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Acompli Raises $7.3M Series A From Redpoint & Others To Fix Mobile Email
Feb 20, 2:00PM
Acompli, a company building a mobile email application which functions as an all-in-one productivity app for iPhone, has raised $7.3 million in Series A funding – a sizable investment that points to the scale of the problem the startup is aiming to solve. The round was led by Redpoint Ventures, and includes participation from Harrison Metal and Felicis Ventures. The app itself is due out on the iTunes App Store in Q2 2014, though the company is accepting early sign-ups now. Founded in April 2013, Acompli is led by Javier Soltero (CEO), previously CEO and co-founder of Hyperic; CTO, SaaS and Application Services at VMware; and most recently, Entrepreneur in Residence at Redpoint Ventures. Soltero is joined by co-founders J.J. Zhuang (CTO) and Kevin Henrikson (VP of Engineering), also of VMware as well as Yahoo by way of its Zimbra acquisition. Though the Acompli app is not yet available for testing, we recently were able to see a demo of the app in action, and came away fairly impressed. Acompli has been designed with the needs of the mobile professional, not the casual email user, in mind, and it’s easy to imagine that many individuals would be willing to pay (and eventually businesses, too) for the conveniences it offers. But Acompli’s business model will be freemium-based, we understand. That is – free to end users, with a plan to sell value-added services to businesses in the future. How Acompli Is Different Than Your Usual Mobile Email Client There are a number of features Acompli offers which make it a richer experience than the default Mail app on iPhone, including a fast, predictive search interface and smarter contacts to make email compositions quicker and easier. This is because Acompli, like another email app I’ve been using, (CloudMagic, a pivot from a universal search app), speeds up interactions by serving data from its own servers, instead from the email providers’ own servers – like the Gmail servers, for example. “Regarding how we do it faster, Acompli delivers messages down to the device using a secure protocol that optimizes the delivery of data based on the connectivity and state of the device,” explains Soltero. “Traditional email apps use protocols that are either not built for mobile clients (IMAP) or require expensive synchronization of state directly on the client (MS ActiveSync),” he says. Though Acompli is handling delivering the email to the client, it encrypts all thePasswordBox Makes It Easier To Securely Log In To Mobile Apps With 1-Tap Login On Android (& iOS Beta)
Feb 20, 2:00PM
Password manager startup PasswordBox, which closed a $6 million Series A last November months after launching its freemium service, has added a new feature to its convenience boosting arsenal that improves the experience for mobile users by allowing them to sign in to other apps and websites with a single tap, i.e. rather than actually inputting a password, or copy-pasting a secure password. Called 1-Tap Login, the patent-pending feature launches in full today for Android PasswordBox app users, with an iOS beta version also released — albeit, it stresses that the latter product is a very early release, with few apps and websites supported. The Android version of 1-Tap supports sign in for 80% of the top 1,000 apps, according to PasswordBox, with more websites being added daily, vs around the top 50 apps on iOS. PasswordBox’s wider claim for Android is that it currently supports about 70% of all logins. The startup is obviously working on building out that percentage, via an automated process of machine learning that parses different app login screen layouts to figure out where to inject password credentials. It does also employ some human checkers doing quality assurance to verify the algorithm is hitting the bull’s eye. Support for new apps is not released until they have been through this QA process — so it tells TechCrunch the accuracy rate is pretty much 100% (being as it only releases support for an app/website login once it’s sure it works). As for app updates that radically redesign the login screens and therefore risk breaking PasswordBox compatibility — these will be flagged via multiple failed logins so it can readjust its algorithms as necessary, without having to do continual manual checking to keep the system ticking over. The technology behind 1-Tap is something PasswordBox is very proud of — to the point where it unboxed that unparalleled cliche, the “paradigm shift” — also noting that one of its competitors claimed it’s impossible to enable smartphone apps to be liberated from their individual sandboxes so they can talk to other apps on the phone. Yet PasswordBox has found a way to do this — and claims it’s not a hack or a workaround, either. “What we’re doing it’s quite revolutionary,” co-founder and CEO, Dan Robichaud, tells TechCrunch. ”In the past when you are talking about native apps and native browser, no apps have been able to communicate with other apps because apps are normally sandboxed. We have workedFleksy Opens Its iOS SDK For All Developers, Requires Zero Lines Of Code To Implement
