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Friday, February 21, 2014
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With hardware suddenly all the rage, accelerators devoted entirely to the genre are popping up all over the place. And that includes the far-flung regions of Russia. The Navigator Campus will be the first private hardware technology park in Russia’s Kazan region. If you’re unsure where that is, well, it’s at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. Ok, nevermind. Suffice it to say that the Navigator project will focus on consumer robotics, 3D-printing, smart electronics for “smart home” systems and wearables. And we are talking hard-core Russian tech expertise here.


Navigator is launching with $4 million in backing by founders Ramil Ibragimov (Runa Capital) and Vasil Zakyev (shtrafy-gibdd.ru, Ohmymentor.ru). It may not sounds like much, but you can do quite a lot with $4 million in Russia. And they are not stopping there. The GRAVIZapp angel fund, specializing in hardware startups, will co-locate there. And they plan to build a network of hardware hackspaces and accelerators in the region, hoping to raise that funding to top $30 million, spread across region. Thus, Neighboring cities like Ufa and Perm will get their own Navigator spaces.


Serguei Beloussov, Runa Capital senior partner and Acronis CEO believes that access to scientific and business experts, VC mentors and hardware industry players like Dell, Samsung, IBM, Cisco, Intel and Foxconn will mean “we will soon see more venture-backed hardware deals in Russia.”


Some 93 out of 120 spots have already been taken by startups, covering various fields including 3D-printing, robots, healthcare hardware, and consumer electronics.


A few hardware projects located there have already raised early money:


• iBlazr – a crowdfunding startup from Kiev (with $150k+ raised on Kickstarter previously) is building a ‘smart’ LED-flashlight for smartphones and tablets.

• Krisaf – robotized gym equipment for accelerated rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy.

• ENNOVA – a startup manufacturing NOVA 3D-printers.


“Our ambitious aim for the next 5-10 years is to launch this kind of projects in each and every Russian city with up to 1 mln citizens in order to create a powerful hardware-community based on the Russian engineering history,” says Ibragimov, a of Navigator.


It sounds like they might just do it. The Russians are coming…





1:39 PM

With hardware suddenly all the rage, accelerators devoted entirely to the genre are popping up all over the place. And that includes the far...

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The eye of big finance is finally turning towards cryptocurrency. Responding to requests from clients, Goldman Sachs has put out an early assessment of Bitcoin that says little about the bank’s official position on BTC investment.


So far, the financial services firm is neutral regarding the currency and is not actively recommending it to clients in its broad assessment of the currency and its impact for merchants and consumers. The bank’s take on Bitcoin attempts to tamp down on some of the hype around the currency.


The document, which we acquired through a source close to the bank, states: “2013 was the year when Bitcoin became a mainstay in mass media, to the extent that it has become hard to separate the effect of hype surrounding the currency from its fundamentals.”


Goldman also found that “there is no liquid derivative market for Bitcoin; nor a large market of B2B suppliers which companies can use for spending Bitcoin” and reiterates that Amazon has no current plants to accept Bitcoin. Both of these facts point to little traction in the BTC markets for big banks. Without the imprimatur of a big name, Goldman warns, the currency is a bit dangerous to offer to the serious investor.


Longtime followers of BTC will find nothing surprising in the document, but the fact that it exists at all – even in the guise of a discussion document – is an important step in mass acceptance.


Their investor recommendations are particularly interesting:


For investors, there are a number of ways to gain exposure to value creation in the Bitcoin ecosystem


— Speculation: Holding Bitcoin with the view that the currency will appreciate over time


— Mining: Purchase computers capable of mining Bitcon, and earn newly minted Bitcoins


— Enterprise: Provide value-add services to participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem, for a fee


Their analysis also splashes cold water on its rate of adoption, noting that “despite media coverage and current trading levels, bitcoin remains orders of magnitude away from widespread adoption.”


