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This Week in Apps: App Store outrage, WWDC20 prep, Android subscriptions change

20 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Sarah Perez

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Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all.

The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.

In this Extra Crunch series, we help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps, delivered on a weekly basis.

This week, one story completely took over the news cycle: Hey vs. Apple. An App Store developer dispute made headlines not because Apple was necessarily in the wrong, per its existing rules, but because of a growing swell of developer resentment against those rules. We’re giving extra bandwidth to this story this week, before jumping into the other headlines.

Also this week we look at what’s expected to arrive at next week’s WWDC20, the TikTok clone Zynn getting banned …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Ford Bronco debut date moved so it wouldn’t fall on O.J. Simpson’s birthday

19 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Kirsten Korosec

Ford has changed the debut of its 2021 Bronco once again because its planned July 9 reveal falls on the birthday of O.J. Simpson, one of the iconic SUV’s most infamous passengers

The automaker tweeted Friday that it has moved the unveiling to July 13.

The reveal of the all-new Bronco lineup will now happen on Monday, July 13. This is instead of July 9. We are sensitive and respectful to some concerns raised previously about the date, which was purely coincidental.

— Ford Motor Company (@Ford) June 19, 2020

Here’s a short history lesson for those who might not understand why Simpson’s birthday and a Bronco are linked. In 1994, Simpson was charged in the double murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was involved in a slow speed chase as a passenger in a 1993 white Bronco driven by his friend after failing to turn himself in. The incident was broadcast on local and cable networks and the white Bronco became a pop culture moment. Simpson was acquitted.

Ford said that picking the debut date was coincidental.

The relaunch of the Bronco has been anticipated for years now. In 2017, Ford announced it …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Bellman raises $4.5 million for its property management platform

18 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Romain Dillet

French startup Bellman has raised a $4.5 million (€4 million) seed extension round led by Lakestar with existing investors Connect Ventures and Financière Saint-James also participating. Bellman is focused on improving residential building management.

But the startup doesn’t think you can replace this job with software altogether. Instead, Bellman thinks it can greatly improve the experience by building a tech platform and hiring in-house property managers.

In France, most residential buildings are managed by private companies specialized in property management. They handle all the relationships with third-party companies, from utilities to construction work, cleaning, insurance and more.

But most of those companies rely on emails and letters to send information. If you’re looking for some details on a change in your building, you’re going to waste a ton of time looking for that info.

That’s why Bellman has built a tech platform for both property managers and landlords. The startup’s property managers use it to centralize everything, from contact info to bills, while co-owners get email updates and a central repository with everything related to their building.

Eventually, Bellman wants to automate some of the most repetitive tasks so that property managers become more efficient. They can spend more …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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African payment startup Chipper Cash raises $13.8M Series A

17 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Jake Bright

African cross-border fintech startup Chipper Cash has closed a $13.8 million Series A funding round led by Deciens Capital and plans to hire 30 new staff globally.

The raise caps an event filled run for the San Francisco based payments company, founded two years ago by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled.

The two came to America for academics, met in Iowa while studying at Grinnell College and ventured out to Silicon Valley for stints in big tech: Facebook for Serunjogi and Flickr and Yahoo! for Moujaled.

The startup call beckoned and after launching Chipper Cash in 2018, the duo convinced 500 Startups and and Liquid 2 Ventures — co-founded by American football legend Joe Montana — to back their company with seed funds.

Two years and $22 million in total capital raised later, Chipper Cash offers its mobile-based, no fee, P2P payment services in seven countries: Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa and Kenya.

“We’re now at over one and a half million users and doing over a $100 million dollars a month in volume,” Serunjogi told TechCrunch on a call.

Chipper Cash does not release audited financial …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Swappie bags $40.6M to sell more secondhand iPhones across Europe

16 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Natasha Lomas

Finland-based Swappie has closed a €35.8 million ($40.6M) Series B to expand into new markets in Europe. The ecommerce business refurbishes and resells used iPhones, taking care of the entire process from testing and repairing used handsets, to selling the refurbished devices via its own marketplace, with a 12-month warranty.

Local VC and private equity firm TESI is a new investor in the Series B, along with Lifeline Ventures, Reaktor Ventures and Inventure Investors, all of whom participated in Swappie’s 2019 Series A. The total raised to date since the business was founded in 2016 is $48M.

Right now Swappie operates in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Italy. The new financing will be used to expand across Europe, beginning with launches in Germany, Ireland, Portugal and the Netherlands this summer.

It’s also eyeing expansion beyond Europe — so will be speccing out a broader roadmap for the future.

“The main focus of this round is to become the number one player in Europe. But also to explore opportunities outside Europe as well,” says CEO and co-founder Sami Marttinen. “That’s something we will be looking into but no concrete plans to announce at this point.

“There are still opportunities for …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Sinch to buy India’s ACL Mobile for $70 million

15 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Manish Singh

Sinch said on Monday it has agreed to buy Indian firm ACL Mobile for £56 million (roughly $70 million) in what is the third acquisition deal the Swedish mobile voice and messaging firm has entered into at the height of a global pandemic.

