Africa’s top mobile phone seller Transsion lists in Chinese IPO

Chinese mobile-phone and device maker Transsion has listed in an IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market, a Transsion spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch. 

Headquartered in Shenzhen, Transsion is a top-seller of smartphones in Africa under its Tecno brand. The company has also started to support venture funding of African startups.

Transsion issued 80 million A-shares at an opening price of 35.15 yuan (≈ $5.00) to raise 2.8 billion yuan (or ≈ $394 million).

A-shares are the common shares issued by mainland Chinese companies and are normally available for purchases only by mainland citizens. 

Transsion’s IPO prospectus is downloadable (in Chinese) and its STAR Market listing application available on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s website.

STAR is the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s new Nasdaq-style board for tech stocks that went live in July with some 25 companies going public.

Transsion plans to spend 1.6 billion yuan (or $227 million) of its STAR Market raise on building more phone assembly hubs and around 430 million yuan ($62 million) on research and development, including a mobile phone R&D center in Shanghai, a company spokesperson said.

To support its African sales network, Transsion maintains a manufacturing facility in Ethiopia.  The company recently announced plans to build an industrial park and R&D facility in India for manufacture of phones to Africa.

The IPO comes after Transsion announced its intent to go public and filed its first docs with the Shanghai Stock Exchange in April.

Listing on STAR Market puts Transsion on China’s new exchange — seen as an extension of Beijing’s ambition to become a hub for tech startups to raise public capital. Chinese regulators lowered profitability requirements for the STAR Market, which means pre-profit ventures can list.

Transsion’s IPO comes when the company is actually in the black. The firm generated 22.6 billion yuan ($3.29 billion) in revenue in 2018, up from 20 billion yuan a year earlier. Net profit for the year slid to 654 million yuan, down from 677 million yuan in 2017, according to the firm’s prospectus.

Transsion sold 124 million phones globally in 2018, per company data. In Africa, Transsion holds 54% of the feature phone market — through its brands Tecno, Infinix and Itel — and in smartphone sales is second to Samsung and before Huawei, according to International Data Corporation stats.

Transsion has R&D centers in Nigeria and Kenya and its sales network in Africa includes retail shops in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Egypt. The company also attracted attention for being one of the first known device makers to optimize its camera phones for African complexions.

On a 2019 research trip to Addis Ababa, TechCrunch learned the top entry-level Tecno smartphone was the W3, which lists for 3,600 Ethiopian Birr, or roughly $125.

In Africa, Transsion’s ability to build market share and find a sweet spot with consumers on price and features gives it prominence in the continent’s booming tech scene.

Africa already has strong mobile-phone penetration, but continues to undergo a conversion from basic USSD phones, to feature phones, to smartphones.

Smartphone adoption on the continent is low, at 34%, but expected to grow to 67% by 2025, according to GSMA.

This, added to an improving internet profile, is key to Africa’s tech scene. In top markets for VC and startup origination — such as Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa — thousands of ventures are building business models around mobile-based products and digital applications.

If Transsion’s IPO enables higher smartphone conversion on the continent, that could enable more startups and startup opportunities — from fintech to VOD apps.

Another interesting facet to Transsion’s IPO is its potential to create greater influence from China in African tech, in particular as the Shenzhen company moves more definitely toward venture investing.

In August, Transsion funded Future Hub teamed up with Kenya’s Wapi Capital to source and fund early-stage African fintech startups.

Transsion’s Future Hub and Kenya’s Wapi Capital partner on Africa fund

China’s engagement with African startups has been light compared to China’s deal-making on infrastructure and commodities — further boosted in recent years as Beijing pushes its Belt and Road plan.

Transsion’s IPO is the second event this year — after Chinese owned Opera’s venture spending in Nigeria — to reflect greater Chinese influence and investment in the continent’s digital scene.

So in coming years, China could be less known for building roads and bridges in Africa and more for selling smartphones and providing VC for African startups.

Opera founded startup OPay raises $50M for mobile finance in Nigeria

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2m5IOhA
via IFTTT

The Galaxy Fold is now available for purchase in the US

This is, surely, the moment some loyal fans have waited for. And understandably so. The Galaxy Fold is, by all measures, an exciting phone. It’s the sort of bold brashness that has helped Samsung set itself apart from the competition. Many of us laughed at the Galaxy Note, too, and yet here we are, with larger phones across the board.

Five months after originally planned, the Galaxy Fold goes on sale today in the U.S. The handset has had its share of set backs, of course. The first round ran into problems from several reviewers for a variety of reasons. And as I outlined yesterday, I ran into my own issues with the reinforced version of the handset.

My Galaxy Fold display is damaged after a day

Even in its current version, the Galaxy Fold is a fragile thing. That’s something Samsung has been abundantly cautious about disclosing, through a video pleading to “just use a light touch” and a lot of paper work that ships with the device. I’ll be giving more thoughts on my time with the product in an upcoming writeup. In the meantime, however, anyone thinking of plunking down the $2,000 and up needs to factor that into the equation.

