Author : zebethcontrol

With fresh capital, Symend aims to build a better debt collection system • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in BDC Growth Venture Co-Investment Fund, BDC Women in Technology Fund, debt collection, EDC, Fintech, funding, Growth Venture Co-Investment Fund, Impression Ventures, iNovia Capital, Mistral Venture Partners, Plaza Ventures, Robotics & AI, startup, Startups, symend, Women in Technology FundNo Comments

Squeezed by the recessionary COVID-19-era economy and the rising prices of everyday goods, some consumers are increasingly turning to lines of credit to make ends meet. According to a September 2021 survey from Bankrate.com, 42% of U.S. adults with credit card debt increased their balances since the pandemic began in March 2020. A more recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates that total household debt in Q3 2022 reached $16.51 trillion, $2.36 trillion higher than at the end of 2019. The New York Fed’s study also showed that the share of current debt becoming delinquent climbed for nearly all debt types, from mortgages to auto loans. But even before the pandemic and crippling inflation struck, the U.S. had a delinquent debt problem. A 2016 whitepaper from the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals International found that debt rose from $150 billion to over $600 billion in the previous five years. During the same timeframe, collection agencies — who take between 20% to 50% of money recovered — had an annual success rate of 7%. To solve it — an ambitious goal, to be sure — Hanif Joshaghani and Tiffany Kaminsky co-founded Symend, a company that employs AI and machine learning to automate processes around debt resolution for telcos, banks and utilities. Symend today announced that it raised $42 million in a Series C round led by Inovia Capital with participation from Impression Ventures, Mistral Venture Partners, BDC’s Growth Venture Co-Investment Fund, BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Fund, Plaza Ventures and EDC. While substantially smaller than Symend’s once-extended Series B round ($95 million), Joshaghani, Symend’s CEO, noted that it’s “all equity” and brings the company’s total capital raised to date to $140 million. “We have maintained and continue to maintain a very conservative balance sheet profile,” Joshaghani told ZebethMedia in an email interview. “This latest injection of growth capital allows us to meet the growing demand for our behavioral engagement technology around the world. While this is not an optimal time for many businesses to turn to funding, for Symend, this was an ideal time as our product demand rises and the realities of the market create a deepening white space for us to capture.” Joshaghani hails from the financial industry, having worked as a corporate finance manager and investment banking association. Kaminsky’s background is marketing — prior to co-founding Symend, she was the head of sales and marketing strategy at Frog3D, a CNC fabrication business. Examples of messages customers might see from brands working with Symend. Both Joshaghani and Kaminsky personally experienced the negative impact of debt, they say. Joshaghani grew up in a household frequently targeted by calls from debt collectors, and Kaminksi ran into trouble with collections with her first credit card as a young adult. “To this day, I remember the anxiety I felt when receiving calls from collections and knew there had to be a better way — both for customers and businesses,” Joshaghani said. “We founded Symend to help consumers like us and as we’ve grown over the past six years, that mission has remained the same — our vision is to transform the science of engagement on a global scale.” Symend identifies when customers are having trouble paying bills and provides analytics and tools aimed at helping companies develop debt remediation programs. Via the platform’s workflows, businesses can engage with nearly-delinquent customers at points likeliest to drive turnaround. For example, they can configure Symend to create payment plans and limited-time payment discounts for certain segments of customers, or they can have the platform connect at-risk customers with financial planning tools, resources and credit rehabilitation programs. As Joshaghani explained to me, Symend works with a company’s existing systems to “optimize engagement” with customers falling behind on bills due to illness, job loss, family trouble and other foreseen and unforeseen circumstances. The platform allows a business to send “hyper-personalized” messages via a customer’s preferred channels (e.g. text and email) while providing that business access to playbooks for various debt collection scenarios (e.g., delinquent credit card). “Our clients continue to use general-purpose engagement platforms to manage their broad-based customer communications but deploy Symend specifically to solve complex challenges around their past-due customer base,” Joshaghani said. “Our ability to productize behavioral science is one of three key innovation areas of our technology, which uses AI, machine learning and data science to develop proven behavioral engagement playbooks to deliver impact out-of-the-box for companies in various industries.” Symend is rather vague about the functionality and technical underpinnings of its platform — its website prefers jargony buzzwords to plain-English descriptions. But that hasn’t scared away customers, it’d seem; Joshaghani claims that Symend is currently serving financial institutions, alternative lenders, utility companies and the majority of telecom providers in North America, including Telus. No doubt, the rise in buy now, pay later (BNPL) services — which let users split up purchases into equal installments over a fixed short-term period — is driving new business to Symend. A recent U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report found that delinquencies on BNPL services are rising sharply as vendors approve more customers for loans. “As with many businesses right now, the current market conditions and economic uncertainty has led to us seeing clients with tighter budgets and streamlined decision-making,” Joshaghani added. “However, this latest funding highlights the market need, growing consumer demands for an empathetic, personalized approach as consumers face financial stress, and investor confidence in the company’s proven track record with some of the largest financial institutions and telecommunications providers during a time where every dollar and customer has become more important than ever.”

