UK startup launches big data analytics platform to help businesses predict potential outcomes

April 22, 2015, 7:51 pm

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frangou

A UK startup providing enterprises with big data analytics has launched the open beta phase of its platform to help businesses analyse their plans and strategies to predict potential outcomes more accurately. George Frangou, founder and president of Massive Analytic, said that the company is opening its Oscar AP (artificial precognition) in order to enable business leaders to make decisions with more confidence. “It enables outcomes of decisions to be understood before they are taken. Oscar AP offers enterprises the opportunity for better outcomes in terms of increased revenue and lower cost, as well as identifying previous undetected revenue opportunities,” Frangou said. The startup, which has partnered with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, said that Oscar AP is the first analytics platform to combine artificial intelligence with access to big data in order to examine the performance of a business in a broader scope. The technology works with real-time and batch data, and can be used and configured without any knowledge of SQL. Massive Analytic has worked with a variety of companies across different industries, including Fortune 500s, to help them predict business outcomes. Oscar AP has been used to predict patient outcomes in the healthcare industry, for example combining weather data with patient records to look at readmission numbers. It has been used in retail to help with personalisation, reducing carrying costs, and maximising site conversion, and is of particular use in markets, where Oscar AP can help anticipate market changes. The much-publicised high startup failure rate means that the advantages of big data analytics should not be ignored. As Professor Jana Matthews of StartupAUS has said data has become a fundamental key to business growth. Companies such as Google and Amazon have been able to grow thanks to the data they produce and the insights gained by analysing the data.

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Tablo begins to show its long-term strategy as it launches a data-play that is a first of its kind

April 22, 2015, 9:00 pm

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≪ Previous: UK startup launches big data analytics platform to help businesses predict potential outcomes

Tablo Founder Ash Davies

Melbourne-founded cloud publishing and author community platform Tablo yesterday announced the launch of its newest product, Tablo Scholar. Tablo is a social writing tool where authors can publish books and connect with large audiences of readers; and what Scholar will now do is enhance that experience by giving authors access to a powerful analytics platform, which Tablo founder Ash Davies believes will 'redefine the editing experience'. Authors will be able to understand on a deeper level how readers are engaging with their books. "Over the past few months Tablo has really found its position in the market, and people now know us as a product that helps authors write better books and have an even greater chance of success," says Davies. "People are using Tablo to share their work, build a name for themselves, connect with readers and improve their writing." Davies says the primary function and goal Tablo is to help users become better authors: "We have been having numerous discussions about what we can create that will allow them to improve their books." "Our inkling has always been that the best way to improve your writing is to get to know your readers. The best way to improve a book is to understand the way people are reading it. In a way that is what the editing process has always been for books, having someone who knows about readers working with you to optimise your book for an audience." Tablo Scholar is data-driven, which makes it an extremely valuable asset for the startup as it moves forward. There is no other product in the market that provides meaningful insights into how readers are actually engaging with an author's book. It's worth noting that the insights Tablo Scholar offers are not just basic analytics; it is very similar to the approach around data and systems that a tech startup would use to measure and track its own success and performance. Tablo worked with a group of successful authors and hobbyists using the platform to determine exactly what kind of insights and data would help them improve their books. The process of working things backwards - as in, going to the users first to determine what would be valuable - and ultimately creating new technology as a result of that process, is quite unique and eventuated in Tablo being able to show its users new metrics - like what chapters in their books are most engaging, at which point in the book readers drop-off, and insight into who their target demographic should be. The latter is critical to the marketing aspect of a book that many self-published authors get wrong resulting in the ultimate failure of their product. "Tablo had to compile [this data] in a way that gave [the authors] clear actionable understandings that will help them improve their books, better connect with their readers and market it in a more effective way," says Davies. "[During our testing phase] the reader retention graph has proven to be the most effective. It shows you who starts reading your book and the percentage that continue reading and get through each chapter of your book". The reader retention graph can be likened to a typical 'conversion funnel' used in business; success is all about how many people go through to the 'next step' and the same applies with successful books. Currently there are more than 1 million words a day published on Tablo; and this is the first time the startup is offering a paid / premium version of Tablo. Up until now, the sole source of revenue was through a clip of the ticket from book sales by authors using the platform. The data approach also positions Tablo as a clear premium product in the space, especially when you consider that many of its competitors have chosen to further monetise their platforms by doing things like placing advertising within people's books. This not only seems a little tacky, but sends a mixed message about how supportive they really are of the content being produced by authors on those platforms. At face value, the opportunities being presented to authors by Tablo are far more beneficial, and Davies thinks that what his company is doing will help push the industry forward. "People are going to take a lot more notice of Tablo, because we are starting to push the whole industry forward, Tablo Scholar is a product that nobody has invented on this scale. I think that we are showing that this approach to publishing is the future of publishing," says Davies.

“Tablo Scholar is the most important product we’ve ever created because it helps any passionate writer, whether they’re an aspiring independent or a signed professional, learn more about their books and become an even better writer. Tablo Scholar offers all authors a dimension of understanding that’s never really been seen, and we can’t wait to see how people use it".

Tablo Scholar delivers a great UX for users and the UI is incredibly simple, yet extremely professional looking. The way in which the algorithm measures the metrics is quite in-depth. For instance, a unique reader is not just somebody who is 'viewing' the book on the platform, but an engaged person turning pages. Tablo is fast becoming the platform of choice for sub-genres of books that would usually be turned away from traditional publishers. This means that the fan-bases forming around Tablo's 20,000-strong author community are more engaged because they are actively seeking out content in areas such as LGBT literature, erotica, fan fiction as well as popular genres like thriller, Sci-Fi and comedy, to name a few. Davies says this is because users feel that the platform actually supports their work. Although the focus for now is getting Tablo Scholar into as many users' hands as possible, Davies did tell Startup Daily that a possible Series A funding round could be on the cards as the company looks to scale.

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The mergers and acquisitions round up

April 23, 2015, 3:03 pm

≫ Next: ClassCover’s technology eliminates the pain of finding relief teachers on short notice

≪ Previous: Tablo begins to show its long-term strategy as it launches a data-play that is a first of its kind

john chen blackberry

Another Friday means another mergers and acquisitions round up. Take a look at the deals that happened this week: Blackberry to acquire WatchDox BlackBerry has confirmed that it is acquiring Israeli digital rights management and security startup WatchDox. Various reports put the price between $100 and $150 million, with BlackBerry keeping the WatchDox team to work on research and development. WatchDox’s technology will be offered as a value-added service in BlackBerry’s Enterprise Mobility Management portfolio. John Chen, BlackBerry’s executive chairman and CEO, said in a statement, “BlackBerry is constantly expanding the potential of data security so that it enables more collaboration and sharing rather than creating limitations. This acquisition represents another key step forward as we transition BlackBerry into the premier platform for secure mobile communications software and applications, supporting all devices and operating systems. Together with last year’s Secusmart acquisition, Samsung partnership, our own internal development efforts, and now the acquisition of WatchDox, we now have capabilities to secure communications end-to-end from voice, text, messaging, data and now enterprise file-sync-and share.” Amazon acquires Amiato News emerged this week that Amazon Web Services bought Amiato, a startup which helps extract data from NoSQL databases and migrate it to AWS’ Redshift, early last year. TechCrunch reports that, with a number of Amiato’s founders and former employees now listed as working at Amazon, the move was most likely both a technology and talent acquisition. KKR Consortium acquires stake in Groupon’s Ticket Monster for $360 million Groupon has sold a majority stake in Korean online shopping platform Ticket Monster to a group that includes KKR Consortium. According to a statement, the investments value Ticket Monster at $782 million on a fully diluted basis, assuming a full vesting of management’s 13 percent stake. At the closing of the deal, Groupon will retain a fully diluted 41 percent stake in Ticket Monster (TMON). Groupon CEO Eric Lefkofsky said of the deal, “As the Korean market developed, it became obvious that TMON would benefit from additional resources and local expertise in its drive to be the leading social commerce company in Korea. We look forward to watching TMON’s success as a continued large shareholder in the company.” The company has also announced the approval of a new $300 million share repurchase program by its Board of Directors, subject to the closing of the TMON sale. KupiVIP set to acquire Sapato.ru TechCrunch reports that e-commerce platform Ozon.ru is selling Sapato.ru, which it acquired three years ago, to online fashion retailer KupiVIP. Apparently, reports put the terms of the deal at just hundreds of thousands of dollars, with KupiVIP virtually acquiring just the company’s domain and client list. KupiVIP shared a statement with TechCrunch that says that it’s buying Sapato.ru in order to continue growing its business. It will continue to operate Sapato as an independent brand online, “while using the existing infrastructure of KupiVIP for purchasing, processing and delivering of products”, with that set to include delivery service, call center and logistics center. Zomato acquires NexTable India’s Zomato has aquired NexTable, a US restaurant reservation management platform. The service, which is similar to Yelp’s acquisition SeatMe, will be rebranded as Zomato Book. Zomato’s co-founder told TechCrunch that the first international markets to test Zomato Book will be India, the UAE, and Australia. NexTable’s team will be kept on. Atlassian acquires BlueJimp Atlassian has acquired French startup BlueJimp, which is behind the open source video conferencing tool Jitsi, to help improve its video capabilities. A company statement read, “Blue Jimp brings a strong team of developers doing incredible things with group video chat, and we’re excited to welcome them into the Atlassian family. Blue Jimp’s technology and expertise will enable us to expand our video capabilities, all while improving your experience.”