But this is a phone, not a faberge egg. It will be interesting to see how wider availability plays out. There is still a sense around the launch that we’re dealing with a sort of wider scale beta phase here. It would be silly to suggest that the foldable category will live or die by this launch, but it will surely be the most closely watched device release in recent memory.

Also out today is the Galaxy Watch Active 2. If been wearing that device around as well. More on that soon, but so far, so good.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2mlab7p
via IFTTT

My Galaxy Fold display is damaged after a day

Samsung’s new rebooted Galaxy arrives this week with one job: it just needs to not break. I’d already spent thousands of words breaking down the ins and outs of the product the first time around. This round, on the other hand, was more about making sure everything worked.

Back in April, I was among the reviewers whose device worked perfectly well. I toted the original Fold around the Bay Area without a problem, much to the amusement of curious co-workers. Samsung collected the devices soon after, as it went back to the drawing board due to issues with other units, but mine remained fully in tact.

This time out, however, I wasn’t so lucky. I pulled the Fold from my pocket while standing in line at CVS after work the other day. I opened it up and spotted something new nestled between the lock screen’s flapping butterfly wings. There was a brightly colored, amorphous blob. You can see it there in the photo at the top of the story (as well as a zoomed-in version below). It’s not huge. It’s maybe just under a centimeter across — and it’s a bit tricky to photograph.

In the grand scheme of first-gen foldable display problems, this isn’t a huge one, judging by photos from those who’ve had issues with the first model. In that case, devices were sent back with an entire side blacked out (in many cases the result of peeling back a laminate that resembled the protective layer devices ship with). Still, it’s not a great look after about 27 hours with the device, considering that it wasn’t dropped on concrete, dunked in water or stepped on. And the placement smack dab in the center dampens the effect of a 7.3-inch screen.

If I had to guess, I’d say it was pressing the display to close the device that did it. Samsung has since collected the device and will be taking it apart (likely in Korea) to find out what went wrong. We’ll update accordingly.

We can’t say the company didn’t warn us. As I noted the other day, Samsung issued a video prior to launch, advising users to “Just use a light touch,” B/W the footnote, “Do not apply excessive pressure to it.” The Fold itself came with ample paperwork warning against:

• Excessive pressure
• Placing objects like keys on the screen before folding
• Exposing the Fold to water or dust
• Adding your own screen protector to the existing screen protector
• Keeping the device next to easily deactivated objects like credit cards and implanted medical devices

There was nothing inside the device while folded. I didn’t get it wet or feed it after midnight, and there’s no visible damage to the laminate layer, so I can’t really say definitively what happened here. And while the screen is certainly still usable, I think I’d probably be…irked if I had just paid $2,000 for a handset and had to deal with a large, rainbow colored blob in the exact center of the screen.

Part of the white-glove service Samsung is rolling out here is a $149 screen replacement. We got a comment from Samsung on the matter, and it sounds like this particular issue might fall within normal use that wouldn’t require an additional fee. Here’s what the company has to say on the matter:

We have seen an enthusiastic response to the launch of the Galaxy Fold in several markets over the past few weeks, with thousands of consumers enjoying the unique experience it offers.

The Galaxy Fold is a first-of-its-kind device, made with new materials and technologies that allow it to open and close just like a book.

We encourage Galaxy Fold owners to read the care instructions included in the box and in the product manual available online. Products used within these guidelines are covered under warranty. If they have any questions, Galaxy Fold owners can consult with Samsung product specialists through the Galaxy Fold Premier Service any time, any day.

The “products used within these guidelines are covered under warranty” appears to be the pertinent bit here.

It’s hard to say how widespread these issues are. When the device officially goes on sale in North America on Friday, there will be significantly more of these in the wild, at which point we’ll know more definitively whether this was a very specific anomaly.

Anyone who reviews products for a living knows that these things can happen. I’ve had review headphones that sounded like electrified tin cans, only to swap them with the company for the real deal. Manufacturing defects can occur with review units and commercial products, alike. Generally, such things aren’t cause for concern (and manufacturing issues are usually covered by warranties), but in this case it’s certainly worth highlighting, given the first-gen product’s history with display issues.

We’ll certainly let you know how this shakes out and whether whatever conclusion Samsung ultimately reaches would fall under the warranty of the Fold’s fine print or whether users might want to budget an additional $149, just in case.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2mVnj3i
via IFTTT

Samsung Galaxy Fold take two

The Galaxy Fold comes in a nice box. It’s a thing I rarely, if ever, mention in product write-ups, because, if done right, shipping containers are generally the least interesting thing about a product. But Samsung, to its credit, has taken great care. That’s been one of the constants across this admittedly bungled product launch: presentation.

The first time I saw the device, it was well lit, in an elaborate display behind several layers of glass on the floor of Mobile World Congress. Samsung wasn’t letting anyone go past a literal velvet rope a few feet from the device.