Service 1st Financial sells ‘home comfort as a service,’ gets $20 million in funding from Series B, debt • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Climate, EC Food Climate and Sustainability, heat pumps, hvac, leasing, StartupsNo Comments

Let’s face it: Most people aren’t early adopters, especially when it comes to their homes. Take the kitchen, for example, where many people still buy gas cooktops despite induction’s superiority. It’s not because everyone’s busy charring peppers over an open flame — it’s because they’re slow to adopt changes. When it comes to heating and cooling, that’s a problem for the climate. Together, they account for about half of all energy use in U.S. homes. Heating is a particular challenge since only 40% of homes use electricity; the rest burn natural gas, propane or some other fossil fuel. When the old furnace is dying, its replacement is usually more of the same. To reduce reliance on fossil fuels, switching to electric heat pumps is going to be key. “If your trusted contractor — who you call to come into your home to help figure out what to do with your system — doesn’t offer a heat pump, you’re just not going to buy one, right?” said Anuj Khanna, founder and CEO of Service 1st Financial. That gap between what contractors offer and what’s needed to electrify households is part of the reason Khanna founded Service 1st Financial, which offers what he calls “home comfort as a service.” The company is announcing a $5.85 million Series B today that includes a $15 million subordinated debt facility, ZebethMedia has exclusively learned. Khanna said he expects the Series B to close “before year end.” The equity investment was co-led by S2G Ventures, which also led the subordinated debt facility. Other investors were not disclosed.

Zennström calls the end of high-valuations era, says founders and VCs must remove stigma of downrounds • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in niklas zennstrom, Startups, VentureNo Comments