Image: John Chen of BlackBerry. Via AllThingsD.

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ClassCover’s technology eliminates the pain of finding relief teachers on short notice

April 23, 2015, 4:16 pm

≫ Next: Startups keep launching anonymous messaging platforms, but do consumers care about privacy?

≪ Previous: The mergers and acquisitions round up

ClassCover_photo_1

Traditionally, when schools are searching for relief teachers for the day, the process involves making endless phone calls to a list of pre-approved teachers until the school strikes gold and finds one who happens to be free that day. Some schools even use recruitment agencies to find temp staff for the day. Both of these processes are extremely time consuming and cost a lot of money. Australian startup ClassCover has taken both of these activities and streamlined them into one simple and easy to use platform. Essentially the ClassCover system connects a school directly with its list of pre-approved teaching staff allowing it to see their real-time availability which in turn means those teachers can be booked directly through the platform in a matter of seconds, avoiding the long ring-around activities and doing away with additional agency fees. The startup was founded by Peter Carpenter and Ben Grozier. The solution was created from problems the pair had experienced first hand working in and around schools and recruitment agencies. "My co-founder Ben Grozier is a relief teacher and would often get called for work multiple times every day, not knowing that he had already been booked elsewhere," says Carpenter. "In addition I have contracted for IT projects through recruitment agencies and so we knew there was an opportunity to provide an alternative solution to the traditional short term or casual recruitment process". Over 75 percent of relief teacher work is booked at the last minute, so knowing a teacher's availability in real-time is critical to removing wasted phone calls and guaranteeing a relief teacher will be secured for classes that day. From a UX perspective, the platform is quite simple to use. Teachers create a free profile that includes their contact information, experience and training, references and their availabilities. Schools are then able to access this database picking the teachers they would like to shortlist. When a school needs to find a relief teacher, it creates a work request and the ClassCover platform sends an SMS to the chosen teachers in a prioritised order enabling user-defined delay times between when each message is sent. "Once a teacher accepts, booking confirmations are simultaneously sent via SMS to the school and the relief teacher, whilst automatically updating the school’s calendar and payroll report," says Carpenter. The platform has been developed in-house by the startup's own team. It is web-based and also available as applications on iOS and Android devices. The way ClassCover makes money is via a subscription model, where they charge schools on a per student basis starting at $1.20 per student per year. While relief teachers get to create a free profile, there is also the ability for them to upgrade to a premium account that gives them additional benefits including access to unlimited professional development courses. Building a two-sided marketplace in the education space, whilst challenging, has surprisingly been quite organic for the ClassCover team. The relief teacher side of the marketplace grows each time a new school signs on to use the platform - this is because its pool of pre-approved relief teachers are automatically added. This has allowed the team to prioritise selling directly to schools. After an initial BETA test in the market with a dozen schools in late 2012, ClassCover went to market in early 2013 with an initial focus on selling to Sydney based schools. The startup was also selected to take part in an Australian accelerator program but chose to withdraw in the last minute. It decided to focus instead on continuing to build traction. Currently ClassCover has 450 schools using the platform and 19,000 users across Australia New Zealand and Singapore. The startup has been primarily self-funded although raised a small amount of seed capital at the beginning of last year. This allowed it to recognise opportunities regarding international expansion. The market opportunity for the startup is quite a large one; between Australia and New Zealand, there are 12,000 schools and over 170,000 relief teachers. Even though the focus for the startup is the ANZ region, international expansion is on the horizon. "We are currently in discussions with partnerships opportunities in the UK that will give us exposure to the 25,000 schools and initiate our global expansion" says Carpenter. "In addition, our focus has always been to first of all get the model right in education before moving onto providing a platform for casual staffing in other industries. Whilst we still have our sights on education, the first opportunity came about sooner than expected through the NSW Justice Department. "We have recently secured a contract to rollout an extended version of the platform across NSW to the Juvenile Correctional Centres to assist in the management of their casual staff. This is a great win for the team and the first in a number of verticals that we are exploring as potentially viable options to expand into".

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Startups keep launching anonymous messaging platforms, but do consumers care about privacy?

April 26, 2015, 5:39 pm

≫ Next: Melbourne startup Boxly prepares to face off against Rocket Internet-backed SpaceWays

≪ Previous: ClassCover’s technology eliminates the pain of finding relief teachers on short notice

Phil Winterton - Mimchat

We’ve always known that privacy on the internet is a murky concept, but with iiNet ordered to hand over the information of customers who downloaded Dallas Buyers Club and the Federal Government passing legislation on data retention, the concept of privacy and anonymity online has recently taken deep root in the Australian psyche. These concerns about privacy have been reflected in the launch and increasing use of various ‘anonymous’ messaging apps and social networks. Ironically, in light of the data laws, even our politicians were getting in on the fun, with news emerging that MPs were using Wickr, a ‘self destructing’ anonymous messaging app, around Parliament. From Wickr to Yik Yak to Ripple to Unsaid to Whisper, there is an anonymous messaging platform that can cater to everyone. While Wickr was popular with the pollies, Yik Yak has cornered the university and college slice of the market. Despite the number of players already in the space, optimistic startups are still launching new platforms with hopes they will be the ones to truly conquer the market. A Sydney startup recently launched Mimchat, a platform promising users complete anonymity. A mix of Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr (it actually reminds me of what Bebo used to be), the platform lets users upload text, pictures, and videos, and direct this content to either a public or private, curated feed. Phil Winterton, Mimchat’s Australian manager, said that the platform was developed because the team wanted to create communication without boundaries, where users could say whatever they want, whenever they want. “We are different from apps such as Yik Yak because we offer a much more complete platform where users receive a more social media interaction feel. We have more functionality and have a much better user interface than simple message based location apps, and you can easily create an anonymous-based social network among only your invited contacts via our Private Feed option,” Winterton said. He said that the creation of the platform also stemmed from the fact that they were sick of other social networks bombarding users with ads, and breaching their users’ privacy. While consumers may be right to be concerned about what various platforms are doing with their data - or perhaps, more accurately, who they’re giving it to - there is another concern when it comes to anonymity on social networks: trolling and abuse. Yik Yak, for instance, has been criticised for allowing bullying to fester on its app, while even Facebook and Twitter have admitted they have difficulties monitoring and dealing with trolling and harassment. If your platform is being used by teenagers and young adults - and most are - this is especially concerning. Winterton said the team has considered this. “At the end of the day you cannot stop people using the platform in a way it was not meant for. It's human nature. We take great pride in definitely allowing communication without boundaries and do not mind one bit if users cross the grey line on various topics, in fact we encourage this,” he said. “However, for blatant bullying and harassment we have a support team monitoring such content and this will be taken down once it has been brought to our attention or seen.” [caption id="attachment_40100" align="aligncenter" width="700"]