“As a full suite of financial services build up around Bitcoin, there will be numerous (mostly commission- based) revenue opportunities investors can focus on, including providing exchanges, wallets, payment processing, lending, derivatives and other services,” the document notes.


Final analysis: The jury’s still out.


Underlying Value: While difficult to value the underlying currency, value of Bitcoin comes in its use as a payment method that removes credit card processing costs for merchants (especially important in micropayments) and adds anonymity, security and a natively digital experience to online transactions for consumers


* Merchant Use: For businesses today it is not yet feasible to hold Bitcoin given its volatility, and so merchants must convert into fiat currencies immediately (and incur commission charge)


— In the future when both hedging Bitcoin positions and committing to expenditure in Bitcoin is viable for merchants, this will help Bitcoin’s use as a store of value for merchants


Consumer Behavior: Currently there are more speculators in Bitcoin versus participants in commerce. As the currency begins to gain mainstream relevance as a payment method, this balance should shift. Overstock.com are joining Zynga and others who already take Bitcoin as a means of payment


Opportunity: We are currently in the first innings of a shift to natively digital transactions


— Bitcoin may emerge as the reigning standard, or others may compete for the crown


— Positioning investments in the companies striving to provide value-add services around cryptocurrencies will be key to participating in this cycle of value creation


It’s not much, but to BTC fans it’s definitely a start.





1:39 PM

The eye of big finance is finally turning towards cryptocurrency. Responding to requests from clients, Goldman Sachs has put out an early as...

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Ever thought about what might happen if you got rewarded, not for a Foursquare check-in, but for generating electricity? Changers, a startup which allows people to turn the creation of solar power into a game which encourages green behaviour, has closed $1.5 million in Series A financing. German government-backed fund BFB Frühphasenfonds Brandenburg led the round, with participation from Heliocentris, a specialist in clean energy, alongside additional private investors.


The startup can now accelerate product, expand into the natural solar-rich markets of the Middle East and take advantage of consumers’ rising interest in energy, especialy in the wake of the purchase of Nest by Google.


Oliver Borrmann, CEO of BFP says “We see huge potential for Changers as it combines rewards for energy-saving behavior with a proven community based on a gamified customer loyalty system.”


That’s basically code for a rather interesting new model: turning everyday green practices into the kind of game which not only rewards the consumer but also allows solar producers to put more redundancy into the system.


Changers is known for the Changers System, a Social Energy Marketplace that enables people to produce their own energy, measure how much they produce, and convert it into a currency that can be used to buy sustainable goods and services from Changers’ commercial partners. The company markets the Changers Starter Kit, comprising a portable PV solar panel and a portable solar battery that measures how much energy it captures and stores.


It’s not been a gang-busters growth curve – only 5,000 kits in the last two years – however, that represents over 640 kWh and has saved over 6,000 kg of CO2.


But if you scale that up the numbers start to look a lot more interesting.


And Changers has been through the wars to get there, pulling back from insolvency to get here.


It has to be said that the fact that Changers is still around is a testament to the sheer grit and belief of co-founders Markus Schulz and Daniela Schiffer.





1:39 PM

Ever thought about what might happen if you got rewarded, not for a Foursquare check-in, but for generating electricity? Changers , a startu...

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Gillmor Gang – John Borthwick, Dan Farber, Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor. Live recording session today at 1pm...

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Threema

Swiss startup Threema probably didn’t expect this. In 24 hours, the startup has doubled its user base, according to Süddeutsche. It is now sitting at the top of the paid App Store chart in Germany. Interestingly, Threema’s key feature is its true end-to-end encryption — German users probably don’t want to use a Facebook-owned app anymore.


“Unlike other popular messaging apps (including those claiming to use encryption), even we as the server operator have absolutely no way to read your messages,” the website says.


While WhatsApp promises a great level of security, the startup faced security holes in the past. And of course, it is now part of Facebook after the $19 billion acquisition. Facebook is an advertising-based company, after all.