As the world moves into economic head-winds and geopolitical uncertainty, European founders must get used to taking tough decisions to ensure the survival of their startups. This will include getting used to ‘flat’ or ‘downrounds’ of funding, after experiencing the high valuations of the last couple of years. That was the message today at the Slush conference in Helsinki from Niklas Zennström, the iconic Skype co-founder, Atomico CEO, and one of Europe’s most famous tech players. In a keynote address Zennström gave a blunt assessment of the economic environment, while unpacking how he failed several times in his own career during tough economic conditions. Talking about how he had to wind down two of his own businesses prior to Skype, he said today’s entrepreneurs would now need to turn their attention to the long term success of their companies, and survival, rather than the ‘good times of the bull market’ and the high valuations of the past, and that this would mean tough choices. Zennström said despite the bad reputation of downrounds (a financing in which a company sells shares of its capital stock at a price per share that is less than the price per share it sold shares for in an earlier financing) or a flat round (a funding round in which a startup issues shares at the same post-money valuation as during its previous fundraising round, effectively meaning that the value of the company has gone down), startup founders may have to accept these as the price to pay for keeping their companies alive for the longer term. “There’s a stigma. We’ve turned the down round into a worst case scenario. We’re embarrassed about what it might say about our business, that it’s worth less now than it was a year ago,” he said. He pointed to data from Pitchbook showing an uptick in down rounds in Q3 this year, with almost 19% of all European VC funding now fitting this criteria. This is up from 12% in Q2, and the trend is continuing into Q4. But he challenged Slush attendees to think about down rounds differently and not to take it personally: “Firstly, ‘down rounds’ are just a function of the broader market. It’s the reality we’re facing right now. People aren’t willing to pay what they were a year ago for shares in a technology company. Technology investment in Q3 is around 30% down on the same period in 2021. At series A, pre-money valuations have fallen as much as 50 percent from their highs earlier this year. In this environment a lower valuation is no reflection on you. It’s market dynamics.” He added that startup founders currently in fund-raising mode should raise right away: “The biggest issue with down rounds is that people leave them so late. It’s easy to hope the market will improve. I’ve seen founders tempted to put off the raise waiting for things to change. For a company that is pre-profit, that means eating into future runway. And the less runway a business has, the riskier that company becomes.” The alternative after 6 months could mean “a rescue financing littered with aggressive liquidation preferences and exit clauses.. Don’t let that be you,” he said. Lastly, he said down and flat rounds “are really about growth. Raising money strategically, before the point of no return, could prove a masterstroke. Any founder with the courage to raise money early, on clean terms, can continue to scale at a time when others are slowing down and losing talent. This may be the single best time to hire great people away from the competition. Whether the market changes in one or three years, these firms won’t have stood still.” Reflecting on his own experience as a founder, Zennström said he had founded and folded a couple of companies prior to Skype, which was painful, but “in reality, it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought. My team had great experience and got amazing new jobs. And I brought the best people with me to the next idea. The only thing that crashed was my dream… and maybe my ego. But once it was over, I had the opportunity to start afresh. I was even more motivated to prove I could build a successful company.” Ending on a positive note he said: “I started Kazaa in 2000 and Skype a few years later – just after stocks crashed 80% in the dotcom bust. And at first I thought – wow, I missed the boat!… But then a funny thing happened. We managed to find a way through. As our bank balance dwindled, we became more scrappy & cost efficient. What I realised was more resilient and enduring companies come from downturns. And based on what I saw then, and I’m experiencing now, I’ve never been more excited about what Europe is building…” Following the speech, I asked Zennström if he thought it self-serving for a VC to be putting a glossy view of downrounds. He said: “Atomico hasn’t led many down rounds, so this is about my personal experience as an entrepreneur and from situations I’ve seen talented founders struggle with years after Atomico’s initial investment. When a down round comes later, we’re then in the same boat as the founder – we both experience any decrease in value.” He said data doesn’t suggest this funding environment is going away anytime soon, and the current cohort of companies will experience more down rounds: “The problem we have is that a combination of misplaced embarrassment and blind hope that the situation will change is preventing founders from raising at all. That means these founders stop building, and technology stops being developed. This could stop some amazing technologies in their tracks if we don’t kill the stigma. That would be very wrong when Europe has such an amazing toolkit for success in the long-term.” Next month Atomico will publish its annual State of European Tech 2022.

Elephantech wants to create circuit boards that are kinder to the environment • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Asia, Environmentally Friendly, Hardware, Japan, pcb, printed circuit boards, Startups, VentureNo Comments