Feb 20, 1:37PM
Virtual keyboard Fleksy has made its iOS integration open and free to all today, after debuting the SDK with private partners back in December. Fleksy is completely free for developers to use, and integrates seamlessly with the native iOS keyboard as a selectable option in any iOS software. Plus, developers can add it to their apps without using a single line of code. That’s a key part of what they offer potential developer partners: Fleksy COO and founder Ioannis Verdelis explained that making a third-party keyboard appealing to devs meant ensuring that it can be integrated with a minimum of effort, and without requiring that developers change anything else about their app in the slightest. That isn’t to say that the keyboard isn’t customizable if a developer wants to make tweaks for the sake of design, but they aren’t forced to alter anything to get up and running. “There’s literally no code required,” he Verdelis explained in an interview. “You drag our framework into your Xcode project, and we handle the rest automagically. We are very proud of this, and this is essential for adoption.” For users, all that’s required is that they have the app installed on their phone one time, and then a Fleksy button pops up next to the “Cut, Copy, Paste” buttons that come up when you tap in any text field, so long as the app you’re using has integrated Fleksy using the SDK. Settings, dictionaries and other options including color choices are shared across apps, meaning it feels like the Fleksy keyboard is an OS-level feature, despite the fact that it still has to be built into each app individually because of Apple’s restrictions on third-party keyboards. Fleksy has also worked to improve overall keyboard performance with this release in terms of accuracy and adding new languages. Verdelis says that where in December the initial beta was just designed to show that this could be done, today’s launch is where the startup begins to go after scale. There are 11 partners debuting Fleksy integration today in the App Store, including You Doodle, Cotton Notes, SnapStatus and more, but Verdelis says there are plenty more in the approval pipeline and we should see new Fleksy-supported titles start to roll out daily. Fleksy is making this free for users and developers, but will monetize instead through paid themes, some of that revenue making its way back9flats Founder Steps Down From CEO As Hamburg-Based Airbnb Competitor Breaks Even
Feb 20, 1:25PM
9flats, an early European competitor to Airbnb and others in the holiday rentals space, has seen a change of guard. Founder Stephan Uhrenbacher has stepped down as CEO and "stepped up" to Chair of the Hamburg-based startup's Advisory Board.Bloomberg: HTC Working On 3 Wearables, Including Google Now Smartwatch & Music-Playing Bangle
Feb 20, 1:14PM
HTC is working on three wearables which it's planning to preview privately to carriers at next week's Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona, according to a report in Bloomberg.Online Real Estate Service Trulia Relaunches Its Mobile Apps
Feb 20, 1:00PM
Just ahead of the spring house hunting season, the online real estate service Trulia today launched a major redesign of its flagship mobile apps for iOS and Android. The new design puts real estate photos at the center of the experience. The design team also moved to a flat look on both platforms and simplified the user experience to make things like saving houses significantly easier. In addition, the new apps make it easier to get information about neighborhoods (school, crime statistics, etc.).Apple Patents iPad Smart Magnets For Attaching Controllers, Cameras, Other iPads And More
Feb 20, 12:54PM
A new Apple patent application published by the USPTO today describes a magnetic connector similar to the one used to attach Smart Covers to the current iPad, but designed to be far more flexible with a variety of possible accessory combinations. It’s a smart connector system that could recognize the attached peripheral and change functionality accordingly. The types of peripherals described in the patent are many and varied, and include things like speaker docks, trackpads and keyboards, drawing tablets, radio wave antennas, cameras, game controllers and card readers. There’s also a provision which describes how two iPads might be linked together via an intermediary magnetic hinge dock that connects to the smart magnetic link in each. It could work either with basic magnets, or with electromagnets that can be turned on or off using controls built into iOS, according to the filing, which would allow you to theoretically ‘lock’ accessories in place, including docks that simply stand the iPad up or hold it on a positionable mount for different viewing angles. The system’s flexibility doesn’t end there, however – Apple also describes various in-car mounts for connecting an iPad to your vehicle’s dash or headrests, as well as to a treadmill or other gym equipment. Each