What a user's feed looks like. Photo via mimchat.com[/caption] Given that part of the the impetus for the creation of the platform was annoyance with ads on other social networks, the question of how Mimchat will look to monetise is an interesting one. However, Winterton said that monetisation isn’t at the top of the to do list. “We aren't concerned about monetising the platform at all just yet. We want to create something fun and exciting and create the best user experience possible,” he explained. Mimchat faces incredibly stiff competition in two races. Not only is it competing against dozens of players in the anonymous messaging space, but they are all competing against Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr too. Sure, consumers might be concerned about privacy online, but in the end old habits die hard and many people can't be bothered finding and switching to a new platform - how long did it take to teach your grandmother how to comment on a photo? However, in bringing together various features from different platforms into one, Mimchat's look and functionality may appeal to young teens. Since kids are often early adopters of new tech and can end up dictating trends, if enough get on board then Mimchat may be able to gain a significant amount of traction that will help it stand out from the rest in the wider market. Mimchat is currently available online and on Android, with an iOS app set to launch soon.

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Melbourne startup Boxly prepares to face off against Rocket Internet-backed SpaceWays

April 26, 2015, 6:24 pm

≫ Next: Aussie startup delegation make valuable connections in ‘China’s Silicon Valley’

≪ Previous: Startups keep launching anonymous messaging platforms, but do consumers care about privacy?

boxly

Following its foray into the Australian market two months ago, Rocket Internet’s self storage startup SpaceWays now has a competitor, with Melbourne-based startup Boxly launching to the public today. The way it works is simple: Boxly will send you free storage boxes, pick them up and store them once you have packed them, and then return them to you when you ask for them. A box costs $6/month to store with a minimum of two boxes per delivery, while Boxly will also pick up and store larger items like luggage, bikes, and skis for $4/month. Founders Ronan Fenton and Misha Saul said the idea for the service came from the fact that they both had snow and camping gear lying around the house that took up a lot of space. “Neither of us owned a car, so it was a real hassle moving our stuff to and from self-storage units that were too large and too expensive for what we needed,” Fenton said. “We’re very excited and encouraged by the response from households and businesses around Melbourne. Through our discussions we’ve discovered even more situations where Boxly is able to provide a smarter solution to everyday space and logistical issues,” Saul added. Boxly also offers storage solutions for businesses, stating that retailers can use Boxly as a virtual warehouse while contractors in various industries can store tools and equipment that can then be delivered to their next job. Boxly, which highlights on its website that it is Australian owned and operated, is virtually identical to the German-founded SpaceWays - apart from the nationality of its ownership and price, that is. SpaceWays, which asks customers for $9.90/month per box, can be used for both personal and business purposes. They both also have a focus on the security of items at all stages of the process, from pick up to storage and delivery. With SpaceWays currently still Sydney-only, it will be interesting to see how both companies grow in their launch markets and who expands interstate first. As part of the Rocket Internet family and a proven track record in cities including London and Toronto, SpaceWays has significant cash behind it. This is clear when you consider the extensive set up SpaceWays had in place for its launch: talking to the startup in February, Startup Daily was told they have established five warehouses around the world with a capacity to hold between 10,000 to 50,000 boxes each. Based on the $9.90 monthly storage fee per box - without taking into consideration any other fees or services - this means that SpaceWays’ revenue potential in Sydney would be between $99,000 and $495,000 a month. Boxly, for its part, has chosen to partner with existing warehousing and storage facilities to store boxes, which has allowed it to reduce its own costs and pass these savings on to consumers. The startup is already thinking big, looking to expand across Australia and New Zealand over the coming months. Note: Boxly launched in late 2014, but its official/public launch was today.

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Aussie startup delegation make valuable connections in ‘China’s Silicon Valley’

April 26, 2015, 7:04 pm

≫ Next: Towards a global Muslim startup ecology: 11 most innovative Asian Muslim startups

≪ Previous: Melbourne startup Boxly prepares to face off against Rocket Internet-backed SpaceWays

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Last week, 25 startup entrepreneurs represented Australia at the annual Conference for the International Exchange of Professionals, a technology and talent conference in Shenzhen, China. The conference is the only international event in China that caters specifically to foreign experts in technology and innovation, with all representatives selected receiving subsidies for their flights and accommodation from the Shenzhen Government to attend. Shenzhen is the city with the fourth largest GDP in China, following Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. It has been dubbed by some as the 'Silicon Valley of China', although in recent years another hub in Beijing, Zhongguancun, has also been vying for that title. Located immediately north of Hong Kong with a population of 15 million, Shenzhen is China’s first and one of its most successful Special Economic Zones. Special Economic Zones (SEZ) are selected cities in China that have been allowed to implement more flexibility and more free-market economic policies than the rest of mainland China. These zones are established to spur on economic growth, making specific regions more conducive for international business. SEZs also serve as areas of experimentation, adopting more open and innovative economic management systems and technologies. It is this openness to innovation that convinced many of the delegates to take part in the trip. Delegate Hugh Fan, a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales working on low enegery smart wireless sensor networks, said he was impressed with both the cleanliness of the environment in Shenzhen and the support for innovation. “It has the best market [for what I’m doing] and a fast pace of business transactions,” he said. Brent Clark, another delegate and CEO of Wattblock, a startup that enables rapid identification of energy and waste in residential buildings to cut carbon emissions, believes entrepreneurs working in the clean technology space should seriously consider visiting Shenzhen. “There’s a lot of interest in clean energy in China, especially after the documentary ‘Under the Dome’ went viral in February this year. 40 percent of carbon emissions in China come from buildings and it is creating hazardous levels of air pollution,” he said. Clark last year won a UNSW Innovations pitch competition run for its alumni entrepreneurs, with the prize being fully paid airfares and accommodation for his team to attend the conference in Shenzhen, and Government-endorsed introductions. “We built a relationship with China’s Smart Cities Construction Alliance out of this trip, which we’re very excited about. We look forward to working with them further to explore opportunities for our technology,” Clark said. Other Aussie entrepreneurs attracted to China are working on projects that specifically target the international market. Nicholas Jenkins, the COO of Funetics, a digital tutoring tool for English pronunciation, believes English education in China lags behind its counterparts in South East Asia, with students scoring some of the lowest marks in the spoken aspects of English aptitude tests, such as the IELTS. While Jenkins sees a clear opportunity for his technology in China, he views his trip to Shenzhen as a learning opportunity to get better acquainted with a potential market. "The biggest learning curve for our team was the sheer size of the Chinese market and the fundamental differences between doing business here and back home,” he said. Jenkins also has some advice for fellow Aussie entrepreneurs. “If you want to launch a business in China or South East Asia, you have to move there. The opportunity is large but to capture it, you have to be fully immersed into the environment and take a long term approach to building relationships and understanding how things work,” he said. The participating delegates were chosen by the Sydney branch of the Shenzhen Economic and Trade Representative Office (SETRO). Felix Xu is a manager at SETRO, responsible for finding promising Australian startups interested in entering the Chinese market. Xu believes Australia has some of the world’s best innovative minds and technologies available. “I am consistently impressed with the technology entrepreneurs I meet in Australia. Many of them have solutions in industries that are of great interest in China, such as sustainability. I have investors constantly asking me about them,” he said. However, Xu admits there are significant barriers for Australian businesses looking to engage more with Asia. “There’s definitely a communication gap, and big differences in the way business is done. But that’s why there are bridging bodies such as my department. I encourage any Australian tech entrepreneur who is interested in finding out more about entering China to get in touch with my office.”