Printed circuit boards (PCB), which perform essential functions in electronic devices, including displays and sensors, need a lot of energy to create. Moreover, traditional PCB manufacturing processes generate large amounts of liquid waste and high carbon emissions. Still, there are more environmentally friendly ways of producing PCBs, including additive manufacturing processes that use inkjet and laser printing, while fully biodegradable PCBs are also on the horizon. To get its slice of $90 billion PCB manufacturing pie, Tokyo-based startup Elephantech has developed an eco-friendly PCB called P-Flex, using inkjet printing-based electronic circuit manufacturing technology which it says reduces carbon emissions by 77% and water consumption by 95% compared to conventional processes. The main change Elephantech ushers in to the PCB process is that while electronic circuits are typically made through so-called “subtractive” manufacturing which involves layering an entire surface with metal before dissolving the areas that aren’t necessary, with Elephantech’s “pure additive” process, it only puts metals in place where they are needed to begin with. Nothing is subsequently removed (i.e. wasted). The company also says that its nanoparticle inkjet technology helps cut costs by 32%, through removing a number of procedures from the manufacturing process. To meet its mission “to create a sustainable world through resource-and energy-efficient manufacturing technologies,” Elephantech has secured 2.15 billion yen (~$15 million) in funding, at a 12.3 billion yen ($88 million) valuation, a company spokesperson told ZebethMedia. The new capital, which brings its total raised to approximately 7 billion yen ($50 million) since its inception in 2014, will help the startup scale its business from R&D and its current production volume, which is focused on its domestic market, to target customers globally. Regular circuit Elephantech started the mass production of its PCBs two years ago in its Nagoya facility, and while it is currently focused on single-sided flexible substrates, it plans to produce multi-layered and rigid PCBs, which constitute different layers, including a copper layer, substrate layer and silkscreen layer. The company said that its inkjet printing technology can also be used in other sectors such as healthcare, optics, and textiles. In August, the startup announced a dye removal technology called neochromato, co-developed with Japanese textile chemical company Nicca Chemical. The neochromato process supports removing print from polyester fabrics without using water, and putting new print on the textiles to reuse the material with a different design before recycling to reduce apparel waste. The outfit said the process could reduce about 48% of CO2 emissions when clothes are recycled with a different pattern compared to chemical recycling, which reduces about 20% of the carbon emissions. A number of fledgling startups are working to address and optimize different aspects of the PCB design process, including a company called Celus, which recently raised $25.6 million for a platform that automates circuit board design. Then there’s Luminovo, which secured $11 million to reduce waste in PCB manufacturing by bringing together the entire material and production costing process. So it’s clear that there is a growing impetus to optimize and improve on a technology that powers just about every electronic contraption there is, from smartphones to microwave ovens. Combined with growing environmental concerns and the role that electronics plays in that, Elephantech is perhaps in a strong position to gain traction in global markets, and its latest cash injection will go some way toward helping. Elephantech’s funding round included investments from Anri V Investment, Shin-Etsu Chemical, Nose, Shizuoka Capital, Eiwa Corporation, Nanobank, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical, Kenbishi Sake Brewing, D&I Investment, Epson, Sumimoto, East Ventures and Beyond Next Ventures.

Gravitics raises $20M to make the essential units for living and working in space • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in gravitics, Hardware, Space, space station, Startups, type one venturesNo Comments

