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Paidy , a Japanese financial tech startup that provides instant credit to consumers in Japan, announced today that it has raised a total of $143 million in new financing. This includes a $83 million Series C extension from investors including PayPal Ventures and debt financing of $60 million. The funding will be used to advance Paidy’s goals of signing large-scale merchants, offering new financial services and growing its user base to 11 million accounts by the end of 2020. In addition to PayPal Ventures, investors in the Series C extension also include Soros Capital Management, JS Capital Management and Tybourne Capital Management, along with another undisclosed investor. The debt financing is from Goldman Sachs Japan, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. Earlier this month, Paidy and Goldman Sachs Japan established a warehouse facility valued at $52 million. Paidy also established credit facility worth $8 million with the three banks. Th

Domestic workers have been illegally sold via Instagram and other apps on Google and Apple's stores. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Nx2gxk

A massive data breach can cause chaos within a company and put IT staff under extreme stress. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2q5DtbZ

Kepler Communications, the Toronto-based startup that’s focused on developing and deploying shoebox-sized satellites to provide telecommunications services, is opening up registration for those interested in getting their first developer kits. These developer kits, designed to help potential commercial customers take advantage of its Internet of Things (IoT) narrowband connectivity deploying next year, will then be made available to purchase for elect partners next year. This kind of early access is designed to give companies interested in using the kind of connectivity Kepler intends on providing a head start on testing and integration. Kepler ‘s service is designed to provide global coverage using a single network for IoT operators, at low costs relative to the market, for applications including tracking shipping containers, railway networks, livestock and crops and much more. Kepler says that its IoT network, which will be made up of nanosatellites designed specifically for this p

The technology has the potential for "widespread invasiveness", the information commissioner said. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2C3oW2U

Faustin Rukundo had no idea that a strange call over WhatsApp had infected his phone with spyware. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Wv1SDK

By BY DAVID MCCABE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2q5ha6e

It is on a smaller scale than it had wanted and must treat any data it collects as a "public asset". from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Nud93e

The internet and search engines like Google have made the world our oyster when it comes to sourcing information, but in the world of business, there remains a persistent need for more targeted market intelligence, a way to get reliable data quickly to get on with your work. Today, one of the startups hoping to build a lucrative operation of its own around that premise is announcing a round of funding to get there. Crunchbase — a directory and database of company-related information that originally got its start as a part of TechCrunch before being spun off into a separate business several years ago — has raised $30 million, a Series C that it plans to use to continue expanding its base of paid subscribers and expanding its product to include more predictive, personalised information for its users by way more machine learning and other AI-based technology. CEO Jager McConnell, who has long viewed Crunchbase as the “LinkedIn for company profiles,” said that of the 55 million people

With CcHub ‘s acquisition of iHub in September, Nigerian Bosun Tijani is at the helm of (arguably) the largest tech network in Africa. He is now CEO of both organizations, including their robust membership rosters, startup incubation programs, global partnerships and VC activities from Nigeria to Kenya . One could conclude Tijani has become one of the most powerful figures in African tech with the CcHub/ iHub merger. But that would be a little shortsighted. The techie from Lagos still faces plenty of challenges and unknowns in integrating two innovation hubs that lie 3,818 flight kilometers apart. Several sources speaking on background over the last year have indicated iHub was experiencing financial difficulties. Tijani offered TechCrunch some initial details last month on how the acquisition will fall together. Nigeria’s CcHub acquires Kenya’s iHub to create mega Africa incubator But more recently he shared greater detail on his strategy for operating the multi-country

