Month: April 2018

In the era of fake news and controversies over how brands’ advertising — via programmatic platforms — unwittingly ends up alongside content with which they’d rather not be associated, Oracle has made an acquisition to beef up its ability to help customers with these marketing challenges.

It has announced that it will acquire Grapeshot, a startup out of Cambridge, England, that has developed a platform to help ensure “brand safety”, along with solutions to help brands, agencies, publishers and ad platforms to match ads to more specific placements overall.

The startup will become a part of the Oracle Data Cloud, Oracle said, working specifically in the area of Audiences and Measurement, which already provides a number of other tools to marketers, such as data for custom segmented audiences.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed but we are trying to find out. According to Pitchbook, Grapeshot’s last post-money valuation was around $59 million (£42 million) in May of 2017. The company has raised less than $10 million from investors that include IQ Capital Partners and Albion.

Grapeshot, via its Contextual Intelligence Platform, says it works with some 5,000 marketers globally, covering some 38 billion programmatic ad impressions. It’s been growing at a rate of over 100 percent year-over-year, it says. It looks like it will continue to work with existing customers, who will in turn become potential targets for the cross-selling of other Oracle services.

The rise of Grapeshot and its acquisition by Oracle speaks to a growing challenge in the area of adtech and corresponding marketing technology: while programmatic advertising has largely become the norm across the web, there are some unintended consequences from all that automation.

For one, it’s harder to specifically match ads to content in every case — and this might potentially become even more difficult with the rise of stronger data protection and increased scrutiny on how are data is used for ad targeting. One of Grapeshot’s services helps marketers solve this with technology that helps match ads not just to basic sites, but to keywords on pages.

But in the worst-case scenarios, brands are finding their ads running alongside content that is outright damaging to their images. In a recent scandal, advertisers were forced to freeze some ads on YouTube when they were found to be running alongside videos of kids with obscene comments from viewers.

Ideally both for the brands and YouTube, the ads would have never been there to begin with — and that is the kind of outcome that Grapeshot (and now Oracle) is going to be helping achieve.

There are, of course, a lot more controls in place now to try to prevent situations like this, and products aimed at generally making it easier to match ads to content. Search giant (and YouTube owner) Google, the world’s biggest online advertising company, earlier this year launched a new AdSense product that uses machine learning to “read” content on specific pages to understand the context before it serves an ad to it.

The interesting thing about Grapeshot is that it’s working a layer back before this. By not being tied to any specific ad platform, Oracle has the potential to play a strong hand as an unbiased helper to customers to achieve the best results.

Oracle has made a number of acquisitions to expand its digital marketing and advertising solutions business, to tap into the rise of social media and also to compete better against Salesforce. They have included Compendium, Moat, Involver, Vitrue, Netsuite, Market2Lead and many more.

from TechCrunch

Kidbox, a clothing-in-a-box startup aimed at a slightly younger crowd than StitchFix, has raised $15.3 million in Series B funding to expand and scale its business.

The round was led by Canvas Ventures, and includes participation from existing investors Firstime Ventures and HDS Capital, as well as new strategic partners Fred Langhammer, former CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., and The Gindi Family, owners of Century 21 department stores.

To date, Kidbox has raised $28 million.

The company was founded in October, 2015, then shipped its first box of clothing out of beta testing during the back-to-school shopping season the next year.

Similar to StitchFix, Kidbox also curates a selection of around half a dozen pieces of clothing and other accessories (but not shoes), which are based on a child’s “style profile” filled out online by mom or dad. The profile asks for the child’s age, sizes, and questions about the child’s clothing preferences – like what colors they like and don’t like, as well as other styles to avoid – like if you have a child who hates wearing dresses, for example, or one who has an aversion to the color orange.

“Those answers feed into a proprietary algorithm – we’re very data science and tech focused,” explains Kidbox CEO Miki Berardelli. “That algorithm hits up against our product catalog at any given moment, and presents to our human styling team the perfect box for – just as an example, a size 7 sporty boy. And from there, the styling team looks at the box that’s been served up, the customer’s history, if they’re a repeat customer, the customer’s geography, and any notes [the customer] added to their account,” she says.

The box is then put together and shipped to the customer.

Berardelli previously worked at Ralph Lauren, Tory Burch, and was President of Digital Commerce for Chico’s (Chico’s, White House Black Market, and Soma). She joined Kidbox in September 2016, after meeting founder Haim Dabah while he was searching for Kidbox’s CEO.

“It resonated with me as a consumer, as an early adopter of all things digital, and as a multi-time operator of e-commerce businesses,” she says, of why she decided to join the startup.