The space industry is on the cusp of a revolution. The cost of launch, which has dramatically decreased over the past five years, will continue to drop as heavy-lift rockets like SpaceX’s Starship and Relativity’s Terran R become operational. Parallel to these developments, multiple private companies have introduced plans to build commercial space stations for science, manufacturing and even tourism. If space stations are the next phase of business in orbit, they’re going to need standard parts — and Gravitics aims to be the one making them. The startup is headed by space industry veteran Colin Doughan, who surveyed these currents and saw a gap in the market. Doughan’s career spans a nearly 20-year tenure at Lockheed Martin, where he worked as a senior finance manager dealing with large satellite constellations for government customers. He also co-founded Altius Space Machines, which was eventually purchased by Voyager Space in 2019. Private station operators “are going to need an easy LEGO brick to build in space,” he told ZebethMedia in a recent interview: versatile, modular hardware to let humanity build in space at scale. Gravitics, which emerged from stealth today following the announcement of a $20 million seed round, is calling the building block “StarMax.” (Doughan also refers to it as an SUV — a “Space Utility Vehicle.”) Notably, StarMax modules are huge: the model listed on the company’s website has a diameter of nearly 8 meters and an internal usable volume of 400 cubic meters, nearly half that of the International Space Station. Gravitics wants to position these modules as the essential base unit for living and working in space. The initiative has caught investor attention in a major way, as the seed round illustrates — further proof that space station and in-space habitat plays are getting hotter. The funding was led by Type One Ventures, with additional participation from Tim Draper from Draper Associates, FJ Labs, The Venture Collective, Helios Capital, Chicago-based Giant Step Capital, Gaingels, Spectre, Manhattan West and Mana Ventures. From an investor standpoint, Type One founding partner and Gravitics board member Tarek Waked said his firm noticed multiple underlying trends that support the company’s vision of the future. “We’re betting on launch costs coming down. We’re betting on Starship revolutionizing the industry,” he said. It’s not just Starship’s cargo capacity that excites the Gravitics team. It’s the potential for the rocket to send up many more humans into space — people who, at present, would have nowhere to stay. “There’s no infrastructure for those people to go [to], and even if we built that infrastructure today, there’s no modular or cost-effective way to get that much infrastructure up to orbit,” Waked said. “And that’s where I think Gravitics plays.” StarMax at scale. Image Credits: Gravitics Supplying the stations of the future The specific play that Gravitics is making is emphatically not as a space station operator. Blue Origin and Sierra Space’s Orbital Reef, Voyager and Lockheed’s Starlab, and a third project headed by Northrop Grumman have already received major funding from NASA under the agency’s Commercial low Earth orbit Destinations (CLD) program. Rather than compete with these companies, Gravitics wants to be their core supplier. Doughan said he anticipates a glut of demand for the product in the second half of the decade, as operators commence their initial build out. Beyond that, Gravitics is aiming to fulfill the ongoing needs of these stations once they are operational, plus meeting organic demand that the company is betting will emerge as costs for launching cargo and crew drop. StarMax will have power and propulsion onboard for delivery and docking (and indeed, the company landed Virgin Orbit’s former senior director of propulsion, Scott Macklin, as its director of engineering). “What we’re guessing is going to happen is that station demand is going to grow,” Doughan said. “They’re going to need scalability over time.” A rendering of an office on StarMax. Image Credits: Gravitics What the economy in low Earth orbit will ultimately look like is anyone’s guess, however, and from the outside it seems that StarMax’s emphasis on scalability in the design (the module has docking ports on either end) is also a hedge against the space industry’s notoriously uncertain timelines. But it also makes sense from a market perspective: Gravitics is prepared to sell the StarMax module to entities that may want to use it in a free-flyer capacity, or an operator that wants flexibility on offering short-term stays or long-term attachments to the stations; but StarMaxes can also be daisy-chained to form even larger in-space platforms as more and more people spend time in space. (opens in a new window) “Of or pertaining to gravity” For all the talk of Starship, the company isn’t putting all its eggs in that one, Musk-y basket. The suite of StarMax modules under development are being designed to be compatible on other next-gen launch vehicles, like United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn. While Gravitics is staying tight-lipped on how much a single StarMax might cost, Doughan said it would be competitive with a recent deal between Axiom Space and Thales Alenia for two station modules, a contract valued at €110 million ($108 million), or $54 million each. The company recently opened a 42,000-square-foot facility just north of Seattle where it has already begun constructing prototypes and preparing for early module pressure tests early next year. Gravitics is also in talks with development groups in Florida about building a larger production and integration facility right next to their customer base at Kennedy Space Center. In addition to these physical spaces, the company will also use the funds from this seed round to continue growing its team. It has already attracted notable talent, like the aforementioned Macklin and Bill Tandy, former mission architect and chief engineer for Orbital Reef. The pressure tests in the first quarter of next year are the initial step toward testing a StarMax in orbit, though Doughan declined to offer any details on that timeline. But it’s