The rise of the internet has given every company the chance to be a global company. But as a founder, growing from your garage to the worldwide markets can be tricky business. That’s why we’ve assembled a panel of top-tier experts to talk through the peaks and pitfalls of scaling strategies at Disrupt Berlin in December . I’m very pleased to announce that Holger Seim, founder and CEO of audio startup Blinkist, Karoli Hindriks, founder and CEO of Jobbatical, and prominent Silicon Valley immigration attorney Sophie Alcorn will be joining us at the show, which runs December 11 and December 12. Holger Seim founded Blinkist in 2012. The learning service condenses the information and knowledge found in nonfiction books and repackages that info into small text or audio packets. The company charges $12.99/month for a subscription, with a steep discount for those who pay annually. Today, Blinkist has customers in more than 150 countries. Seim brings experience from his time at Deutsche Tel

All is not lost for smartphone manufacturers. On the heels of two years’ of global stagnation, the category is finally showing some signs of life. Much of the bounce back comes as manufacturers are working to correct for dulled consumer interest. I wouldn’t put too much weight in the numbers right now, as they’re little more than an uptick. Numbers from Canalys put shipment growth at one percent from Q3 2018 to Q3 2019. In most in cases, that would be a modest gain, at best, but this is notably the first time in two years that the numbers have been heading in the right direction. Samsung saw the biggest gains — a phenomenon the analyst firm chalks up to a shift in strategy to eat some of its profits. The move has paid off for the quarter, with an 11% growth in device shipments to 78.9 million devices shipped. That gives the company the largest global marketshare at 22.4%. Huawei, too, saw impressive growth, year-over-year, commanding second place with 66.8 million units shipped. Mu

It’s not quite an “ Apple Prime” subscription, but it’s compelling. Apple on Wednesday introduced a new program that will allow Apple Card users to finance their iPhone purchases for 24 months, without paying interest. The program aims to appeal to consumers who frequently upgrade their iPhone to the latest model, but often turn to their carrier to finance those purchases. With the Goldman Sachs Apple Card, those iPhone users will have another option — and one without the associated interest and fees of a traditional credit card purchase, Apple says. In addition, the Apple Card offers 3% back on purchases from Apple, which further sweetens the deal. The program helps to lay the groundwork for what some believe may eventually become a larger subscription product for Apple, or a so-called “Apple Prime” — a name that references the Amazon Prime membership program that includes a variety of perks alongside its fast, free shipping. An Apple hardware subscription could see users instead

The founders of Seattle-based Modus cold emailed Pete Flint, the founder of Trulia and a current managing partner at the venture capital firm NFX , for months to no avail. In a last ditch effort, Alex Day, Jai Sim and Abbas Guvenilir sent one more message to the investor who’s real estate listings tool sold to Zillow in 2014 for $3.5 billion. They were at a coffee shop below his San Francisco office, was he interested in meeting? Fortunately for them, he was. Modus co-founders Modus, a real estate startup focused on title and escrow services, is today announcing a $12.5 million Series A financing co-led by NFX’s Flint and Niki Pezeshki of Felicis Ventures . Liquid 2 ventures and existing backers including Mucker Capital, Hustle Fund, 500 Startups, Rambleside and Cascadia Ventures also participated in the round. “The first revolution in online real estate was transforming the research experience, the next revolution in the industry is transforming the transaction,” Flint said

A California man is running for office in attempt to highlight flaws in Facebook's policies. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2N07ZwJ

It says the nature of the work was not in line with its vision for the company. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2PyOLA3

The 800 drones used to monitor endangered species and federal land are being investigated for security risks. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2PBHGyG

Namogoo , the Herzliya, Israel-based company that has developed a solution for e-commerce and other online enterprises to prevent “customer journey hijacking,” has raised $40 million in Series C funding. The round is led by Oak HC/FT, with participation from existing backers GreatPoint Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Hanaco Ventures. It brings total raised by Namogoo to $69 million, and sees Matt Streisfeld, Partner at Oak HC/FT, join the company’s board. Founded by Chemi Katz and Ohad Greenshpan in 2014, Namogoo’s platform gives online businesses more control over the customer journey by preventing unauthorized ad injections that attempt to divert customers to competitors. It also helps uncover privacy and compliance risks that can come from the use of 3rd and 4th party ad vendors. More broadly, Namogoo says that customer journey hijacking is a growing but little-known problem that by some estimates affects 15-25 percent of all user web sessions and therefore costs e-commerce busi