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Towards a global Muslim startup ecology: 11 most innovative Asian Muslim startups

April 26, 2015, 7:29 pm

≫ Next: Why a Russian tech company chose to strategically partner with unknown Australian startup to create Merchium

≪ Previous: Aussie startup delegation make valuable connections in ‘China’s Silicon Valley’

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We decided to introduce ourselves and tell the investor about our company. Once we said we were focused on the global Muslim market his face changed. He began to look around, and we could tell he was uncomfortable. We finished our short pitch, he took a breath and said, “You’re really going to have to be careful about infiltrators.” We didn’t know what to say. “You mean like the FBI?” “No, I mean like ISIS.” Wow. [Source: TechinAsia]

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Why a Russian tech company chose to strategically partner with unknown Australian startup to create Merchium

April 27, 2015, 2:38 pm

≫ Next: Bigcommerce acquires Zing to accelerate its omni-channel strategy

≪ Previous: Towards a global Muslim startup ecology: 11 most innovative Asian Muslim startups

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There are plenty of tech companies that power online stores in the market - like Australia's BigCommerce and well-known and widely used Shopify. In fact there are a handful of dominant players in the space that are powering the backend of online stores, making it almost impossible for newcomers to compete - unless, of course, their value proposition enhances the experience for a user to the point where they are willing to move and change providers. Australian startup Merchium is hoping to acquire a decent portion of the local 'online store' market. Co-founder Matthew Marchetta is quite open about the fact that his startup is still trying to work out exactly what that unique point of difference will end up being. The platform does have a lack of transaction fees, which could possibly give it an edge over the competition. As Marchetta begins to launch the rollout of the platform, he is confident in his software's ability to deliver the services that customers want and need. He told Startup Daily that the real opportunity he sees is in developing strong partnerships with agencies, creating online stores for customers as opposed to just focusing on the end-user. This, he believes, will enable greater traction and a unique way of pricing the product. "We've recently rewritten the structure for the partner program and the partner program is going to release late next week and that will give agencies the opportunity to sign up. They'll have their own specific partner portal where they can create webstores for their clients both in the development environment and production environment," said Marchetta. "Users will also be able to access Merchium's API to further enhance their online stores capabilities. "They can also develop their own themes and apps for the store, for the marketplace so that other stores can purchase them. We've got a fairly aggressive commission structure at the moment as opposed to the competitors." Merchium runs off the backbone of CS-Cart. At first this may seem a little confusing since CS-Cart is a similar product to Bigcommerce and Shopify. In fact, when you look at the landing pages of CS-Cart and Merchium side by side the similarities almost make it seem like one is a copy-cat company of the other. But there is a good reason for that. In creating Merchium, Marchetta reached out to Russian tech company Simbirsk Technologies founded by Ruslan Fazlyev; and CS-Cart is a subsidiary of Simbirsk. Marchetta has partnered with the company to build Merchium, so in essence, Simbirsk are co-founders and strategic partners in Marchetta's company.

"How it works is we're essentially co-founders of Merchium but Simbirsk looks after technical and support; these are the guys that built the software entirely. I look after operations for the Asia-Pacific region, mostly sales, marketing and strategy," said Marchetta.

He also told Startup Daily that one of the key reasons Simbirsk were so open to him approaching them about creating a SAAS tech company is because of the competitors they were going to be up against doing something themselves in the Asia-Pacific and United States regions. Basically Simbirsk struggles to market its products outside of their own region and especially to western customers - throw in the political relations issues surrounding the region and the rest of the world, the most strategic way to exploit the global market is for them to concentrate on being strong technically and partner with the right players that can get their technology into a wider range of hands.

The UX and UI of Merchium is quite simple and straight forward; even a person with my limited knowledge of setting up an online store was able to navigate through the site quite easily.

At the moment Merchium has just over 3,500 customers on board using the platform - a big booster came from tapping into CS-Cart's database of 40,000 customers. Although many of those customers are actually located in Russia, Marchetta is beginning to grow the client base across the Asia-Pacific and the United States. Both Merchium and partner company Simbirsk Technologies are self-funded, and Marchetta has told Startup Daily that his focus right now is on growth and sales, so will not be seeking investment.

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Bigcommerce acquires Zing to accelerate its omni-channel strategy

April 28, 2015, 6:38 pm

≫ Next: Pixc and Transfercar among the 28 startups selected for the latest 500Startups intake

≪ Previous: Why a Russian tech company chose to strategically partner with unknown Australian startup to create Merchium

Bigcommerce

Ecommerce software provider Bigcommerce has announced its acquisition of Austin-based startup Zing, a provider of mobile retail technologies. The deal is Bigcommerce's first acquisition, and will see the company absorb Zing's team and acquire its intellectual property. It will allow Bigcommerce to make a range of APIs and technologies available to its point of sale partners, enabling the development of omni-channel solutions for retailers. With over 30 percent of Bigcommerce's 85,000 online retail clients also operating one or more bricks and mortar stores, solutions include real-time syncing of inventory between online and bricks and mortar stores, in-store pickup, order management, and integrated customer data and reporting. Nate Stewart, Zing's co-founder and CEO, said in a media release that the company's mission aligns with that of Bigcommerce. “Since the company’s inception, our mission at Zing has been to help business owners sell more effectively through products that simplify and streamline how they manage their retail operations, both online and in store. There is no better embodiment of that mission than Bigcommerce, and we’re thrilled to bring our expertise to a company that has proven itself to be the most flexible and scalable platform for emerging brands to grow their business,” he said. Zing will continue to operate as a standalone product, with its long term focus being to accelerate Bigcommerce's open platform approach to mobile point of sale. Eddie Machaalani, co-founder and CEO of Bigcommerce, added that with the retail industry reaching a point where retailers of all sizes expect to deliver "next-gen experiences," Zing's technology will allow for the creation of omni-channel solutions that consolidate store and inventory management and deliver personalised experiences to customers. “Nate and the Zing team have done a remarkable job extending the Bigcommerce platform in a way that enables our merchants to do this and more, and I have full confidence their expertise and IP will further advance and expand our omni channel strategy,” Machaalani said.

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Pixc and Transfercar among the 28 startups selected for the latest 500Startups intake

April 28, 2015, 7:27 pm

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500 Startups has announced the 28 startups chosen to take part in the 13th intake of its accelerator program, with Australian startup Pixc and New Zealand's Transfercar making the cut. Pixc, whose founder Holly Cardew made our 2014 and 2015 lists of Top 50 Female Entrepreneurs Under 40, provides a high volume image editing service that augments product images to help individuals and businesses selling online. The service removes the background from product images within 24 hours. The acceptance into the 500 Startups program is the latest in a line of big steps for Pixc. Cardew was previously awarded the 2013 Telstra Australian Digital Scholarship, which allowed her to travel to the SXSW tech and culture festival, and also took part in the muru-d accelerator program. Cardew told Telstra that she moved to San Francisco on a temporary basis earlier this year to be closer to the people that can make potential deals and partnerships to help spur Pixc's growth. Launched in Auckland in 2008, Transfercar provides a vehicle relocation service. The company helps rental car companies reduce costs by connecting them with travellers who can drive returned cars back to their original locations. This service allows travellers to drive for free. The company last year secured a NZ$450,000 investment, which it used to fund its expansion to the US. [caption id="attachment_40251" align="aligncenter" width="400"]

Espen Grimstad, co-founder of Transfercar[/caption] Other startups selected in this 500 Startups intake include Alumnify, a networking app that enables communication between mutually interested alumni, CellBreaker, which helps monitor, manage, and break mobile phone contracts, and KoboLabs, a personal assistant driven by Artificial Intelligence. 500 Startups stated that 46 percent of the companies in this latest intake have at least one woman on the founding team, while a variety of nations are also represented, with 61 percent of the companies having at least one non-US born founder. The last program also included an Australian founder, with Speedlancer's Adam Stone having moved to San Francisco to take part earlier this year. 500 Startups, which was founded by Google and PayPal alumni, states that the standard terms for participants in its accelerator are $100,000 for a 7 percent stake in a company, with startups receiving hands-on mentorship in areas like customer acquisition, metrics, design and UX, fundraising, PR, business development, and distribution. The latest program is the tenth to take place at 500 Startups' office in Mountain View. Previous participants include 9GAG, Fitocracy, and Punchd.