Index Ventures thinks new startups will emerge in the downturn and is putting $300M behind that bet • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Back in April 8, 2021 Index Ventures, one of the very few ‘original gangsters’ of the European VC scene, said it was kind’ve going ‘back to its roots’. It announced the launch of a new $200 million dedicated seed investing vehicle dubbed ‘Index Origin’. Now, if you cast your minds back, this was during the white-heat tech bull run of last year when valuations hit the roof and startups rarely wanted for funding. Therefore, Index’s new fund name thus paid homage to the firm’s origins as a seed fund, given that in the past it had backed companies like Robinhood, Figma, Deliveroo and Wise, all at the seed stage. During the last few years – despite the pandemic, and in some ways because of it – there was a great deal of competition for cap tables at the earliest stages of startups. But with a global recession looming in the next year, a Crypto ‘nuclear winter’, and external factors like the war in Ukraine, you might think that investors like Index would be drawing in their horns. Not so. Perhaps harking back to the age-old view that the best startups are born counter-cyclically, Index is today upping-the-anti with a second “Origin Fund” which will be a $300 million Seed fund, Yes folks, that’s $100m larger than Origin I last year. With Index Origin II, Index is now investing from three funds totalling $3.2bn. Index’s other funds include early-stage fund Index Ventures XI ($900m), and growth fund Index Ventures Growth VI ($2bn). That means 75% of Index’s initial investments are Seed or Series A. The new Origin fund also appears – not unexpectedly – to be geared to the more modern environment where co-funding for startups can also come from such disparate sources as solo GPs, Angels and many current or exited entrepreneurs. Index says it hopes to repeat the success entrepreneurs such Dylan Field, for whom Index wrote his first check. As an example, Index is banking on the Macro economic downturn producing the next Airbnb, Adyen, Slack, Skype, Google and Spotify — all of those new born during wider economic slumps. It therefore plans to invest in any vertical of interest and in any geography (primarily the United States and Europe, although it’s not explicitly limited to those markets). I asked, why double-down on early stage for Index Ventures? Nina Achadjian, Index Partner based in SF told me via email: “Throughout our experience as early stage investors, we realized that there’s a need for a different kind of early stage fund. Entrepreneurs have long told us that at seed stage, they have been split between choosing well-established investors that have large resources and a big network and seed funds that only focus on seed stage.” The idea, she said, is to combine those two approaches: “With Index Origin, we wanted to make it possible for founders to get the best of both worlds – the resources they need to grow fast, combined with the early-stage expertise and hands on approach. We know it takes a village, which is why we take a collaborative approach at seed investing. We proactively bring in seed funds, solo GPs and angels to co-invest with us so that together we can provide entrepreneurs with the best possible support network and chance of success.” However, why raise a bigger fund than the previous one? “The strategy we took with Origin I when it launched last year has resonated really well with founders. Having invested in 32 companies since its launch, we decided to raise a new fund and increase the size to build on this momentum,” said Achadjian. How did Index find it raise money in this ‘downturn’ environment? Danny Rimer, Partner based in London said, (also via email): “Index is all about conviction. As a result of keeping the main thing the main thing, we’ve taken a very contrarian approach when it comes to investing in crypto and China, and so, unlike our peers, we haven’t invested in these areas. Additionally, LPs really understand the value proposition of Index Origin as a fund that offers the best of both worlds to entrepreneurs.” Is Index seeing more angels and former Entrepreneur/operators, in seed rounds in Europe and the US? “We see more experienced angels joining rounds across all geographies, and that’s a good thing. Building a company requires different expertise, and having angels of different backgrounds is a significant advantage. It’s why we’ve set up Origin II as a highly collaborative fund that’s open to working with seed funds, solo GPs and angels,” said Rimer. How is the early stage environment in the US? And in Europe? What is your prediction for next year? Rimer added: “Unlike the growth stages, where investment pace has slowed down dramatically, at early stages we are seeing healthy activity in all of our regions. In terms of areas of focus, we continue to double down on our core areas including games, marketplaces, enterprise/cloud/SaaS and vertical SaaS, AI, security, fintech & open source.” Does Index plan to do any crypto investments out of this new fund? Rimer: “I wouldn’t rule that out, but as I wrote recently, for us, the lion share of companies we’ve seen up to now in this sector are not ones we would invest in. We see blockchain for what it is: a powerful new technology, but not the new internet. Our hope is that given everything that has happened to this sector this past year, we will focus on companies that want to build real value for users, solving a real pain point rather than something speculative in nature.” In the last few months Index expanded with office opening in New York and hired a new partner in Tel Aviv.

