed millions of call recordings

If you’ve ever had a voicemail appear out of nowhere, there’s a good chance Stratics Networks was involved.

The Toronto-based company is the self-proclaimed inventor of “ringless voicemails,” providing its customers a way of auto-dialing a list of phone numbers and dropping voicemails without leaving a missed call. The system uses a backdoor voicemail number typically reserved by the carrier to leave a voicemail directly in a person’s mailbox. The company once claimed it can process up to 10,000 ringless voicemails per minute — if you pay for it.

But the company left its back-end storage server open without a password, exposing thousands of outgoing and incoming recordings.

Security researcher John Wethington found the exposed server and asked TechCrunch to contact Stratics to secure the data. The server, hosted on Amazon Web Services, contained at least 100,000 recordings from more than 4,000 folders, each representing a single customer campaign.

According to BinaryEdge data, the exposed server was first detected on April 5 but may have been exposed for longer.

“This data was open to anyone with a browser and required no special access or privileges,” Wethington told TechCrunch. “I genuinely hope we were the first to identify it and responsibly disclose it because if that data is in unethical or criminal hands it’s going to be abused.”

“Organizations must consider the privacy ethics and not just the regulations when offering services,” he said. “The potential for abuse and privacy violations is every corporation and executives responsibility.”

Customers use the company’s offering to leave voicemails without needing someone to call each person — from debt collectors to doctor’s offices reminding patients about upcoming appointments. Not only does the company allow customers to record outgoing voicemails to ensure a voicemail actually dropped, it also records incoming calls when someone picks up.

It was those recordings that were exposed, said Wethington. TechCrunch reviewed several folders of recordings.

In one case, we found several counties in Florida used Stratics to inform citizens that their election postal ballots are set to expire. One folder contained more than 5,200 audio  recordings on callers responding to voicemail drops sent by Broward County and Hillsborough County. Of the several recordings we heard, many provided sensitive information over the phone — including their names, addresses, dates of birth and in some cases their voter ID numbers.

Other folders in the exposed data contained dozens of incoming call recordings from those who had been sent a voicemail drop. One of those was a law firm, which call center workers identified as Key Tax Group. Of the calls we reviewed, none knew why they were left an unsolicited voicemail but were all asked by the call center worker if they needed help with their taxes. At no point were the callers told that the calls were being recorded, despite call recording laws in several states — like California and Maryland — mandating everyone on the same call agrees that the call can be recorded. Each recording had the unsuspected caller’s phone number in the filename. When contacted by TechCrunch, several of the victims of the cold-call scam confirmed they lived in states with two-party laws.

And, one other company, which the call center worker identified as Michigan Comfort, received over a hundred calls as recently as this month from people who had been dropped an unsolicited voicemail. Much to the same pattern as the law firm, those callers were asked if they were interested in “a duct inspection or a furnace rebate.”

“You shouldn’t call people out of the blue and neither should your company,” said one angry victim in a recording.

Although Stratics’ website says it “does not tolerate spam in any form,” the company puts the onus of compliance with the customers. “You are 100% liable for compliance when making calls originating under your account,” says its website.

Shortly after contacting the company Thursday about the data exposure, the leaking server had been secured.

“We take compliance and data security very seriously, and we are currently investigating to determine to what extent, if any, information has been exposed to unauthorized access,” said Chris Collins, a spokesperson for Stratics. “We have currently engaged an outside legal firm to guide us in our investigation. We are also engaging a third party cyber security firm to perform a full internal security audit.”

TechCrunch sent Stratics several questions about spam and call recording. Collins said Stratics would “block” users found in violation of its policies, and that its customers bore the responsibility to follow all local, state and federal call recording laws.

Following our disclosure, the company had pulled its “discover” section from the site. When asked, Collins said this was “to avoid our website from being overloaded” in response to this article.

We also asked how long the data was exposed for, if the company will notify customers and regulators per state data breach notification laws, or if anyone else had accessed the storage server.

Stratics declined to comment further.