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SpoonFeedMe is helping university students understand their courses through video tutorials

April 29, 2015, 3:05 pm

≫ Next: SEEK’s $12.5 million stake in Babajob is just the first in what will be a number of cross-regional investments

≪ Previous: Pixc and Transfercar among the 28 startups selected for the latest 500Startups intake

spoonfeedme team

While it would be fair to expect that students learn everything they need to from their classroom teachers, the reality is that tutoring has become a part of the daily ritual for many - and it doesn’t stop at high school. Dan Brand found himself wondering why the professors and teachers in his civil engineering degree couldn’t explain things to students simply. He often ended up resorting to tutorial videos on YouTube. “When I was in my third year, I was doing a very difficult subject and I simply cracked at how bad the teaching was. One of the tutors for the course who had just completed it the previous semester was extremely helpful, explaining the concepts but also reinforcing what was important and what was irrelevant,” he said. Brand realised that students who had recently completed subjects were good at explaining things, and it was here that SpoonFeedMe was born. He describes it as "a peer-to-peer community which empowers talented students with the ability to help others maximise their potential and exceed in their university studies." “I thought it would be awesome if instead of just trying to find random video content on the web to help you, you could get a series of video tutorials created by a top student who had actually been there and done your exact course,” Brand said. He created a basic MVP in the winter break between semesters, filming 80 video tutorials covering a civil engineering subject at the University of Sydney. He charged students a one-off $4.99 subscription fee to gain access to the videos. “The following semester I simply went into to tutorials, stood out the front and told students about it, and by the end of the semester 35 percent of the enrolled students had bought a subscription,” he said. Brand worked on the platform while finishing his degree, with his goal being to work on it full time after graduating. A mutual contact put him in touch with angel investor Les Szekely and, the day after he handed in his final year thesis, he reached a handshake agreement with Szekely and his colleague Jeffrey Tobias. “Both men have become extremely great mentors and have a wealth of experience, so I feel like I am in the best hands I could possibly be in,” Brand said. He has since brought on other students as tutors and created new courses, with SpoonFeedMe putting applicants through a thorough selection process. The startup looks at academic results, as well as extracurricular activities. If they’re successful beyond this first round of selection, applicants are asked to create three trial videos. The platform currently boasts more than 15,000 users, with over 4,000 of them paying customers. The subscription price has gone up, with access to a course now costing $40 - it seems like a significant mark up, though on the other hand, it may a small price to pay to pass a $900 course the first time around. SpoonFeedMe basically does the same thing as NexusNotes - provide a platform for peer to peer learning - though working through video rather than a set of notes can help out the visual learners. While there are a multitude of open learning sites providing free content to help students, having a set of videos or notes explaining the exact course or subject taught at your university means a better learning experience. Sadly, as our universities cut funding and teaching hours, the quality of teaching students receive may well decline, making sites like SpoonFeedMe and NexusNotes useful tools. Brand said the team is experimenting with different offline and online strategies to acquire learners, though the most effective remains word of mouth. “We are fortunate to have a product where our target audience all sit together and talk on a regular basis,” he explained. With most of the platform’s users students at either the University of New South Wales or the University of Sydney, the focus this year is expanding to universities around the country.

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SEEK’s $12.5 million stake in Babajob is just the first in what will be a number of cross-regional investments

April 29, 2015, 9:19 pm

≫ Next: Secret has confirmed it will shut down and give investors back their money

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India is attractive right now for investors. In the last 12 months, investment into India's tech scene has increased threefold - it has become the world's third largest startup ecosystem just behind the United States and United Kingdom, according to the 2014 National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) report. The same report also suggests that the number of startups in India will rise from around 3,100 currently to over 11,000 by 2020. There are a number of key drivers behind the incredible growth of India's startup industry that have been working away in the background over a number of years. There has been a rapid growth in the country's GDP. The number of personal tech devices that has been adopted per capita is one of the largest in the world, particularly with smartphones. And India has over half a billion citizens that are under the age of 25, more than any other country, including its Chinese neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region. In recent months, some of Australia's most notable companies and investors have started making there way into India through some very strategic investments and acquisitions. In December, Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp acquired Indian startup BigDecisions and its parent company FinDirect Services - the products neatly fit into Newscorp's growing portfolio of startups in the information and comparator markets and perfectly complements other investments in India including PropTiger, a real estate platform Newscorp bought 25% of prior to BigDecisions in November last year. US based tech companies have been getting in on the action in India for a little longer than Australia; and over the last year companies like Yahoo! (which acquired Indian startup BookPad) and Facebook (which acquired Indian startup Little Eye Labs) have been looking at opportunities to expand their reach in the region. Yesterday's announcement that SEEK Limited injected $12.5 million into Indian startup Babajob, founded by expat (from Seattle) entrepreneur Sean Blagsvedt (who was the co-founder of Microsoft Research India) does not come as a surprise, especially when you look at the numbers. The platform currently has 2.5 million listings and over 3 million users searching for jobs each month. For SEEK Limited, which has traditionally operated in relatively first-world markets, this investment into what is known in India as the "grey collar job market" is a chance for the company to get in early on what will fast become a platform that plays at all three points of the spectrum (blue, grey and white collar jobs). The number of white collar jobs is set to increase rapidly especially as the half billion citizens under 25 begin to move on from study and into the workforce. On the investment Blagsvedt told Indian tech publication Your Story that he is happy the investment came from such as strong partner already playing in the space.

“We are excited to find a strong partner in SEEK, who shares our vision of using technology to connect everyone on the planet to better jobs, especially those in emerging markets. We are [honoured] to be their first investment in India and look forward to bringing access to better jobs to every Indian and to helping every employer reliably hire aspiring workers.”

Over the next 10 years, we are likely to see two things starting to happening regionally between India and Australia. The first is more investment like this from some of Australia's largest and most established tech companies, as well as some of the ones that may be medium in size now but growing fast. The second is, like many Australians are doing in China and Singapore now, is a relocation of some startups or at the very least a strong presence within the Indian market in order to leverage their growth potential. Given India is the one location on earth where we can actually gain an in-depth insight as to what a population looks like where majority of its internet usage is driven by mobile devices, it will be interesting to see how that plays a role in shaping what (primarily desktop based) industries like recruitment, education, medical and business services to name a few could end up looking like in the future.

Featured image: Babajob founder, Sean Blagsvedt

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Secret has confirmed it will shut down and give investors back their money

April 30, 2015, 1:06 am

≫ Next: Mergers and acquisitions round up

≪ Previous: SEEK’s $12.5 million stake in Babajob is just the first in what will be a number of cross-regional investments

secret-x

Anonymous sharing app Secret will shut down soon. The announcement was made today, and there’s some talk of current employees receiving modest severance packages. Having raised $35 million, it’s unlikely that the company is out of money. [Source: Techcrunch]

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Mergers and acquisitions round up

April 30, 2015, 12:15 pm

≫ Next: Should startups be obsessed with becoming a Unicorn company?