Twitter is working on a feature to divide long text into a thread automatically • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Apps, elon buys twitter, tweets, TwitterNo Comments

Composing a thread on Twitter can be challenging as you need to separate the whole text into 280-character chunks. However, the company now seems to be working on a solution to turn long-form text into a thread automatically. According to a tweet posted by app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, twitter’s composer will automatically break the text into a thread when it crosses the 280-character limit. Twitter is working on making Tweet composer automatically expand into a thread when the characters count is approaching the 280 characters limit — Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 17, 2022 As she explained in a reply to a user (aka me), Twitter wants to reduce the friction of creating threads. Currently, users need to hit the + button to add a tweet to a thread and post the next set of 280 characters — which can be very annoying when you are trying out a thought or pasting info from another document. I guess the point is to reduce the friction so the user no longer need to tap that (+) button at every 280 characters — Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 17, 2022 In the last few hours, a few folks pointed out difficulties in posting and reading threads that have more than a few tweets — the one in focus was an 82-tweet-long thread on the fallen cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Musk replied to these tweets saying that the team is working on making thread writing easier. While the final details of the implementation are not apparent, as Financial Times product manager Matt Taylor pointed out, it will be good to have markers to indicate the start and end of a tweet in the thread — that makes it easier for users to edit the text in a way that it doesn’t break the reading flow. I’m sure that people who use this feature appreciate the ability to select what each tweet starts and ends with. This sounds like it does away with that in the name of simplicity. This is another engineering solution to what is not an engineering problem, it’s an editorial one. — Matt ‘TK’ Taylor (@MattieTK) November 17, 2022 This is not the first time Musk has addressed the issue of posting long-form tweets. Earlier this month, he said the social network is working on the ability to attach long-form text to tweets. It’s not clear if that will be a separate feature from the new thread composer. Some users currently rely on third-party solutions like Typefully, ThreadStart, and Chirr App, which provide tools to automatically split your post into threads without breaking sentence flow along with scheduling features. The company currently offers Twitter Blue subscribers an easy way to read threads — powered by its acquisition of Threader last year. But Musk hasn’t really mentioned if he is making changes to the reading experience for an average user. Twitter already has a program for long-form writing called Notes, but only a select set of writers have access to that, and with Musk’s management, there is no clarity about its future. It’s not clear when the new composer feature for threads will roll out even if Twitter engineers are working on it at this moment. After taking over the company, Musk has fired half the staff — and more. Plenty of executives have resigned and the new boss even put an ultimatum yesterday that the remaining employees have to be “hardcore” or leave. In this environment, there is no guarantee that products will be shipped on time. The company rushed the rollout of the new Twitter Blue plan with a verification mark, only to discontinue the program days later. Earlier this week, Musk said that it will now roll out later this month. Wong also recently discovered code hinting that Twitter is working on making direct messages end-to-end encrypted.

Apple’s iCloud website gets a widget-styled redesign • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, design, iCloud, web designNo Comments

Apple has finally launched a redesigned iCloud website with apps appearing as widget-styled tiles instead of icons. People might be used to accessing iCloud through native apps on their iPhones, iPads or Mac, but this is a welcome change for folks who use the website to quickly access some photos, documents, notes and reminders or delete some of the unused files to free up space. The iCloud website is also particularly useful for people who use a different computer at work, or for people who have an iPhone and a Windows laptop. You don’t have to install any app to access and edit your notes from a computer for instance. As MacRumors noted, the company has been testing the new design with app tiles for a few weeks, and now it is rolling it out for all users. iCloud site’s legacy design just showed app icons when you logged in, now it shows details under app tiles such as recent reminders, notes, documents, pages, and photos. There is even a launcher tile with app icons to quickly access some of the apps. iCloud website’s legacy design Image Credits: Apple With the new design, you can create a new page document, a reminder, a note, a keynote presentation, or a numbers spreadsheet by clicking on the + sign on the top menu bar. The grid icon on the menu bar lets you access apps. It also hosts options for checking your storage and change your plan. The websity layout is now customizable. When you click on the ‘Customize’ button, you’ll see the widgets shaking — just like on iPhone or iPad — so that you can move them around or remove them.