When we finally got our hands on the Fold, Samsung had laid out several large boxes, which, when opened, had the effect of raising the device up, toward the viewer. It was a fun thing for a room full of journalists who had largely been engaging with the product through guarded curiosity, wondering aloud whether it would ever actually see the light of day.

That skepticism was warranted, as it turned out. The Fold came back broken from several reviewers. After placing the blame at the feet of users, Samsung eventually changed tack, pushed back the April release date indefinitely and tried to get to the bottom of what was going on with the product.

This week, the Fold returns to North American store shelves — or, rather, it finally debuts, about five months after initially planned. And once again, Samsung’s delivering the device in a nice box. The purpose of this one, however, is as much about setting expectations as it is providing a splashy debut.

Really, it’s like the analog version of the “Caring for Your Fold” video the company debuted on YouTube last week. It was as flashy and well-produced as we’d expect from Samsung, right down to the dramatic piano music while instructing the viewer to “Just use a light touch.” That note arrived with its own (somewhat redundant) footnote: “Do not apply excessive pressure to it.”

Similarly, the Fold box comes with its fair share of paperwork. The first bit is an overview of Galaxy Fold “Premier Service,” the white-glove offering the company announced a while back. That was, it explained, the reason it canceled initial AT&T pre-orders. The 24/7 service comes free with the purchase of the $2,000 phone, offering users phone support, starting with setup. The company’s got a call center in North Carolina fielding the calls during U.S. business hours, and routes them abroad after that.

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: future shock

There are other elements to it, as well, including a $149 screen warranty. All of these pieces add up to a company confident enough to bring the product back to market, but not quite ready to ensure that the Fold’s screens might not crack under pressure for some. In fact, there’s a five-point warranty adhered to the screen that warns against:

• Excessive pressure (It’s the terror of knowing what the world is about / Watching some good friends screaming / “Let me out!”)
• Placing objects like keys on the screen before folding
• Exposing the Fold to water or dust
• Adding your own screen protector to the existing screen protector
• Keeping the device next to easily deactivated objects like credit cards (or, in my experience, hotel key cards) and *gulp* implanted medical devices

The product does, thankfully, ship with a case, which is a thin, two-piece snap-on covering. It won’t protect the front display from scratches, but it may help the product avoid dings if dropped. When closed, at least. I’m very much looking forward to someone purchasing the device for extensive drop testing while open.

Samsung does get some bonus points for also throwing in a pair of its very good Galaxy Buds Bluetooth earbuds for free. A nice gesture, to be sure.

As those who read the site with some regularity likely already know, we’ve actually spent a significant amount of time with the device. I was carrying the original version of the Fold around during our Robotics event back in April. Fitting, I suppose, that I’ll be sporting it next week at Disrupt. I do once again plan to hold onto the phone for a bit to get a better idea of day to day life with the foldable (though I likely won’t be doing daily dispatches this time).

Full disclosure: Samsung just gave us the revised version of the product yesterday afternoon. Hardly enough time to give you anything conclusive, so I’m not going to pretend to do so here. I will say that aesthetically, very little has changed. For better and worse. The one immediate thing that leaps out is the lack of a visible screen protector.

If you’ll recall, that was a major source of the problems last time out. The edges of the built-in screen protector were visible and, yes, it looked an awful lot like the removable screen protectors other Galaxy products ship with. Did I peel it off? No. Was I tempted? You better believe it.

This time out, the laminate has been extended to under the outer edges to avoid that temptation altogether. The other big fixes include plugging the gaps in the hinges that previously allowed debris to fall behind the screen, damaging it when pressure is applied. There’s also a new, unseen layer of metal under the display designed to reinforce the screen. This gives the device a slightly more rigid feel.

Otherwise, the hardware is largely unchanged, including the small 4.6-inch window display up front and the large 7.3-inch foldable screen inside, which still has a visible seam when the light reflects it at an angle.

There’s a tacit understanding that the Fold is an imperfect device. The product builds upon a decade of experience creating Galaxy flagship smartphones, along with all of Samsung’s prior electronics knowledge, but the foldable category is still very much a kind of uncharted territory. Companies are going to fail plenty before they succeed here, and at very least, Samsung deserves some kudos for being among the first to try the thing, tumbling a bit and getting back up and trying again.

[gallery ids="1885397,1885396,1885395,1885394,1885393,1885392,1885391,1885385,1885384,1885383,1885382,1885381,1885379,1885378"]

There remains the important question, however, of whether consumers are okay with what feels a little like an extended beta test — albeit one that costs $2,000 to join. Thankfully, Samsung got some of those unfortunate bungles out of the way before bringing the product to market. Along with a reinforced display, however, Samsung does appear to be girding itself for the possibility that consumers will find creative and new ways to mangle the display — accidentally and otherwise.