≪ Previous: Secret has confirmed it will shut down and give investors back their money

Kevin Thompson

You know the drill - it's Friday, which means mergers and acquisitions time. Here's this week's round up: Freelancer acquires Escrow.com for $7.5 million Freelancer completed a $10 million raising in order to fund its acquisition of the US-based escrow services platform Escrow.com for US$7.5 million. Freelancer's CEO Matt Barrie said of the deal, "This highly complementary acquisition will enhance the ability of our 15 million users to transact securely, and there are large opportunities for growth and synergies with core offerings. Finally, it is a strong cornerstone for entering the payments space.” Bigcommerce acquires Zing Ecommerce software provider Bigcommerce has announced its acquisition of Austin-based startup Zing, a provider of mobile retail technologies. The deal is Bigcommerce’s first acquisition, and will see the company absorb Zing’s team and acquire its intellectual property. It will allow Bigcommerce to make a range of APIs and technologies available to its point of sale partners, enabling the development of omni-channel solutions for retailers. Nate Stewart, Zing’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement, “Since the company’s inception, our mission at Zing has been to help business owners sell more effectively through products that simplify and streamline how they manage their retail operations, both online and in store. There is no better embodiment of that mission than Bigcommerce, and we’re thrilled to bring our expertise to a company that has proven itself to be the most flexible and scalable platform for emerging brands to grow their business. SolarWinds acquires Papertrail for $41 million SolarWinds, an IT performance management service, has acquired Papertrail, a log management service, for $41 million in cash. The acquisition will allow SolarWinds to expand its monitoring portfolio. Kevin Thompson, president and CEO of SolarWinds, said, "Our mission with SolarWinds Cloud is to offer IT operations teams the ability to extend the real-time visibility and actionable insights our products provide on-premise to their cloud-based infrastructure so they can effectively manage the performance and accelerated troubleshooting of native cloud applications. The acquisition of Papertrail adds another key element of that overall performance monitoring experience and we look forward to having the Papertrail team and technology as a part of our organization.” In a blog post about the deal, Papertrail co-founder Troy Davis added, "Eric and I started Papertrail to solve a problem we had: create the log management service that we wanted to use as developers and operations engineers ourselves, then make it as easy and as powerful as we can. We’ve done that: Papertrail is a thriving, profitable business trusted by tens of thousands of customers. That’s been fulfilling enough that we’re ready to “double down” and deliver amazing log management and infrastructure visibility at an even larger scale." Venture Republic Group acquires Flocations Japanese company Venture Republic Group, which owns travel sites Hotel.jp and Travel.jp, has acquired Flocations, a Southeast Asian startup that helps consumers find tour packages. Tudor Coman, co-founder of Flocations, told Tech in Asia, "Travel agencies still need a bit of time to get online in Southeast Asia, and having an experienced backer like VRG is perfect for Flocations to continue to offer its services [here]."

Image: SolarWinds CEO Kevin Thompson

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Should startups be obsessed with becoming a Unicorn company?

April 30, 2015, 10:20 pm

≫ Next: Sydney startup CrowdSourceHire could be up for a move to South East Asia

≪ Previous: Mergers and acquisitions round up

unicorn article

Unicorn. The term has been widely adopted by international tech startup communities and is used to identify a company that has achieved a minimum of $1 billion in market capitalisation prior to any event involving liquidity like an IPO, acquisition or some other form of exit. Although the term 'unicorn' is definitely used in Australia amongst particular cliques of investors and high growth startups, I would strongly argue - based on well over 2,500 interviews conducted by Startup Daily since 2012 with players in the Australian and New Zealand technology startup ecosystem - only a small portion of startups realise the importance that some venture capitalists place on unicorn companies and the role they can play in a successful startup ecosystem. On the flip side, entrepreneurs and the wider ecosystem need to understand that the reason they are called unicorns is because they are extremely rare. Neither Google or Amazon ever reached 'unicorn status as private companies for example. Forbes.com tracks these companies around the world on a quarterly basis; and the last published list had identified 80 companies that were eligible for 'unicorn status' - including Atlassian, founded by Australians Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, which upon publication ranked number 20 in the world just behind other technology startups like Stripe and Spotify. According to the recently released CrossRoads Report: 2015 there is also an estimation that Sydney based Campaign Monitor has a market capitalisation of at least $1 billion. However, for now that is just an educated assumption, not a confirmed statistic. If it were true, that would mean that right now, Australia is home to at least one and a maximum of two unicorn companies. (Remember that companies like SEEK, REA, CarSales, etc are public companies). Unicorn companies are no longer fantasy You can't argue with the fact that within the last 12 months the global tech startup ecosystem has seen more companies than ever before rise to the status of unicorn. Just this week hipster glasses ecommerce play Warby Parker joined the club with its new billion dollar valuation. In fact, it's starting to become an occurance that happens every other month with New York based marketing startup Sprinklr reaching a $1.17 billion valuation in March. But is this rapid-growth of unicorns across the world a good thing? There are many investors in Silicon Valley, Australia and beyond that say the increase in the number of billion dollar valuations is the sign of an impending tech bubble. There are others, however, that say the valuations are entirely justified. Earlier this year in a Fortune Magazine cover story around billion dollar startups, renowned venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said that CEOs of tech companies aged 35 years or below did not go through the year 2000, which means these people - who make up a majority of the current list of unicorn companies - have not experienced the capital markets shutting off overnight, which can lead many of these founders to believe that they can always raise money at a higher valuation. While the above is a good point, there is little value in comparing the world in the year 2000 to the world now. The connectedness of the world has changed, the internet then to the internet now is incomparable and the access to a digital world has never been higher. Not to mention, markets that were considered "third world" in the year 2000 have been rebranded as "emerging markets" and have economies that are growing at an unprecedented rate. Finally, it can be argued that many of the current startups raising large amounts of capital have the actual customer demand and market saturation and revenue to match more-so than their dot-com boom counterparts. The other major factor that we need to be aware of is that venture capitalists know that eventually there will be some kind of market-dip. Things go in cycles; investors have been through many of them and so it makes perfect sense that in order to protect themselves and their investments, that they would encourage startups to raise more new money than is needed. It allows startups to manage their "burn-rates" more effectively and plan the money out over a longer period of time, just in case there is a future bubble-burst. At least, there will be capital to continue building the business. The capital raises of startups like Instacart ($44 million followed by a $120 million raise six months later) are indicative of this practice. Locally, to a much lesser degree, we have seen companies like design startup Canva making similar moves with two smaller seed raises totalling to $6 million. It would hardly be surprising given the recent milestone of hitting 2 million users, that another couple of funding rounds would take place over the next 12 months pushing up Canva's valuation and increasing its runway of capital to protect it from any future interruptions to the capital market. Potential future Australian and New Zealand Unicorns Whilst there are certainly a number of high-growth tech companies in Australia, it would be misleading to say that everyone has the potential to be a unicorn. Based on in-house research and data, Startup Daily has identified the following Australian or New Zealand startups as potential startups to reach unicorn status within the next five years, if they were to take on a significant amount of funding. Remember that startups like Xero are public companies so are ineligible.