could be a simple enough magnetic connection with no attendant change in functionality, but the patent also describes how they could complete a circuit, too, to deliver power, and communicate with the attached peripherals to transfer specific kinds of data back and forth. Finally, there’s mention of wearable tech that could be used to trigger the magnetic sensor and prompt various behaviour from the iPad. This could take the form of a ring, for instance, which when worn by the user would do things like unlock the iPad when the hand it’s on is waved deliberately across the tablet’s screen. In the context of other Apple wearable rumors making the rounds, this could theoretically also work with magnetic connectors built into some kind of iWatch, possibly for identification and unlocking purposes as well as for simple proximity-based communication with certain apps. The system described in this patent is elaborate and filled with potential, but it’s worth noting that peripherals connected via the Lightning port can do some of the things depicted in the application. Still, were Apple to actively invest in putting this into shipping iPads, it would no doubt open up a worldSellsy, The French Sales Management Platform For SMBs, Is Opening New York Office
Feb 20, 12:34PM
Sellsy, a French startup that offers a nifty suite of online tools to help businesses manage sales, is making its first push into the U.S. via opening a New York office. Its Software-as-a-Service combines multiple functionality -- CRM, ERP, invoicing, purchase management, POS, time tracking and help desk -- to enable companies to manage the entire sales process and to monitor key indicators in real-time.ThreatStream Raises $4M From Google Ventures To Add Realtime Cybersecurity Intelligence
Feb 20, 12:34PM
ThreatStream, a SaaS-based cybersecurity startup backed by top Cloudera executives, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from investors led by Google Ventures. The other investors participating in the latest round of funding are Paladin Capital Group, Cloudera CEO Tom Reilly and Hugh Nijemanze, former CTO and founder of ArcSight. The new funding will be used to add a new layer of cybersecurity for enterprise and government customers, the startup said. Over past few months, we have seen several security startups getting launched with some of them coming out of stealth mode after readying their products. The increasing number of these niche security startups also underscores a growing market for solutions that help enterprises and governments secure their data and networks in realtime. “ThreatStream’s Optic platform is the first ever crowd-sourced cyber security intelligence solution that aggregates millions of threat indicators from around the Internet and integrates them directly to an organization’s existing security infrastructure,” said Greg Martin, CEO and founder of the startup. Founded in 2013, the startup had raised $300,000 in seed funding last year. “By leveraging data and analytics, Optic helps organizations sort through much of the “noise,” allowing security analysts to focus on the more sophisticated, 20% of attacks, the targeted ones,” Martin added. ThreatStream uses data science to identify potential threats and targets in real time and helps existing enterprise security to defend. Google Ventures general partner Karim Faris said the startup addresses a critical gap in threat intelligence. “Traditional models of securing the gate are becoming less effective, and we’re seeing meaningful new investments in creating more intelligent security layers. In today’s environment, it’s imperative to continuously augment existing perimeter defenses like firewalls with threat intelligence to get a broader view of the attacks forming,” Karim said. The cybersecurity threats have been rising at an alarming rate over past few years. The Target data breach that was traced back to a piece of malware called “Kaptoxa”, developed by a Russian teenager, was actually running on hundreds of point-of-sale machines at the retailer. ThreatStream believes such instances could be easily managed in realtime through threat intelligence.CloudLock Launches A Fully Cloud-Based Selective Encryption Product
Feb 20, 10:23AM
Cloud security startup CloudLock will launch new encryption product to make it easier for software-as-a-service and cloud platforms to protect sensitive data. Called CloudLock Selective Encryption, the product's launch comes a few weeks after CloudLock announced that it had raised $16.5 million in Series C funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing its total funding to $28.2 million. It will make its public debut next week at the 2014 RSA Conference in San Francisco.Strevus Raises $6.5 Million For Financial Compliance Software
Feb 20, 5:01AM