Suffice it to say, I’ve got a lot more thoughts on the matter, many of which I’ll be formulating over the coming days and weeks. So, stay tuned for those. Meantime, if you’d like to leap before you look, the Fold can be yours this Friday, starting at $1,980 U.S.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2ml14TZ
via IFTTT

Amazon might reveal fitness-tracking Alexa wireless earbuds, Echo with better sound this week

Amazon is building wireless earbuds that offer Alexa voice assistant access, and fitness tracking for use during activities, according to a new report from CNBC. These earbuds, combined with a new, larger Echo designed to provide more premium sound, could feature into Amazon’s hardware event taking place this Wednesday in Seattle, though the outlet is unclear on the release timeline for this gear based on its source.

These earbuds would be a major new product for Amazon, and would be the company’s first foray into personal health and fitness devices. While Amazon has either built or bought products in a wide range of connected gadget categories, including smart home and smart speakers in particular, so far it hasn’t seemed all that aggressive in personal health, even as Apple, Samsung and others have invested heavily in these areas.

CNBC’s report says that these new Alexa buds will have an accelerometer on board for measuring motion, and will be able to also provide distance tracking, calories burned and pace – in other words, all the things that you’d expect to track with a fitness wearable like the Apple Watch or a Fitbit.

Leaving aside their fitness features, earbuds would provide Amazon a way to deliver a more portable Alexa for people to take with them outside of the house. The company has partnered with other headphone makers on similar third-party Alexa integrations, and they’ve also experimented with bringing Alexa to the car, for instance, but it’s largely still a home-based assistant, successful as its been.

Helping the appeal of these reported new products, the buds are said to be retailing for under $100, which will put them at a big price advantage when compared to similar offerings from either dedicated audio companies and headphone makes, and to potential rivals like Apple’s AirPods. Though the report indicates that they’ll still rely on being connected to an iPhone or Android device for connectivity, as they won’t have their own data connection.

Amazon is also readying a bigger echo that has a built-in woofer and overall better sound than its existing lineup, according to CNBC. That mirrors a report from July from Bloomberg that also said Amazon was readying a high-end echo, with a planned launch for next year.

Some or all of these new hardware devices could make their debut at Wednesday’s event, but it seems likely a lot of what we’ll see will be a surprise.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2m9XOL8
via IFTTT

Five months later, Samsung’s Galaxy Fold arrives this week

There’s fashionably late and then there’s the Galaxy Fold. Initially scheduled for an April 22 launch, the device was delayed after multiple reviews returned broken devices. Samsung was quick to blame users, only to ultimately go back to the drawing board.

A few months later, the company offered a broad September timeframe. Samsung hit the mark with time to spare in its native South Korea, launching the device a few weeks back. Now it’s time to do the same here in North America. The company’s first foldable (and, really, for that matter, the first “commercially viable” foldable) arrives this Friday, Sept 27.

The handset will be available as a carrier branded version through AT&T stores or unlocked through Best Buy and other retail locations. As noted, the company’s also offering a “Galaxy Fold Premier Service” — apparently part of the reason it canceled the original round of preorders. Basically the company wants to personally help users who buy the $2,000 deal with any specific problems.

Notably and somewhat humorously (albeit unintentionally so), the company recently issued a “Caring for your Galaxy Fold” video, which highlights how to not break the expensive new device. Samsung appears somewhat resigned to the fact that, which the device has been improved over the first attempt at going to market, the product is still more fragile than what we’ve come to expect from our smartphones.

To quote Samsung, “Just use a light touch.” That comes with the somewhat redundant “Do not apply excessive pressure” footnote. Not exactly the sort of thing that inspires confidence in a product’s durability. 

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2mvtWZK
via IFTTT

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6 combines creative flexibility with great design

The Android tablet market isn’t exactly a hotbed of excitement and activity, which makes it all the more impressive that Samsung continues to iterate its own tablet lineup in smart, meaningful ways that push the technology forward and deliver a stellar experience. Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab S6 (starting at $649.99) is no exception, and this latest offering expands the definition of what a tablet can be while retaining or refining everything that’s been its predecessors.

Thin, light and luxe design

Samsung has been delivering outstanding body design on its tablet lineup since the introduction of the all metal and glass Tab S4, and the Tab S6 continues this tradition with a full metal back and glass front that’s lighter and thinner than its predecessor. The look and feel is more reminiscent of the Tab S5e, which was released after the S4 earlier this year and which acts as a more economical alternative to Samsung’s flagship lineup. The S6 manages to feel just a touch more premium than the S5e, though both are class-leading in terms of their industrial design.

The brushed finish of the back looks great, and feels nice in the hand, and if you have larger hands you can even one-hand this device when reading for limited periods of time. Samsung has also shrunk the bezels, giving you a more front face-filling screen than on any previous tablet, which does a very good job of putting the gorgeous sAMOLED display in focus. More than ever, this feels like one big sleek, metallic hand-held display – the future, in your hand, reduced to the essentials in an awesome way.