The Swedish firm said acquiring ACL Mobile will enable it to leverage the Indian firm’s connections with local mobile operators in the world’s second largest internet market as well as in Malaysia, and UAE to expand its end-to-end connectivity without working with a third-party firm.

20-year-old ACL Mobile, which has headquarters in Delhi, Dubai, and Kuala Lumpur, enables businesses to interact with their customers through SMS, email, WhatsApp and other channels. In a press statement, the Indian firm said it serves more than 500 enterprise customers including Flipkart, OLX, MakeMyTrip, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank.

“With ACL we gain critical scale in the world’s second-largest mobile market. We gain customers, expertise and technology and we further strengthen our global messaging product for discerning businesses with global needs,” said Sinch chief executive Oscar Werner.

The Indian firm, which employs 288 people, reported gross profits of $14.2 million on sales of about $65 million in the financial …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Tesla’s US-made Model 3 vehicles now come equipped with wireless charging and USB-C ports

13 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Kirsten Korosec

tesla wireless charging pad

Tesla Model 3 vehicles produced at its Fremont, Calif. factory will reportedly come standard with a wireless charging pad and USB-C ports, upgrades that were first spotted by Drive Tesla Canada.

Electrek also reported on the changes.

The upgrades now put U.S.-made Model 3s on par with the same vehicles made at Tesla’s factory in China.

The wireless phone charger and USB-C ports first appeared in the newer Model Y, which customers began to receive in March. Tesla has since taken steps to bring some of these new Model Y features into the older Model 3. The upgrades initially showed up in vehicles assembled in China. Drive Tesla Canada said the upgrades became standard in Model 3 vehicles assembled after June 4.

Tesla still offers a $125 upgrade (seen below) for those who own pre-June 4 2020 Model 3 vehicles. Aftermarket company Jeda Products also sells a Qi wireless phone charger for about $99.

Image Credits: Tesla

The upgrades are likely part of Tesla’s aim to make its automotive assembly more efficient as well as make its vehicles more attractive to potential customers who have slowed purchases during COVID-19 pandemic.

Tesla delivered 88,400 vehicles …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Lo Toney has some ideas about how to (really) bring VC into the 21st century

13 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Connie Loizos

Last week, we suggested that for a truly diverse venture industry, the limited partners who provide investing capital to VCs — institutions like universities and hospital systems — need to start incorporating diversity mandates into their work. Say a venture firm wanted to secure a commitment from the University of Texas System; it would first need to agree, in writing, to pour a certain percentage of its capital into startups founded by underrepresented groups.

Given how fragmented the world of institutional investing is, the idea might sound impracticable. But Lo Toney, one of a small but growing number of black VCs in Silicon Valley, suggests it might actually be inevitable. He points, for example, to pension funds like the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which manages the assets of 1.6 million employees, many of whom “look like me,” says Toney. Imagine what might happen if they started asking more questions about who is managing their money.

Not that Toney is waiting on this development. He doesn’t need to. As a former partner at Comcast Ventures, then GV, Toney was able to secure Alphabet as the anchor investor in his own investment …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Byta, the private music sharing service for pre-releases and more, raises seed round

12 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Steve O’Hear

Byta, the music sharing service for pre-releases and other use-cases where there is a need to share sound files privately, has picked up around $1.4 million in seed funding.

The round was led by the Canada Media Fund, with participation from of private investors. They include musician Scott Kannberg, one of the original members of 90s indie rock bank Pavement, who I’m told discovered Byta as a user of the service.

Launched as an MVP in 2015, today Byta describes itself as “the platform for music before it’s on streaming services”. The service lets anyone send and receive digital audio in a “clean, simple and secure way,” and is said to be used by bedroom artists to large record companies for sharing music files during the pre-release process and for collaboration, such as with bandmates, labels, promoters, writers, and DJs etc.

“Throughout the music ecosystem, everyone is privately sharing audio files and streams, long before tracks and albums are released on streaming services and pressed to vinyl,” explains Byta co-founder and CEO Marc Brown, who has worked in the music industry for 25 years.

“An artist’s music is their currency, and when recipients are not able to listen effortlessly, they will move on. …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Ethyca raises $13.5M to help businesses automate data privacy and compliance

11 Jun 2020/0 Comments/in /by

By Ingrid Lunden

The upcoming CCPA regulations coming into effect in the US have put a renewed focus on how companies online are handling the issues of data privacy and compliance. Today a startup that’s built a platform to help them navigate those waters more easily is announcing a round of funding to meet that demand.

Ethyca, which lets organisations both identify where sensitive data may be used and then provides an easy set of API tools to create permissions, reporting and analytics around it, has raised $13.5 million in financing after picking up a number of major companies, including some high-profile tech companies, as customers.

The crux of the issue that Ethyca is tackling is that online privacy compliance has become a critical issue, in part because of regulations, but mainly because the online world has, before anyone had a chance to blink, become a critical component of our lives so getting things wrong can be disastrous.

“Move fast and break things sounds good on a T-shirt, but the web is effectively society infrastructure now,” explained co-founder and CEO Cillian Kieran, who hails from Ireland but now lives in New York. “If you met a bridge builder wearing a t-shirt saying …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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