With new compliance requirements looming for already jumpy banks, startup software developer Strevus has raised $6.5 million for its risk and compliance service. The company raised its first institutional round from lead investor Blumberg Capital and U.S. Venture Partners after picking up seed investments from a who’s who of the technology community, including BlackBerry CEO John Chen; Ken Goldman, the Yahoo CFO; and former Oracle COO Terry Garnett. “The world has changed quite a bit with the financial service meltdown, and regulatory compliance is the resulting fact in today’s world,” said Strevus Chief Executive Ken Hoang in an interview. Think of Strevus as a monitored and managed networking tool to ensure compliance with new regulations for financial services firms that are going to start taking effect this year. “Compliance is not a competitive advantage today. The government is picking off [financial services firms] institution by institution,” Hoang said. The first market that Stevrus is looking to address within the alphabet soup of new and updated compliance requirements being issued by the federal government is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. FATCA targets tax evaders in the U.S. who aren’t properly reporting overseas financial accounts, and foreign financial institutions who bank for U.S. taxpayers or foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a majority stake, according to the IRS’s website. San Francisco-based Strevus is currently working with a handful of banks on its managed platform, which operates as a networking tool and an industry Rolodex — as well as a compliance offering. “It’s similar to Box with a LinkedIn functionality,” said Hoang. “We’re enabling customers to reach out to others and bring their data in.” Strevus will sell its service to both buy-side and sell-side firms. On the buy side, the company is targeting banks and financial services firms with assets ranging from $250 million to $1 billion. On the sell side the customer base is the top 20 banks, said Hoang. A subscription to the Strevus service costs a sell-side customer between $100,000 and $200,000, according to Hoang. Photo via Flickr user Bloomsberries.Stealthy Security Company Apprity Raises $8 Million
Feb 20, 5:01AM
The stealthy business security company Apprity, launched by two former Oracle employees, has raised $8 million in its first institutional financing. For its first venture round, Apprity turned to seasoned security technology investors Promod Haque, a senior managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners, and Gaurav Garg, a founding partner of Wing Ventures. The last time these two investors came together on a deal, the result was the tech security darling FireEye, which held its initial public offering in September 2013, nine years after its launch. “The reality is most traditional approaches involve a perimeter-centric mindset, whether it is proxy-based or server-based,” said Apprity’s Chief Executive Rohit Gupta, who previously worked as VP of Products in the identity management and security group at Oracle. With the new funding, Apprity is going to make a huge hiring push around its engineering and research and development teams, Gupta said. “Close to 98 percent of our projected spend is in core engineering and research.” For NVP’s Haque, the decision to back Apprity’s vision was a function of the previous experience of the two founders. “With the many years of experience that these gentlemen have, it gives them a very interesting vantage point to assess the weaknesses of other systems and build something different.” What that different product is, neither Haque nor Gupta would say, but Gupta did say that the research the company is doing “centers on the ability to go into much deeper and finer levels of granularity researching threat patterns in the cloud.” Businesses want to trust but verify when they move to the cloud, according to Gupta. Whatever tools Apprity is developing must be designed to handle the verify component, because as billions of dollars worth of cloud-based software subscriptions show, companies are already putting a lot of their trust in the cloud. Photo via Flickr user CarbonNYC.Facebook's WhatsApp Acquisition Leaves Snapchat Hanging
Feb 20, 4:20AM
With Facebook's massive $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp earlier today, any possible marriage between Facebook and Snapchat appears to be dead. After spending $20 billion on a photo sharing company (Instagram) and messaging company (WhatsApp), can Facebook really justify spending billions more to acquire an ephemeral photo messaging company?How Things Change
Feb 20, 2:49AM
Four years ago, Brian Acton was looking for a job. His job at Yahoo, where he’d filled many engineering roles over 11 years, had come to an end. He was networking with recruiters: networking with recruiters, venture capitalists, playing ultimate frisbee— Brian Acton (@brianacton) May 20, 2009 He met with Twitter. Twitter said no: Got denied by Twitter HQ. That's ok. Would have been a long commute.— Brian Acton (@brianacton) May 23, 2009 He met with Facebook. Facebook said no: Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure.— Brian Acton (@brianacton) August 03, 2009 So he and Jan Koum, a colleague from Yahoo, set out to do their own thing. Today, they sold that thing to Facebook for 19 billion dollars. Life is crazy.