[gallery ids="1881813,1881812,1881811"]

Display and cameras

The display on the Tab S6 isn’t much changed from the one used on the Tab S5e and the Tab S4 – but that’s actually great news, because Samsung has the best tablet display in the business when it comes to watching media. The 10.5-inch 2560 x 1600 pixel Super AMOLED display gives you true blacks that are outstanding, and impossible to replicate on any LED-based display, and Samsung offers a range of color options to choose from, including ‘natural’ settings for photo-accurate editing, and enhanced saturation modes for getting the most out of eye-popping movies and videos.

That display now comes with a neat new trick on the Tab S6: An integrated fingerprint reader. This authentication and unlock method is new for this generation, and replaces iris/face scanning as the only biometric unlock option on the Tab S4. It performs very well in my testing, and has the added cool factor of being just an amazing big of whiz-bang tech magic, especially if this is your first time encountering and in-display fingerprint reader.

The great display makes a fantastic editing surface for photos and videos, and that’s why it’s super interesting that Samsung went out of their way to upgrade the cameras on the Tab S6 – adding dual camera options, in fact. There’s now a super wide angle lens in addition to the standard one, which gives you a lot of creative options when it comes to both still photography and videos.

While the Tab S6 is great for editing, I still wouldn’t lean too heavily on the built-in cameras for actually capturing content. They’re fine cameras, augmented by Samsung’s built-in software, but the super wide has a fair amount of distortion and not the best resolution, and in general I still think you should avoid shooting too much with tablet cameras in general. Still, it’s nice to have the option in case you’re in a pinch.

[gallery ids="1881836,1881837,1881838,1881839"]

Your pen pal

I mentioned editing above already, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 has an added advantage over other tablets in this area: The S Pen. Samsung’s stylus is updated in this version, with Bluetooth connectivity that gives it additional super powers like the ability to act as a remote for the camera, presentations and other software.

The S Pen still performs best as an actual stylus, however, and it excels in this capacity. For pressure sensitive applications including sketching and painting, it’s fantastic, but where it really shines in my usage is in editing photos using software like Lightroom from Adobe. Stylus input means you can get super specific and accurate with your edits. This applies to editing video, too, where the stylus works well for making concise trims to video timelines.

You can also easily create handwritten notes with the S Pen, and if you do using Samsung’s built-in Notes application, you get automatic OCR and search indexing. In my testing, I found that this worked really, really well – surprisingly so, considering how bad my handwriting is. For printed characters, the Samsung Notes app had no trouble at all identifying words accurately in my scrawl and retrieving the right results when searching by keyword.

Since this S Pen uses Bluetooth, it now has a built-in rechargeable battery. Like Apple’s Pencil, it charges wirelessly, attaching magnetically to the tablet to power up. Samsung has designed a groove in the back of the tablet to receive the S Pen for charging, and while this isn’t sturdy enough for you to trust it to hold the stylus when you throw them in your bag unprotected, the Tab S6 cover accessory nicely wraps the S Pen with a fold-down flap for easy storage.

A true workhorse

Samsung’s official case options include a back panel protector/detachable keyboard combo that are probably the best accessory of this style available on the market for any tablet. The back cover includes a reusable sticky surface to ensure a solid fit which will be more reliably fixed than a magnetic attachment, and it has a multi-angle kickstand that works wonderfully to support the tablet on any table or even on your lap.

As mentioned, there’s a top flap that provides protection and easy access to the S Pen, which is a very clever way to keep that stored without complicating matters. The cover has a finely textured surface that increases grippiness, and it has proven resilient in terms of not picking up dirt or grime so far.

[gallery ids="1881809,1881811,1881808,1881807"]

The keyboard attaches via magnets to one side of the tablet, folding up to protect the display when not in use. It’s slim, but it still had defined keys with actual travel that feel really good to type with, and there’s something you probably weren’t expecting to see on an Android tablet keyboard – a built-in trackpad.

All of this is designed primarily for use with DeX, Samsung’s desktop-like software experience that’s aimed at boosting productivity (though you can use the trackpad in the standard Android interface, too). When it works well, the DeX experience truly makes the Tab S6 feel like a mini desktop, giving you the power to tackle tasks in multiple windows – including in multiple windows for the same apps. It’s great for things like seeing Slack open and working in multiple browser windows, along with your email client, for instance.

That said, there are definite limitations to DeX, including the need to re-open all your windows when switching back from standard Android mode, for instance. Not every app behaves well in this novel mode, either, since third-party ones especially aren’t designed for it, and there are quirks to the windowing (like overflowing and weird-sized windows) that make it occasionally a little strange to work with. Still, all in all it’s great to have the option, and can really increase your ability to do work on the road in the right circumstances.