If you look at the current investors in these startups there is a commonality that stands out among them - for the most part, at one stage or another, all have commented on how they get startups to explain to them why their idea is a billion dollar idea. This is much more common coming from US based investors compared to Australian ones. There is something to be said about the psychology of that process - it is no easy feat to show someone how you are going to reach a billion dollar valuation, but in my personal opinion it's a process that could be worth adopting. It is worthy to note that there are perhaps even local startups that have not launched or even been created yet that could reach unicorn status in the next five years as well. Such a possibility is evidenced by startups like transport startup Uber and tech productivity play Slack. Why do investors love Unicorns? Money. It really is that simple. In the U.S., 90% of the returns for venture capitalists come from an average of 15 companies. It is important to note that the valuations of startups even when they reach the status of unicorn are always in constant flux - there are cases where unicorns have still made a loss for investors. Take ecommerce startup Fab, for example, founded by Jason Goldberg and Bradford Shellhammer. The company raised over $300 million in funding and at its peak had a market cap of $1.5 billion. In March this year it's acquisition by PCH International was everything but fab, selling at a reported $15 million or 1% of its former value according to a report by Bloomberg. Overall, this strategy of backing unicorns has enabled venture capital firms to become billion dollar operations themselves, replenishing their funds and allowing them to continue investing in the next generation of potential startup unicorns. But what about the startups that are not destined to be unicorns but are still strong, profitable, multimillion dollar ideas? According to Micah Rosenbloom, a venture partner at Founder Collective, these companies are called thoroughbreds. In an op-ed for Techcrunch last year, he explained thoroughbred companies as "impressive [organisations] that have the potential to change the lives of their customers and employees, but differ from unicorns in that they are 'only' likely to exit for $100-500 million dollars". Should we be obsessed with becoming a Unicorn company? The short answer is no. Australia and New Zealand's startup ecosystems still have too many issues that need to be solved at a macro-level to become obsessed with worrying about valuations. The first hurdle we need to tackle is getting more startup entrepreneurs to think globally from the beginning. And I mean thinking globally from a strategic perspective. At least 50% of local startups that we have reported on in the last two years have been copy-cat companies that already have major competitors in the U.S., Asia or Europe. For the most part, companies that have reached unicorn status have been the first sustainable model of their idea to go to market or have been able to obliterate a market leader with a killer unique point of difference to its competitor. Australian companies like Atlassian, Campaign Monitor and Canva are all very clear examples of what I am talking about here - Australian startups with global appeal and support systems. In order to get the capital flowing a little more freely across the nation and into the startup ecosystem, Australia and New Zealand need to become expert at being able to produce successful thoroughbred companies first. If we don't do that, then we will never attract the level of both local and international investment we need to keep local startups in country and attract expat founders to our region.

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Sydney startup CrowdSourceHire could be up for a move to South East Asia

May 3, 2015, 4:16 pm

≫ Next: Literatu ushers in a new style of learning across the Singapore school system

≪ Previous: Should startups be obsessed with becoming a Unicorn company?

0X2A4568

Sydney based startup CrowdSourceHire is preparing to graduate from the muru-D program this month. Founded by Ben Liau and Desmond Hang and Raj Kumavat, CrowdSourceHire targets small and medium sized enterprises and allows these companies to hire the right people by assisting them with their pre-hire evaluations. The core focus is on the software and web developer space. Liau told Startup Daily that the muru-D program has been really good for the CrowdSourceHire team, and that it helped the founders zero in on some much needed clarity of the company's unique selling points. "The muru-D program has been really good for us. We started off with an idea that we were really passionate about and through the course of almost six months that we've been through, we've chatted to a lot of experienced guys in the industry, a lot of great mentors and advisors and that's [helped us gain] clarity in terms of what we're trying to do and the problem we're trying to solve," says Liau. "We tested out a lot of hypotheses as we went along with the six-month program and tested a lot of things that we thought about but hadn't gotten proper validation around. We made a lot of contacts, [formed] great partnerships, and we also have a great team of advisors on board at the moment". One of those advisors happens to be the ex-CTO of NineMSN and current API evangelist at Telstra Frank Arrigo, whom Liau says has been extremely helpful in opening up some rather large potential doors for the growing startup. At the moment, CrowdSourceHire is specialising in the software development vertical in terms of the chosen job market it is applying the technology towards. Other verticals are also on the cards in the not too distant future. Liau told Startup Daily that these verticals would most likely still be in the digital space; but first to roll out would be verticals in IT, engineering and finance. "At the start, we were kind of thinking, maybe startups are our target market and then we kind of realised that startups don't have a lot of money, funny enough," said Liau. "We targeted enterprises where we have a couple of customers and obviously it's long periods of times in terms of actually getting them on board so we tweaked our model in a specific way where we actually made our tools free to use for pretty much businesses of all different sizes but have an 'expert' component payable". Essentially what this means is that a majority of users that would be attracted to the CrowdSourceHire platform would be considered 'not proficient' in the skills that are needed within the business they are working for. To give you an example, if I wanted to build a specific software solution for my business, and I know that I need to hire a developer for that project - I probably wouldn't know what type of questions to ask the candidates that apply for that role or assess their skills because I have no knowledge or skill set in that space. If there was someone that was technical in my business that could assist with the hiring process, that person could use the free CrowdSourceHire tools to test and assess those candidates. However, if such a person did not exist in my company I could use the paid CrowdSourceHire 'expert' service and have a dedicated individual review my top candidate choices and test and assess them and then advise me on who they think would be best for the role from a technical perspective, minimising the risk of me making a bad hiring choice based on lack of skill set. The experts come from a pool of people that are working full-time in the industries they are 'expert' in and consult on CrowdSourceHire for some supplementary income. [caption id="attachment_40364" align="aligncenter" width="700"]

The CrowdSourceHire team[/caption]

CrowdSourceHire has created a proprietary assessment framework that tests three main things on candidates applying for roles. The first is the knowledge of the candidates, the second is the application of that knowledge and the third is the communication of those candidates. As part of this assessment process, candidates actually work on small projects that are related to the job they are applying for.

For example if a company needed an iOS developer, they would assign the candidate a small iOS project, such as designing an app with minimal functions, something that takes less than an hour to do. After creating this, the candidate is then asked questions (which are video recorded) that are related back to the product they have just create. Such questions include "What kind of design patterns did you use?" or "Why did you code this project in that way?" These questions test their abilities to communicate back to non-technical people what has been created and why - important soft skills to have in any sized organisation.

The traction that CrowdSourceHire has been getting is impressive. While names of specific companies given to Startup Daily need to remain off-record until after the muru-D demo day this Thursday, we can tell you that some key customers some pretty large technology businesses in Australia as well as one of South-East Asia's fastest growing companies. So far, approximately 500 candidates have been put through the CrowdSourceHire platform by users. It wouldn't be surprising if that list of customers also included Telstra that backs the muru-D program, however when asked that question, Liau chose not to comment, instead refocusing the interview back to the company's overall vision and goals.

That vision according to Liau is to be the platform that everybody uses when it comes to assessing and validating the candidates, so the CrowdSourceHire team is pushing for that kind of adoption as hard as it can. Although acutely aware that down the track a round of seed funding is going to help accelerate that goal, Liau told Startup Daily that strategically they will not be jumping right onto that post demo day as the company is currently talking to investors and weighing up its options. As such, opening a round a bit later probably makes more sense. In terms of expansion, it seems Australia may not be the place where CrowdSourceHire can scale as fast as it would like. Liau has said that post demo-day he will be heading to South-East Asia to scope out the increasing number of opportunities the team are seeing there. This move could also explain the need to halt raising funds immediately. "From all the research, we've been finding a lot of the skills labour is actually coming up within the South-East Asian countries," says Liau. "They're coming up a lot faster and in a lot more scale to a lot of the other countries. So that's pretty much where the action is at and that's where we want to be because it just makes sense for us to be where all this happening. Also obviously a lot of funding happening within the South-East Asian region towards this year and we have a lot of existing contacts within that region as well so we're kind of leveraging off quite a bit of that."