Virgil helps you buy bigger apartments in exchange for home equity stakes • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in Fintech, home equity, proptech, VirgilNo Comments

French startup Virgil has raised a $15.6 million funding round (€15 million). The company invests in apartments alongside home buyers before they even get the keys for their new home. This way, future homeowners can buy a bigger place in exchange for an equity stake in their apartment. Home equity is a much more fluid market in the U.S. than in France. The vast majority of homeowners in France hold 100% of the equity of their place as soon as they sign the paperwork that officially transfers legal ownership of the place. Of couse, most people also get a mortgage. In the U.S., your home equity is the value of your home minus the amount you owe on your mortgage. In France, you already own the place but you have a huge credit line to pay back over time. Virgil wants to switch things up by becoming a minor home investor in exchange for a down payment on your mortgage. The idea is that Virgil can help you get a bigger place, or a smaller loan. With today’s funding round, the startup is setting €7 million aside to invest in property transactions. Global Founders Capital is investing in the company for the first time. Existing investors Alven, LocalGlobe and Evolem are participating in a founding round once again. Aquasourca and business angels like Clément Alteresco, Emmanuel Amon and Victoria van Lennep are also investing in the startup. Virgil can hand you up to €100,000 to finance your home acquisition. There’s a simple 1.5x ratio on the share of your home equity. Here’s an example: on average, customers get €50,000, which represents 10% of the value of the apartment they want to buy (€500,000). As a result, Virgil owns 15% of the customer’s home. The startup limits its investments to 20% of the initial home value. In that case, the startup would own 30% of the home equity, which is quite a lot. When it’s time to sell your place, Virgil gets its investment back. The business model becomes particularly interesting in a bull housing market. But there’s also some risk for Virgil if the housing market drops significantly. In that case, some homeowners might not want to sell either so you have to factor that in as well. But what if you have found your “forever place” and you don’t want to sell? In that case, Virgil still wants to close its position after 10 years. Homeowners will have to set some money aside or get a second loan to buy out Virgil’s stake. In the worst case scenario, homeowners may have to sell their apartment. Over the past three years, Virgil has allocated €50 million in home financing in the Paris area. And the startup has ambitious goals as it wants to finance €50 million worth of housing transactions every month. If Virgil becomes massively successful, it could lead to some artificial inflation on the housing market in Paris as the Virgil stake will be baked in. So it’s going to be interesting to see the effect of a startup like Virgil on expensive cities like Paris.

Stellantis is bringing its new all-electric Fiat 500e to North America in early 2024 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 17, 2022Posted in EV, fiat, Stellantis, TransportationNo Comments

Stellantis brand Fiat is coming back to the United States with its new all-electric 500e, a small urban vehicle that has been selling like hot cakes in Europe. The all-electric Fiat 500e is not like the original 500e, which was essentially a retro’d version of an internal combustion version of the same model. This time, the Fiat 500e is built on its own platform designed for EVs. Fiat 500e Image credit: Stellantis The Fiat 500e made its debut at the 2022 Los Angeles Auto Show to signal its entry into the North American market. But consumers will need to be patient. The new 500e will arrive in North America in Q1 of 2024, according to the company. While the announcement was made at the 2022 Los Angeles Auto Show, consumers are going to have to wait a year to actually see a production version of the 500e designed for North America. The company said the official reveal of the North American 500e is scheduled for the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show. Fiat did not release any North American specs for the 500e vehicle. Bringing the Fiat 500e to North America is a bet that some consumers in this SUV-loving region have an appetite for a smaller EV. The Stellantis brand is positioning itself as a cool, and yes, small vehicle that is functional without sacrificing fashion. It’s perhaps a niche demographic; it’s also one wide open for the taking, at least in North America. As part of the reveal, the Fiat brand collaborated with design houses Armani, Kartell and Bvlgari to create one-off versions of the 500e vehicles. While these have been couched as design exercises to showcase Italian craftsmanship, creativity and sophistication, it’s possible (though not likely) that one or all of these could become an option for consumers if demand meets or surpasses expectations. Lest you forget, the brand launched the Fiat 500 by Gucci in 2011.