Bottom line

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 is, without a doubt, the best Android tablet available. It combines top notch hardware with Samsung’s evolving DeX approach to mobile productivity, and while DeX isn’t perfect in all settings, it’s at the very least not doing any harm and you’re better off having it available vs. not. Meanwhile, the Tab S6 working in standard Android mode is an excellent, super-fast media consumption and photo editing powerhouse. If you’re in the market for a tablet, the Tab S6 is an easy choice.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2Njk9lD
via IFTTT

Tech startups want to destigmatize sex

Sex, despite being one of the most fundamental human experiences, is still one of those businesses that some advertisers reject, banks are hesitant to financially support and some investors don’t want to fund.

Given how sex is such a huge part of our lives, it’s no surprise founders are looking to capitalize on the space. But the idea of pleasure versus function, plus the stigma still associated with all-things sex, is at the root of the barriers some startup founders face.

Just last month, Samsung was forced to apologize to sextech startup Lioness after it wrongfully asked the company to take down its booth at an event it was co-hosting. Lioness is a smart vibrator that aims to improve orgasms through biofeedback data.

Sextech companies that relate to the ability to reproduce or, the ability to not reproduce, don’t always face the same problems when it comes to everything from social acceptance to advertising to raising venture funding. It seems to come down to the distinction between pleasure and function, stigma and the patriarchy. 

This is where the trajectories for sextech startups can diverge. Some startups have raised hundreds of millions from traditional investors in Silicon Valley while others have struggled to raise any funding at all. As one startup founder tells me, “Sand Hill Road was a big no.”

A market worth billions or trillions?

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/34HHe7k
via IFTTT

InMobi’s Glance raises $45M to expand outside of India

Glance, a subsidiary of Indian mobile ad business firm InMobi, said today it has raised $45 million as it prepares to scale its business outside of India and bulk up its product offerings.

The unnamed, maiden financing round for Glance was funded by Mithril Capital, a growth stage investment firm co-founded by Silicon Valley investors Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO of InMobi Group, said the current round has not closed and could bag another $30 million to $55 million in the next two months.

Glance operates an eponymous service that shows media content in local languages on the lock screen of Android-powered smartphones. InMobi has partnered with a number of top smartphone vendors including Xiaomi, Samsung, and Gionee to integrate Glance into their respective operating systems.

Glance, which was launched in September last year and supports English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, has amassed 50 million monthly active users in India, its primary market. Users are spending an average of 22 minutes with Glance each day, he said.

“All the new smartphone models launched by Samsung, Xiaomi, and a handful of other vendors have launched with Glance on them,” Tiwari said.

In a statement, Mithril Capital’s Rohan, said, “We share Glance’s global vision of breaking through the constraints of application architectures and linguistic markets to deliver rich, frictionless, and engaging experiences across a myriad of cultures and languages.” As part of the financing round, he is joining Glance’s board.

Glance does not show traditional ads, something it intends to never change, but shows a certain kind of content to drive engagement for brands.

In the months to come, Glance plans to expand the platform and bring short-form videos (Glance TV), and mini games (Glance Games) to the lock screen. It is also working on a feature dubbed Glance Location that will enable brands to court users in their vicinity, and Glance Shopping to explore ways to build commerce around content.

As of today, InMobi Group is not monetizing Glance platform, but plans to explore ways to make money from it early next year, Tiwari said.

The 12-year-old firm said it plans to expand footprints of Glance outside of India. The company plans to take Glance to some Southeast Asian markets like Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. InMobi’s Tiwari said the Glance has already started to find users in these markets.

InMobi Group, which had raised $320 million prior to today’s financing round, has been profitable for several years, but the company decided to raise outside funding to accelerate Glance’s growth, Tiwari said.

The firm, which has three subsidiaries including its marquee marketing cloud division, plans to go public in the next few years. But instead of taking the entire group public, Tiwari said the firm is thinking of publicly listing each division as they mature. The marketing cloud division, which brings in the vast majority of revenue for the firm, will go public first, he said.

“The IPO plans remain, and we will evaluate them as we go along. The reality, however, is that the market is so big and there is so much room that we can continue to be private for a few more years,” he said.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/34zBE6P
via IFTTT

Good Capital launches to close the funding gap for early-stage Indian startups

Rohan Malhotra and Arjun Malhotra left their jobs in London and Silicon Valley to explore opportunities in India in late 2013. A year later, the brothers launched Investopad to connect with local startup founders and product managers and built a community to exchange insight. Somewhere in the journey, they wrote early checks to social-commerce startup Meesho, which now counts Facebook as an investor, Autonomic, which got acquired by Ford, and HyperTrack, among others. Now the duo is ready to be full-time VCs.

On Monday, they announced Good Capital, a VC fund that would invest in early-stage startups. Through Good Capital’s maiden fund of $25 million, the brothers plan to invest in about half a dozen startups in a year and provide between $100,000 to $2 million in their Seed and Series A financing rounds, they told TechCrunch in an interview last week.

“Through Investopad, we helped startup founders raise money, provided guidance, and helped them find customers. We did a ton of events, and learned about the market,” said Arjun, who worked at Capricorn Investment Group and also acted in 2014 blockbuster Bollywood title “Highway.”