Kik Founder On Facebook Buying WhatsApp: Mobile Messaging Now "Table Stakes"
Feb 20, 12:11AM
Mobile messaging consolidation is coming fast and heavy recently, with the Viber/Rakuten deal and today’s WhatsApp acquisition by Facebook. Another contender in the space, Waterloo-based Kik, has also seen good traction and growth (though admittedly not on the level of WhatsApp). Kik founder and CEO Ted Livingston tells TechCrunch that this is a clear message that, well, messaging is the new black, in case it wasn’t clear before. “It’s $16 billion clearer that we’re now in the age of the mobile messenger,” he explained to me in a conversation on his company’s platform. “Now for the fun part: What comes after chat? What does identity mean for mobile? How do you build the best platform? These are questions Kik has been thinking about for four years.” I asked Livingston what he thinks this means for WhatsApp, which has been a constant rival for Kik since 2009, when both companies were originally founded. Under Facebook’s stewardship, it can probably go one of two ways, he said. “Is this YouTube or Myspace?” he asked, referring to two acquisition stories that went in very different directions. YouTube, acquired by Google in 2006, continued its growth and exists as a very successful, mostly standalone property that has monetized fairly successfully. Myspace was acquired by News Corp in 2005 for $580 million, only to be sold in 2011 for just $35 million after users fled the platform in droves. It’s a good question, but one that Livingston doesn’t see any answer to yet. WhatsApp and Facebook both claim that the messaging app will continue as usual, acting as a distinct company with its existing revenue model and ad-free design intact. That could help it follow YouTube’s example to continued growth, rather than Myspace’s downward trajectory. As for what it means for the industry in general, Livingston says it’s simple. “Having a popular mobile messenger is simply going to become table stakes for competing in the mobile era [among big tech companies],” he said. While some, like Apple, have already achieved this with products including iMessage (and to some extent, Google with Hangouts), there are plenty of companies out there that still need to figure out their mobile messaging play if they want to remain relevant as purveyors of social products, including Yahoo. Livingston says this doesn’t change how Kik will approach its own product, however. If anything, it only serves to reinforce that they hadZuck Says Ads Aren't The Way To Monetize Messaging, WhatsApp Will Prioritize Growth Not Subscriptions
Feb 20, 12:05AM
Facebook won't be throwing its advertising weight behind its new acquisition WhatsApp like it did with Instagram. But WhatsApp also won't be focusing on rolling out the $1 a year subscription fee it currently charges in some countries. Instead, with the financial security Facebook brings, it will dedicate itself to growth.Sequoia's A Big Winner In Facebook's WhatsApp Acquisition, With Its Stake Worth About $3 Billion
Feb 19, 11:36PM
Facebook today announced its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp. Obviously WhatsApp has a lot to cheer about, having grown to 450 million active users over the course of the last five years. But from a pure venture perspective, the purchase represents another huge win for Sequoia Capital and partner Jim Goetz.Facebook's $19 Billion WhatsApp Acquisition, Contextualized
Feb 19, 11:14PM
Facebook just announced it's buying WhatsApp, a global messaging platform with 450 million MAUs, for approximately $19 billion. It's one of the biggest tech acquisitions since HP bought Compaq for $25 billion in 2001.Facebook Stock Falls 5% After Hours Following WhatsApp Purchase [Update: Now Down Only 2.64%]
Feb 19, 10:43PM
Facebook today announced that it will acquire WhatsApp for a combined $16 billion in cash and stock. WhatsApp's employees pick up an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units as part of the deal. Wall Street investors are seemingly not pleased and have sent Facebook's shares down 5% in after hours trading. They could be worried about potential dilution stemming from the deal.Apple And Tesla Had A Spring Fling
Feb 19, 10:34PM
Reports are out today in The San Francisco Chronicle, and just about every other tech publication, that Apple could be in preliminary talks to buy electric automobile manufacturer Tesla. With the mobile phone and tablet markets becoming increasingly competitive, Apple is interested in expanding to other markets to increase growth.If at any time you'd like to stop receiving these messages, just send an email to feeds_feedburner_com_techcrunch+unsubscribe-hmdtechnology=gmail.com@mail.feed2email.net.
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