Today, Kidbox’s boxes are sent out seasonally for spring, summer, back-to-school, fall and winter. However, unlike StitchFix, Kidbox isn’t a subscription service – you can skip boxes at any time, and you’re not charged a “styling fee” or any other add-on fees.

However, if you keep the full box, Kidbox donates a new outfit to a child in need through a partnership with Delivering Good, a nonprofit that allows customers to choose the charity to receive their clothing donation.

At launch, Kidbox carried around 30 kid’s brands. It’s since grown its assortment to over 100 brands for kids ages newborn through 14, including well-known names like Adidas, DKNY, 7 for All Mankind, Puma, Jessica Simpson, Reebok, Diesel, and others.

Kidbox launches its own private labels

With the next back-to-school box, Kidbox will insert its own brands into the mix. The company will be launching multiple private labels across all ages, and every box will get at least one own-label item. The brands will include everything from onesies for babies to graphic tees to denim to basics, and more. 

“We believe we’ve identified a void in the children’s apparel marketplace,” notes Berardelli. “The style sensibility of our exclusive brands will all have a unique personality, and a unique voice that’s akin to how our customers describe themselves. It’s all really based on customer feedback. Our customers tell us what they would love more of; and our merchandising team understands what they would like to be able to procure more of, in terms of rounding out our assortment,” she says.

On a personal note, a customer of both Kidbox and Rockets of Awesome, two of the leading kid box startups, what I appreciate about Kibox is the affordable price point – the whole box is under $100 – and its personal touches. Kidbox ships with crayons and a pencil-case for kids, and the box is designed for kids to color. It also includes a print edition of its editorial content, and sometimes, there’s a small toy included too.

Kidbox rival Rockets of Awesome is a little pricier, I’ve found, but has some unique pieces that make it worth checking out, as well.

With the new funding, Kidbox aims to further invest in its technology foundation, its data science teams, its own labels, its customer acquisition strategy and marketing.

The company doesn’t disclose how many customers it has or its revenues. Instead, it notes that the Kidbox “community” – which includes fluffy numbers like Facebook Page fans and people who signed up for emails – is over 1.2 million. So it’s hard to determine how many people are actually buying from Kidbox boxes.

Kidbox has potential in a market where brick-and-mortar retailers are closing their doors, and e-commerce apparel is on the upswing. But it – like others in the space – faces the looming threat posed by Amazon. The retailer has also just launched its clothing box service, Prime Wardrobe, which includes kids’ clothing.

“Kidbox is at the head of a trend that sees a world in which every person will have their own personalized storefront for literally anything — be it kids clothing, furniture, or weddings,” says Paul Hsiao, General Partner at Canvas Ventures, about the firm’s investment. Hsiao has also led investments in Zola and eporta while at Canvas, and in Houzz while at NEA.

“Kidbox is growing at atypically high multiples. I think it is because of their deep connection with their customers – the kids, the parents, and grandparents,” Hsiao continues. “The Kidbox Team is also remarkable at logistics. Sounds boring, but ecommerce is fundamentally a logistics business,” he adds.

Kidbox is currently a team of 35 based in New York.

from TechCrunch

Xiaomi and Ant Financial are two of a cluster of major tech names being linked with IPOs in Hong Kong. But, despite a burst of upcoming tech listings and new measures that are tipped to encourage more, the country still has some way to go to match the U.S. as a destination for startup exits, according to one of its star graduates.

Gaming hardware firm Razer raised over $500 million when it went public on the HKSE last November, but its CEO Min-Liang Tan has warned that the country’s investor base needs education on how tech companies perform and develop.

“[Going public] was an exciting time for us, but [now] our focus is getting the Hong Kong investment public to be more educated on tech companies,” Tan told TechCrunch in an interview this week. “The U.S. [public markets] are probably more cognizant of tech companies.”

Razer, which is backed by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-Ching among other investors, saw an 18 percent pop on IPO day, but its share price has steadily decreased since then. It is trading up six percent today — after the company bought $100 million-valued payment provider MOL yesterday — but its price of HK$2.59 is down on its initial list price of HK$3.88.

The company isn’t alone.

China Literature, the e-publishing unit of Tencent, is another lauded IPO darling that has struggled to find its feet since going public.

Its listing was the most profitable Hong Kong debut in a decade with shares leaping 86 percent in value on the first day of trading as China Literature raised $1 billion. But today the price of HK$68.10 is down substantially on a debut figure of HK$102.5.