Investopad’s first fund portfolio stands at a gross IRR of 138.3% and nine of its 12 investments have realised returns, with every dollar invested already returned, the brothers said.

Good Capital will focus on investing in startups that are building solutions that address users who have come online in India for the first time in the last two years, they said.

“We don’t have laser-focus on a particular sector,” said Rohan, who previously worked as a sports agent in the talent management business. “Our primary focus is to help startups that are taking a bottom-up approach.”

One example of such startup is Meesho, a social-commerce startup that has amassed over 2 million users who are engaging with the platform to sell products across India.

In a statement, Vidit Aatrey, cofounder and CEO of Meesho, said, “Rohan and Arjun were our earliest investors. They have a phenomenal global network of entrepreneurs, operators and investors. They helped us early on with introductions to such people; who brought not only capital but, more importantly, valuable operational inputs which helped us learn quickly and find product-market fit faster. While we’ve grown from 2 people to over 1,000+ at Meesho, they remain close confidants!”

The VC fund has completed its first close of $12 million from Symphony International Holdings, a host of European family offices, and a number of other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

Sundeep Madra, CEO of Ford X, and Yogen Dalal, Partner Emeritus at the Mayfield Fund and founder of Glooko, and Dinesh Moorjani, Managing Director of Comcast Ventures and founder of Hatch Labs and Tinder, will serve as advisors to Good Capital.

“Rohan and Arjun have a unique ability to identify trends and bring together founders and investors to go after the unique problems that India needs to have solved. They operate with a sense of urgency and innovation which is a major key at the seed-stage.” said Madra, who has invested in companies such as Uber and Zenefits.

The fund has also set up an investment committee whose members are Sanjay Kapoor, former CEO of Airtel and now a senior advisor at BCG, Rahul Khanna, formerly a managing partner at Cannan Partners and now founder of Trifecta Capital, and Kashyap Deorah, a serial entrepreneur who is currently building HyperTrack.

Good Capital has also already made two investments: SimSim, a video-based e-commerce platform that is trying to replicate the experience consumers have in offline stores, and Spatial, a cross-reality platform that allows people to collaborate through augmented reality. Garrett Camp, a founder of Uber and Expa, and Samsung Next have also invested in Spatial.

The VC fund is also interested in funding business-to-business startups, though they say these startups would ideally be building solutions for overseas markets. “There we are generally targeting makers, developers and designers, rather than solving problems for heavy-duty sales businesses.”

The arrival of Good Capital should help the Indian startup community, which today has to rely on a handful of VC funds that invest in early stage startups. “Conventionally, funds have targeted the top of the pyramid by exploring visible opportunities and replicated US companies and models,” said Moorjani in a statement.

“In contrast, Good Capital’s first principles thinking applied to India’s larger economy, which is coming online at scale with a supporting ecosystem for the first time, has been refreshing to see. The team is beyond talented.,” he added.

Even as Indian tech startups raised a record $10.5 billion in 2018, early-stage startups saw a decline in the number of deals they participated in and the amount of capital they received.

Early-stage startups participated in 304 deals in 2018 and raised $916 million in funds last year, down from $988 million they raised from 380 rounds in 2017 and $1.096 billion they raised from 430 deals the year before, research firm Venture Intelligence told TechCrunch.

As for Investopad, the brothers said they have hired a number of people who will now continue its operation.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/312iT9T
via IFTTT

After announcing Galaxy Fold release date, Samsung cancels older preorders

The good news: Samsung says it has addressed the early problems with the Galaxy Fold and finally has a release date (in Korea at least). The bad news: The company is canceling the first round of U.S. pre-orders. The gooder news: If you were among those early adopters, the company is giving you a $250 in-house credit to keep you in its good graces.

Shortly after announcing that its first foldable handset is set to start shipping to customers in South Korea on September 6, Samsung sent out a note to customers stating that it would be “taking the time to rethink the customer experience.” That involves, among other things, canceling existing pre-orders. “While not an easy decision to make,” the company writes, “we believe that this is the right thing to do.”

So Samsung canceled my pre-order for the Samsung Galaxy Fold…at least they gave me a $250 credit for anything on their store. That is admittantly quite generous.

I guess I should rejoin the pre-order queue. pic.twitter.com/Nv7OAIMxnN

— M. Brandon Lee | THIS IS TECH TODAY (@thisistechtoday) September 5, 2019

TechCrunch has confirmed the news with Samsung, though the company is letting the email to customers speak for itself. The letter also notes that the company is launching a “new Galaxy Fold Premier Service” for those who opt to pick up the newly rejiggered version of the phone. After the first version of the handset ran into some issues with reviews, Samsung no doubt wants to be the first line of defense should consumers run into any problems with the new $2,000 phone.