Facebook promised that WhatsApp wouldn’t change. It would remain an independent entity without an advertising-based business model. But apparently, these promises are not enough for German users.


WhatsApp currently has around 30 million users in Germany. It’s the indisputable leader. That’s why it’s interesting to see that a massive user base is ready to jump ship and switch to a brand-new service.


Threema only has three employees and has been overwhelmed by support requests. The app looks and acts a lot like WhatsApp, except that the startup’s server admins can’t even see the messages because they don’t have the encryption keys.


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Thilo Weichert, data protection commissioner for the German Land of Schleswig-Holstein, said that the WhatsApp acquisition could create data-protection issues. “Facebook sees everything. And WhatsApp also sees everything,” he said to SHZ. According to Weichert, you should be careful with the services you are using. And he’s not the only one who thinks that — among the 200,000 new Threema users who paid $1.99, 80 percent of those live in Germany.


As a reminder, Angela Merkel’s phone has been tapped for years by the U.S. intelligence agencies. It’s a very pragmatic example of a privacy breach. It probably resonated with Germans. Now, WhatsApp will have to make sure that its users still feel safe sending WhatsApp messages. It will have to prove that privacy is still one of the company’s top priorities, Facebook or not.






12:24 PM

Swiss startup Threema probably didn’t expect this. In 24 hours, the startup has doubled its user base, according to Süddeutsche . It is no...

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Google is making an increased push into the 3D imaging sphere with the announcement of its Project Tango technology. The project is aimed at helping mobile devices fully map a 3D space to give them the same type of understanding of space and motion that humans have through a blend of robotics and computer vision tools. "Google has a reputation for finding value in places most other companies pay little attention to or overlook entirely," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.


12:09 PM

Google is making an increased push into the 3D imaging sphere with the announcement of its Project Tango technology. The project is aimed ...

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ambition

Ambition says it’s taking the process of tracking and motivating sales teams beyond white boards and gongs.


The startup, which is part of the current class at incubator Y Combinator, launched its product last August, but has been “flying under the radar” in the press until now, said co-founder Travis Truett. He compared Ambition’s approach to fantasy football — he’s hoping Ambition users will be excited to log in every day and see how their team is doing.


Unlike fantasy football, however, Ambition isn’t tracking professional athletes competing against each other in imaginary matches. (At least, that’s how I remember fantasy football — it’s been a long time since someone strong-armed me into participating.) Instead, it looks at the performance of different sales teams within the company, allowing them to compete for limited “seasons”, with rewards for the winners.


Each team member is assigned an “ambition” score. The specific metrics that are used to calculate the score can be customized for each company and each position, so Truett suggested that it’s a way to compare people who are doing different positions.


He added that Ambition integrates with phone and customer relationship management systems, so it can track the relevant metrics without requiring any extra work from the salespeople (though it may motivate them to keep the CRM updated).


Ambition Profile


The idea of “gamifying” the workplace isn’t new, Truett acknowledgde, but he said most companies are doing “gamification for gamfication’s sake” or “Gamification 1.0″. More specifically, he suggested that many of the existing tools are too focused on leaderboards.


“That’s relatively passive, it’s not sustainable,” he said. “You really only have the top 10 percent are motivated, because I might say, ‘You know what? Anthony wins every single time, so what do I care?’”


That’s why the team-focused system could be an important motivator — participants feel like they have a stake in their team’s success, even if they’re not number one, and it also makes the process “peer motivated, not manager motivated,” Truett said. Managers, meanwhile, can look at individual and team-wide data.


While Ambition’s initial focus is sales, Truett suggested that it could eventually serve “anybody that measures their employees.”


The startup was founded in Chattanooga, Tennessee and has raised seed funding from The Lamp Post Group, Y Combinator, and YCVC.





11:24 AM

Ambition says it’s taking the process of tracking and motivating sales teams beyond white boards and gongs. The startup, which is part of t...

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