Featured image: Ben Liau, Des Hang and Raj Kumavat | Source: Supplied

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Literatu ushers in a new style of learning across the Singapore school system

May 3, 2015, 4:56 pm

≫ Next: Otto is an always-listening voice control app that allows drivers to call, email, and text without breaking the law

≪ Previous: Sydney startup CrowdSourceHire could be up for a move to South East Asia

Literatu

Last month, education technology startup Literatu formally released its complete Windows 8.1 operating platform app for Microsoft in Singapore. At the event were teachers from various schools in the region, each of whom had a Microsoft Surface computer so they could take part in the live demonstration of how Literatu could help benefit both themselves and their students in the classroom. [Read More]

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Otto is an always-listening voice control app that allows drivers to call, email, and text without breaking the law

May 3, 2015, 5:42 pm

≫ Next: Canva announces additional $6 million funding as it prepares to take on Adobe and Microsoft with ‘Canva for Work’

≪ Previous: Literatu ushers in a new style of learning across the Singapore school system

Alex Kain Otto

Despite the well known dangers and the fact that it’s, well, illegal, it seems many drivers are convinced that they’ll be the exception to the crash statistics when it comes to mobile phone use in the car: over 50 percent of drivers in a 2011 government survey reported that they had used a mobile phone while driving, with just 28 percent of those using a hands free device. While various companies have tried to get drivers to go hands-free with their phones, the stats show that, clearly, none have really stuck. Australian startup Gizmosis hopes that their app Otto will be the one to do it. Founder Alex Kain describes Otto as “an always-listening voice control mobile application that enables drivers to manage calls and text without them ever having to take their hands off the wheel or eyes off the road.” Essentially, Otto is Siri or OK Google designed especially for the car - the driver can ask the app to read out emails or texts or make calls. However, rather than being based or modelled on Siri, Kain said the original idea for Otto simply came from watching Knight Rider growing up and wanting to have a talking car. In 2007, he produced a version of Otto for Windows computers. “It was quite expensive to have a whole Windows car computer, and it wasn't so forthcoming back in 2007. So now it's morphed and developed into this mobile application which is completely hardware independent,” Kain said. Kain admitted that putting Otto up against Siri and Google is a tough ask, but believes that where they offer generic assistance, Otto focuses on what’s really important to drivers. “We're starting to fill some of the gaps that they don't tackle. Because they're such big products and they cover so many things, it's hard to get down to the fine details just for driving and that's what we want to specialise in. That's our unique advantage over those other services,” he said. As well as helping drivers access GPS, email, texts, call functions, and social media, Otto can be asked to monitor fuel and nearby parking. Currently available on Android with an iOS app in the works, Otto is free to download, with in-app purchases available to unlock features such as taking Otto signatures off texts and emails. However, Kain believes the Otto app is just the beginning. “Rather than it being a safe driving app, what we've created is actually a whole platform that enables hands-free communication between humans and devices, and that means a lot of exciting possibilities in such as wearable technology and smart home. All those sorts of scenarios where you would envisage being able to talk to a device,” he said. Gizmosis was selected to take part in the first Jumpstart accelerator program earlier this year, which Kain said allowed them to validate their assumptions about the product and look at how it could be targeted to different niches. “We’re looking at motorcyclists, as well as sales reps who are constantly on the road and need to be productive. We're creating an enterprise version that will enable sales reps to dial their customers directly out of Salesforce, for instance.” With Kain having bootstrapped the company up til now, the seed funding provided through the Jumpstart program allowed Gizmosis to get Otto onto the Google Play store and start developing the iOS version. The startup also opened an investment round on Demo Night, while Jumpstart’s association with the NRMA has presented the opportunity for a partnership with the motoring company in the future. For the moment, Kain said the focus is getting word out about Otto through social media and discussions with various interest groups. “While most people would agree that texting while driving is dangerous, the problem is that three quarters of people still do it, and it's a real issue. What started off a long time ago as a cool product has really gone on a journey, where now we're trying to really make a difference with Otto to try to save some lives.”

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Canva announces additional $6 million funding as it prepares to take on Adobe and Microsoft with ‘Canva for Work’

May 4, 2015, 4:59 am

≫ Next: Sydney startup GoFar launches Kickstarter to help drivers save money on petrol

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Online design platform Canva, founded by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams, has just announced that it has taken on an additional $6 million (AU$7.67 million) in its third round of funding, bringing the total amount raised by the Sydney startup to $12 million. The round was led by four investment firms, including existing investors Silicon Valley's Matrix partners and Shasta Ventures, as well as Asia-Pacific based firms Blackbird Ventures and new to the Canva family AirTree Ventures. "We really wanted to support the investors who supported us earlier on in the piece," says Perkins on existing investors that came back to the table for this round. "We've had a lot of interest in Canva since we launched from both the [United States] and Australia and Airtree was one of those firms where we really liked the guys and we wanted to work with them". The platform now claims to have over 2.4 million users that have created more than 18.5 million designs. Given the company only announced hitting the 2 million user mark a few weeks ago, to say the startup has entered a stage of exponential user-growth is a bit of an understatement. Canva stated that its growth has been driven by a vocal fan base of content creators with backgrounds in marketing, blogging and design. The startup also said that 65% of its current user base has signed up to the platform in the last six months. Tod Francis, Managing Director at Shasta Ventures, said his firm is looking forward to seeing what Canva will be doing as it begins to focus on the business sector in its next phase of growth. “We’ve been impressed with Canva’s growth and the team’s execution on what is a mammoth vision. Canva has taken off with people around the world. We’re looking forward to continuing to work with the team as they focus on redefining how design is done in the workplace,” says Francis. Last week, in an article, I mentioned that Canva was one of a handful of Australian and New Zealand grown startups that has the potential to become the next local 'unicorn' company reaching a billion dollar valuation figure. Perkins declined to comment on the current company valuation, but seeing as this current round is not considered a Series A, rather an extension of the company's previous two rounds of seed funding, it looks like things are following the pattern I suggested it would in order to reach the billion dollar valuation down the track. In addition to the funding announcement, Canva also announced "Canva for Work" which it will launch to the public next month. This new iteration of the Canva design platform has been created to cater to the needs of over 200,000 business users that are on the platform. In fact, over 250,000 different domains have been registered on Canva, which is how the team has been able to identify exactly which businesses are using the current version of the platform and what they are using it for. Some organisations have up to 180 employees using the platform according to data that Canva has analysed. “It’s incredible that people create one design per second with Canva. We've had an incredible amount of enquiries from entrepreneurs to fortune 500 companies [that have] been asking for certain [features]. I guess just because of the technology that is now available, pretty much every single profession has changed," says Perkins. "People in marketing are having to create social media graphics for every single platform under the sun. Sales people across every single profession need to create presentations, pitch decks and sales proposals, design has become very important for every single profession. [More people than ever before now have] to create visual content". Perkins told Startup Daily that "Canva for Work" will be a product that will change the way every business is able to operate when it comes to design. A survey that Canva recently conducted with 500 small and medium sized businesses indicates that 87% of those companies wished that design was more efficient at their company and 78% said that they had people in their organisations that were not professional designers creating customer facing materials like social media graphics, presentations and sales and marketing materials - something that makes it difficult to adhere to any branding guidelines that may be in place. Although the finer details of what the features of "Canva for Work" will actually be and its capabilities are being kept under lock and key by the company, what Startup Daily was able to find out was that it will be a subscription-based service with 'accessible pricing', which is the philosophy that the Canva platform has been built on. Interestingly, this is also the first time that anyone from Canva, let alone Perkins, the CEO, has ever publicly mentioned their competitors in a media release or interview. The fact that today's announcement says, "As the world becomes an increasingly visual place, the existing tools provided by Microsoft and Adobe no longer meet the needs of companies where everyone has to create high quality graphics and express their ideas visually" is actually quite a significant statement by Perkins. Why? Because it means that Canva is ready to play hard ball in a space that is pretty dominated by Adobe. To give you some insight, Adobe revealed in its blog in March that it now has just under 4 million paid subscribers to its Creative Cloud platform and has been growing at a rate of 50,000 customers per week. While Canva may have well over 2 million users, at the moment it has zero paying subscribers. Once "Canva for Work" goes live there will certainly be an influx of sign-ups, but the startup will still face a number of challenges in converting Adobe users over to the "Canva for Work" platform exclusively. This is because Adobe's Creative Cloud includes features such as video and audio editing among a host of other products and features. Having said that, Canva's trump card has always been its simple user interface and intuitive user experience. If it can bring that simplistic ease of use over to a feature rich, commercially sound platform that allows companies to produce their design tasks efficiently and effectively, then Canva may just do in the world of design what "Google Apps for Work" did in the spaces of email, communication and storage.

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