The company has yet to confirm a release date for the rest of the world, though it notes that the Fold will be coming to markets, including the U.S., in “coming weeks,” which is on track with the earlier September time frame.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2NQHT07
via IFTTT

Samsung’s Galaxy Fold arrives in Korea September 6, US in ‘coming weeks’

Five months after its planned launch, the Samsung Galaxy Fold is finally here. Well, almost. After offering a broad September time frame a few months back, the electronics giant just announced that the foldable foldable phone will be arriving in its native South Korea on September 6. Customers in the U.S. will have to wait a bit longer, with device arriving in “coming weeks.” Ditto for France, Germany, Singapore and the U.K.

The handset will be available in both black and silver options, along with a 5G version of the handset in “select countries,” marking the third Samsung device to offer up the next gen wireless technology.

If you follow the mobile space at all, you’re no doubt familiar with the saga. The company was targeting a spring timeframe for the launch of what is ostensibly the first consumer folding phone. The future, however, didn’t arrive as quickly as Samsung was hoping. Multiple review devices returned to the company broken. After initially blaming reviewers for the problems, the company ultimately accepted responsibility and went back to the drawing board for the 7.3 inch device.

“During the past several months, Samsung has been refining the Galaxy Fold to ensure it delivers the best possible experience,” the company explains. “Not only we improved the Galaxy Fold’s design and construction, but also took the time to rethink the entire consumer journey.”

The company’s clearly spinning this as an “opportunity,” and certainly it dodged a bullet by addressing these problems before releasing the product to consumers. Samsung has already discussed the fixes in previous announcements. The screen protector has been extended to under the bezels, so consumers don’t break the display by mistaking it for a removable laminate. Also, the gaps in the folding mechanism have been tightened, so particles can’t fall behind the screen.

The foldable starts at $2,000 and can currently be preordered through Samsung’s site.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2LqaMgU
via IFTTT

Why Walmart’s Flipkart is betting heavily on Hindi

Flipkart, the largest e-commerce platform in India, said Tuesday it has concluded the roll-out of a range of features to its shopping app in what is its biggest update in recent years.

Chief among these new features is access to Flipkart in Hindi language. Prior to the revamp of the app, Flipkart was available only in English, a language spoken by 10% of India’s 1.3 billion population.

Flipkart says it is hoping that the new features, which includes a video streaming service, would help it reach the next 200 million users in India.

The major bet on Hindi, a language spoken by more than 500 million people in India, illustrates a growing push from local and international companies operating in the country as they adapt their services and business models to go beyond the urban cities.

And that’s where much of the opportunity, which countless startups and companies have trumpeted to investors to successfully raise hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and venture capital in recent years, lies in the nation.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/2LoZA3W
via IFTTT

‘Filmmaker Mode’ will automatically turn off all the dumb motion smoothing and noise reduction on new TVs

Most people don’t adjust the settings on their TV after they buy it.

Most newer TVs, meanwhile, come with a bunch of random junk turned on by default; things like motion smoothing that makes epic movies look like soap operas, or noise reduction that can wash out details and make an actor’s skin look cyborg-y. These things help the TVs catch more eyes on the retail show floor — look how smooth the butterfly wings in the demo video are moving!

Movie makers and show creators tend to hate these things because they algorithmically screw with details they’ve spent many hundreds of hours fine tuning frame-by-frame. But getting the viewer to go in and muck with a bunch of settings, hidden behind confusing names (often unique to each company, because Branding) and a dozen button presses, is hard.

That’s the driving force behind Filmmaker Mode. Push a button, and all that crap gets turned off.

It’s a move which the UHD Alliance (a group made up of 40 companies like Dolby, Panasonic, Samsung, Universal, Warner Brothers and a bunch of other industry mega companies) says they’re making with the input of icons like Martin Scorsese, Patty Jenkins, Ryan Coogler, Rian Johnson and Christopher Nolan.

Flip on Filmmaker Mode, and your TV set should:

• Turn off all motion-smoothing effects
• Turn off noise reduction, sharpening and other after-the-fact processing effects
• Automatically display the media in its intended aspect ratio/frame rate.
• Turn off overscan, unless required by the video
• Set the white point color to the widely used D65 standard

According to The Digital Bits, the mode is meant to be toggled on in either of two ways: manually via a button on the remote, or automatically when a video’s metadata says so. Want all the motion smoothing stuff back on for sports? Push a button, and it’s back.

LG, Panasonic and Vizio have committed to implementing the new mode, and I imagine others will hop on board once word of the mode spreads. The downside? It sounds like this is only coming to new TVs, with no announced plans so far about it coming to older sets via software update. Fortunately, you can always toggle most of this stuff manually.

If you’ve spent hours tweaking your TV and poring through AV forums to find settings that you love, awesome — keep ’em. But if you’re at a friends house in a few years watching Lord of the Rings and can’t get over Gimli’s unusually smooth skin compliments of TruDynamicNoiseMasterPlus 4.0, maybe tell them about Filmmaker Mode.

from blogger-2 https://ift.tt/30HTEcV
via IFTTT