Going back further, shares of selfie app and smartphone-maker Meitu — which led the tech rally with an HKSE listing in late 2016 — have stayed flat.

The share price closed today at HK$8.48, down slightly on a HK$8.50 valuation at the close of trading on its December 15 2016 debut.

Those three stories should offer some caution to Ant Financial, the Alibaba fintech affiliate reported valued up to $150 billion by private investors, and Chinese smartphone star Xiaomi, which is reportedly close to listing in Hong Kong at a valuation that could reach $100 million.

We’ve written before that Hong Kong’s unique positioning bridging China and the international market gives it appeal as a crossway for Chinese brands to go international, and global firms to enter Mainland China. Added to that, there markets like India and Southeast Asia are incubating billion-dollar tech firms that will need destinations for exits perhaps beyond the scope of what the location options can offer. However, with facts like higher burn rates, iterative product development, large R&D budgets and varying business models, many tech companies don’t function like more traditional enterprises or industries.

In Razer’s case, the company sells gaming laptops and accessories for gamers such as specialist mice, keyboards, headsets and gaming pads. It recently branched out into mobile with its first smartphone and Tan teased the potential for other new product launches this year.

The challenge of educating investors is acuter for Razer than most tech companies since the company focuses on emerging industries such as gaming and e-sports. Case in point, that space is so nascent and under-the-radar that Razer had to commission its own surveys and research from third-parties ahead of its IPO to get market and competition data for its prospectus.

Still, Tan said things are going well for the business.

“We out-performed our expectations quite a bit in 2017 and there’s a lot of excitement around gaming and e-sports,” he told TechCrunch.

“The phone has done very well for us,” he added. “With games like PUBG and Fortnite coming to mobile, it’s probably the best timing ever for us to be first movers in this space. Now with virtual credits [from the MOL acquisition], we see a way to help games companies in various areas… we’re building an entire ecosystem for our games partners.”

Tan declined to comment when asked if Razer would consider additional listings in other markets, although he said there’s “a lot of interest in the work we do.”

from TechCrunch

Cowboy, the startup that’s building a new, smarter electronic bicycle, quietly launched in its home country of Belgium this past week, whilst simultaneously disclosing it has raised $3 million in seed funding.

Notably, the round is led by Index Ventures. The London and San Francisco-based VC appears to be particularly bullish on electric-powered mobility, recently backing electric scooter startup Bird.

France’s Hardware Club, and Kima Ventures also participated in Cowboy’s seed round, along with individual investors Thibaud Elziere (eFounders), Bertrand Jelensperger (LaFourchette), Harold Mechelynck (Ogone), Frederic Potter (Netatmo) and Francis Nappez (BlaBlaCar).

Founded by Adrien Roose and Karim Slaoui, who both previously co-founded Take East Easy, an early Deliveroo competitor, and Tanguy Goretti, who was previously co-founder ride-sharing startup Djump, Cowboy has set out to build and sell a better designed e-bike that it claims addresses issues that have historically held back the category’s mass appeal. This includes a more elegant design than many existing models currently on the market, making the bike ‘smart’ by being connected to a mobile phone and ‘over the air’ through cellular and GPS networks, and better affordability than comparative offerings.

In a call last week, Roose gave me a brief run down of the Cowboy’s features and a little of the product’s back story, including how Index got interested. He says he first became aware of e-bikes (or “ped-elec” bikes that combine a manual pedal and electric motor) after being puzzled that they weren’t more widely used by Take Eat Easy’s bicycle couriers. Riders that did use an e-bike tended to be older, suggesting that current e-bikes didn’t appeal to a younger demographic.

After researching the market a lot deeper, Cowboy’s eventual founders also noticed that most e-bikes use entirely off the shelf components, which not only constrains differentiation, but also price, since most of the margin goes to parts suppliers and retailers. By designing a completely new e-bike, where the body and brain is bespoke — namely, the chassis/battery, and printed circuit board (PCB) — and where the product is sold direct online, the team believed there was an opportunity to re-define the e-bike category entirely.

The resulting Cowboy e-bike is pitched as a better ride, powered by “intuitive and automatic motor assistance”. This uses built-in sensor technology that measures speed and torque, and adjusts to pedalling style and force to deliver an added boost of motor-assisted speed at key moments e.g. when you start pedalling, when you accelerate, or go uphill.

In addition, the Cowboy it attempting to be more secure thanks to its connectivity. You unlock the bike via the Cowboy smart phone app, which also supports on-board navigation and a data dashboard that tracks speed and other useful stats.