Berlin-based femtech startup Inne is coming out of stealth to announce an €8 million (~$8.8M) Series A and give the first glimpse of a hormone-tracking subscription product for fertility-tracking and natural contraception that’s slated for launch in Q1 next year. The Series A is led by led by Blossom Capital, with early Inne backer Monkfish Equity also participating, along with a number of angel investors — including Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of TransferWise; Tom Stafford, managing partner at DST; and Trivago co-founder Rolf Schromgens. Women’s health apps have been having a tech-fuelled moment in recent years, with the rise of a femtech category. There are now all sorts of apps for tracking periods and the menstrual cycle, such as Clue and Flo . Some also try to predict which days a women is fertile and which they’re not — offering digital tools to help women track bodily signals if they’re following a natural family planning method of contraception, or indeed trying to concei

Freetrade , the U.K. challenger stockbroker that offers commission-free investing, has closed $15 million in Series A funding. The round includes a $7.5 million investment from Draper Esprit, the U.K. publicly-listed venture capital firm, along with previously announced equity crowdfunding via Crowdcube. The funding will be used by Freetrade for further growth and product development, including “doubling down” on engineering hires. The fintech, which claims over 50,000 customers, is also planning to expand to Europe next year. In addition, Adam Dodds, CEO and founder of Freetrade, tells me there will be a marketing and content push to help reach more of the challenger stockbroker’s target millennial customers and help educate the market as a whole that investing in the stock market doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive or complicated. Amongst a number of new stock trading and investment apps in the U.K., London-based Freetrade was first out of the gate as a bona-fide “challenge

The ubiquity of APIs and cloud solutions have opened up a world of interesting ways for businesses to create a service without having to build every part of it themselves. But they have unleashed something else, too: an increased risk of breaches resulting from data being moved and used in multiple places and in multiple ways. Now, a startup that has built a way to help safeguard against that threat — using homomorphic encryption — is announcing funding, a sign of market demand and the opportunity it presents for cybersecurity. Duality, which builds solutions based on homomorphic encryption — a technique that encrypts an organization’s data in a way that lets it stay encrypted even as the company collaborates with third parties that also process the data — is today announcing that it has raised $16 million in funding. The Series A round is being led by Intel Capital, with participation also from Hearst Ventures and Team8. Team8 is the heavyweight Israeli cybersecurity incubator t

The cloud kitchen craze has reached Latin America. Food tech startup called Muy landed a fresh $15 million Series B to expand into Mexico and soon Brazil. The service is currently operative in Colombia.  Muy is a “cloud kitchen meets Chipotle,” says one investor. The company describes itself as a virtual kitchen and smart chef system that uses AI to produce food based on forecasts of demand, which can help to reduce food waste. Muy, translated from Spanish to English as “very,” allows users to place personalized orders in one of Muy’s physical restaurants or through a mobile app. Muy’s concept also exists as 20 physical dining locations offering what it says are quick, fresh and personalized dishes. Founder Jose Calderon says Muy is serving more than 200,000 dishes per month.  The round was led by Mexico-based investor ALLVP, with previous investor Seaya returning. The $15 million Series B brings MUY’s total funding to $20.5 million. Calderon is no newcomer to the takeaway experien

Millions of neighborhood stores that dot large and small cities, towns, and villages in India and have  proven tough to beat for e-commerce giants and super-chain retailers are at the center of a new play in the country.  A score of e-commerce companies , offline retail chains, and fintech startups are now racing to work with these mom and pop stores as they look to tap a massive untapped opportunity. A Pune-based startup with an idea to build a logistics network using these kirana stores said today it has won the backing of a major international investor. Three-and-a-half-year old ElasticRun said it has raised $40 million in a Series C financing round led by Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures). Existing investors Avataar Ventures and Kalaari Capital also participated in the round. The startup has raised $55.5 to date, Sandeep Deshmukh, co-founder and CEO of ElasticRun, told TechCrunch in an interview. Most of these kirana stores each day go through hours of down time — wh

The campaign, supported by YouTubers such as Jeffree Star, has raised more than $8m in five days. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2N0b93N

The technology will be a "friend" of consumers, a minister says, but he admits problems with the rollout. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2owcVAb

By BY DAVEY ALBA AND SHEERA FRENKEL from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/36hs9d7

New numbers from Gartner mark another major increase for global wearable spending in 2020. The analyst firm forecasts a 27% jump in end-user spending over this year, from $40.5 billion to $51.5 billion. Once again, the pack is lead by smartwatches, which continue to burn the hottest among in the space. Interestingly, the increase on smartwatch spending from $17 billion to $22.8 billion will be lead by decreasing prices (a 4.5% decrease in average selling prices in 2021). Those are, in turn, the result of a combination of increased competition from Samsung and some external pressure from Fitbit, which has found a sweet spot at around $200 a unit. Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi have also gone a ways toward decreasing the price on the low end of the market.  Apple, in turn, has responded by keeping the two-year-old Series 3 on the market at the $200 price point. It’s a sign of a maturing category that no longer commands as much of a premium pricing in past generations. Google, mean

Spanish authorities accuse the Tsunami Democràtic group of being a 'criminal organisation'. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/36hz6er

Why raise venture capital when you can raise debt and keep your equity? That’s the question a whole slew of new financial technology companies are hoping entrepreneurs will ask themselves as they begin to think about collecting outside capital for their businesses. Clearbanc made waves with its “20-Minute Term Sheet” campaign, with a goal of backing 2,000 businesses with $1 billion in non-dilutive capital by the end of 2019. Now, Capital is launching to educate founders about the possibility of debt funding. Founded by former Draper Fisher Jurvetson (now known as Threshold Ventures) investor Blair Silverberg, Csaba Konkoly and Chris Olivares, Capital is launching today with $5 million from Future Ventures, Greycroft, Wavemaker and others. Additionally, it’s raised from “prominent institutional pools of capital” to invest between $5 million and $25 million in promising companies, determined using “The Capital Machine.” Capital co-founder Blair Silverberg. Capital’s underwriti

Digital media startup Brut is announcing that it has raised $40 million in Series B funding. The money will be used, in part, to finance its launch in the United States. CEO Guillaume Lacroix said that that he and his co-founders all come from the French TV industry, where they were all “frustrated not to be able to follow up the conversation on social.” So they created Brut as a way deliver video news that felt conversational and authentic, hoping to spark viewer conversation, then take advantage of that commentary to find future stories. “We always always say to journalists, ‘Forget the audience, think about your two best friends,'” Lacroix told me. “‘Would you be excited to have this conversation tonight with your friends? If yes, let’s do it.'” The publisher focuses on topics like social good and social impact — for example, it published the first viral video featuring climate change activist Greta Thunberg. Lacroix argued that Brut’s audience is looking for solutions,

The way payment options were presented was confusing and needs to change, the advertising watchdog rules. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2NsQJPX

Workiz , a startup whose software helps field service professionals manage their work, said today it has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The funding was led by Magenta Venture Partners, with participation from returning investor Aleph. The company announced the launch of Workiz Voice, an Amazon Alexa-powered feature that allows the app to be controlled with voice commands, making it safer to use while field service workers driving. Magenta Venture Partners general partner Ran Levitzky will join Workiz’s board of directors. The Series A brings Workiz’s total funding so far to $7.3 million. The company says it grew 247% last year and CEO Adi Azaria told TechCrunch that the company currently has thousands of customers in the U.S. and Canada. Many are home or equipment maintenance companies, including locksmiths, garage door repair, junk removal, appliance repair and carpet cleaning businesses. The software has also been used by medical transport companies, including Trinity Air M