It is also worth noting that this is definitely a vertical platform in the longer-run. That IoT-styled SIM card and GPS have been added to the e-bike for a reason. Initially it will be used for diagnostics and ‘find my bike’ in case of theft, but one can easily imagine other premium services being offered on top, such as bike insurance perhaps.

The battery is said to be good to go for around 50km, and takes 2.5 hours to fully charge. As part of the bespoke design, it is integrated into the frame under the saddle and is easily removable. The Cowboy claims to be one of the lightest urban electric bikes on the market, too (the bike and battery together weigh 16kg).

However, as with any product where it’s ultimately about the ride, you probably need to try a Cowboy before truly appreciating it — which, as a powered wheelchair user with limited muscle strength, I’m never going to be able to do. Instead, I’ll note that a pre-production model — which Roose admits still had many remaining issues to iron out — won the prestigious EuroBike trade fair in July 2017.

He also echoes this sentiment when I ask him to tell the story of how the Cowboy team first got the attention of Index Ventures. He says that the startup weren’t originally planning to raise a large seed round, having already got a commitment from Cowboy’s original backers for enough follow-on investment to do a production run and small launch in Belgium. However, knowing that hardware is, well, hard, and that costs can easily overshoot, the company was advised by Hardware Club (who he says has been instrumental in making Cowboy a reality) to find a larger VC backer to mitigate this risk. Index Partner Martin Mignot, who led the round, was immediately interested and then convinced after actually trying the e-bike, but Roose says that it took a lot more to persuade the rest of the Index team to back Cowboy when he subsequently pitched the startup over a video call.

Which brings us to Cowboy’s go-to-market strategy. If you really need to touch the device to truly appreciate it, how will the startup sell directly online? In Brussels, Roose says the startup is experimenting with recruiting product ambassadors — people who already have a Cowboy in their possession — who will be able to bring the device to a prospective buyer to try beforehand. This isn’t as scalable as a pure digital marketing effort, but is still likely a lot cheaper than selling to physical retailers, which in turn would push up the €1,790 price. Meanwhile, the company is only delivering to Belgium for now, but with capital in the bank it plans to launch more widely in Europe next year.

from TechCrunch

The SEC may be firing off subpoenas to crypto investment funds and ICO projects left, right and center — apparently over 80 — but that isn’t stopping Andreessen Horowitz, the influential Silicon Valley firm known as A16z, from starting its own crypto-based fund.

The rumor has been going around for a while — not a huge surprise since the firm has invested in the likes of Coinbase, Earn.com and CryptoKitties and co-founder Marc Andreessen (pic above) is a big crypto advocate — but it now appears there is genuine substance to it. Recode spotted a couple of A16z job vacancies that seem to confirm that the wheels are in motion.

One for a ‘Finance and Operations Manager, Crypto Assets‘ and another for a ‘Legal Counsel, Crypto Assets‘ explicitly detail that the firm is planning “a separately managed fund focusing on crypto assets.” The legal role itself includes “compliance with appropriate SEC regulations,” and in particular “managing the firm’s/fund compliance with all SEC/other regulations,” while the operations manager is tasked with the challenging job of valuing crypto assets among other responsibilities.

Some of the responsibilities A16z has for its legal counsel job role

A number of traditional VC funds have invested in crypto companies and, in a few cases, joined initial coin offerings (ICOs), but there hasn’t been a stampede. The more prolific crypto investors have been dedicated funds like Pantera Capital, Polychain Capital and Sparkchain Capital. Those firms hold crypto assets — most of which is in Ethereum — in order to invest and divest in company tokens and cryptocurrencies as part of ICOs or just generally as retail investors do.

Despite the potential for big gains and the ability to liquidate an investment at any time, crypto is in a legal grey area and that has put many U.S. investors off, even if some have dabbled on the side through personal investments. If it goes ahead, A16z’s fund might blaze a trail for others to follow.

Disclosure: The author owns a small amount of cryptocurrency. Enough to gain an understanding, not enough to change a life.

from TechCrunch

Hardware startup Glowforge, which makes a desktop laser cutter and engraver for home or office use, has finally opened up sales to the general public.

The maker-targeted device, which can ‘print’ (read: engrave/laser cut) a variety of materials including leather, wood, acrylic, glass, and even the metal surface of a Macbook, starts at $2,495 for the entry level machine, rising to a full $5,995 for the pro model — which is billed as faster, able to print larger items, and capable of running for longer periods.

With a starter price-tag of $2.5k Glowforge is clearly not for everyone. Though arguably it does offer more creative bang for your buck than, say, the equally expensive Skydio face-tracking selfie drone. But horses for courses, and all that.

The Seattle-based startup has also topped up with $10M more in VC funding, according GeekWire, from existing investors True Ventures and Foundry Group — who also backed its $22M Series B, in mid 2016, and an earlier $9M Series A.

Glowforge has raised just over $60M at this point, according to Crunchbase, including pulling in almost $30M in pre-sales via a crowdfunding campaign back in 2015. We first covered the hardware startup ahead of that, when it announced its Series A.

Safe to say, it’s been a long journey to turn the founders’ novel idea and prototype into a market-ready and robust laser cutter — and get that into all its backers’ hands.

It’s also clearly been a frustrating process at times. But Glowforge now at least appears confident it can fulfill orders in a timely fashion — it’s offering a May 3 shipping date to new buyers (within the US).

That said, it does not look like all original backers have had their device shipped though.

According to founder Dan Shapiro’s comments to GeekWire, there are some backers who still haven’t got their device — for a few different reasons. “There’s some folks who haven’t replied, asked us not to send it yet, or live in a country that’s awaiting regulatory approval,” he told it.

A quasi-optional air filter component for the Glowforge — which costs an additional $995 — also isn’t shipping until November. (A note on the website says the machine can be used without it, though in that case it warns the placement of the machine “needs a window or 4″ dryer hose”.)

from TechCrunch

Gaming hardware maker Razer, which went public in a big IPO in Hong Kong last year, is doubling down on payments after it announced a deal to acquire MOL, a company that offers online and offline payments in Southeast Asia.

Razer made an initial $20 million investment in MOL last June to supercharge its zGold virtual credit program for gamers by allowing them to buy using MOL’s online service or its offline, over-the-counter network of retailers that include 7-Eleven. Now Razer aims to gobble up MOL in full by acquiring the remaining 65 percent, which will allow it to grow its alternative revenue streams by pushing fully into payment services by merging MOL’s virtual payment platform with zGold.

It’s worth noting that the deal is an intention to buy MOL. It’ll be subject to review from shareholders, but Razer said it has already secured support from major shareholders. The transaction gives MOL, which delisted from the Nasdaq in 2016 following a bumpy two-year spell, the same $100 million valuation it held for the initial Razer investment.

The acquisition will boost Razer’s recently announced online games store which rivals services like Steam, but first and foremost it is focused on growing the firm’s share of online sales in Southeast Asia’s growing e-commerce and payment space. To that end, Razer recently launched a store on Lazada, the Alibaba-owned e-commerce service in Southeast Asia, something that Apple did earlier this year.

“We are already the number one gaming brand in the U.S., Europe and China, but Southeast Asia is still nascent and a very small part of our business,”Razer CEO and co-founder Min-Liang Tan told TechCrunch in an interview “We see this [deal with MOL] as stuff we can do immediately.”

Tan said that, in particular, he said working with MOL saw revenue grow “dramatically” while MOL itself surpassed $1.1 billion in GMV across its payment network last year.

“This is the perfect opportunity for us to not just be a minority shareholder, but to combine the business and continue scaling from here,” he added, reiterating that he believes the deal gives Razer the world’s largest virtual credit system for gamers based on user registrations. “That’s a huge opportunity for us.”

Away from its core business, the push will also help Razer in Singapore where it has applied to develop a unified e-payment system that would be used across the country, which is the Razer CEO home nation.

Tan said he has kept an ongoing dialogue with regulators, adding that he believes this deal “makes it clear that we don’t just have the scale, we also have the right technology.”

Beyond the Singapore opportunity, where Razer is a new entrant and thus considered an outsider for the license, Tan said the focus is on enabling cash-less payments right across Southeast Asia.

The blockchain has been widely touted as a building block that can help develop financial inclusion platforms in emerging markets, but for now Razer isn’t talking about whether it will hop on that wagon.

“We are excited about blockchain and the technology it brings, but we don’t have anything to comment on at this juncture,” Tan said.

The Razer chief was more vocal on the company’s wider goal, which he said is to develop “an entire ecosystem for our games partners.” The goal is to offset Razer’s impressive hardware sales business by constructed services that span game payments, game distribution and analytics on gamers and their behavior.

That optimism isn’t shared right now by investors in Hong Kong, however, which lured Razer as part of a push to attract more tech listings. Despite a surge when it when public in November, the stock traded at an all-time low of HK$2.44 today, down from its initial list price of HK$3.88.

Tan said he is focused on growing the business and its services regardless, but he did admit that there’s a need for “the Hong Kong investment public to be more educated on tech companies.”

from TechCrunch