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“Why 2017 will a big year for tech exits” plus 14 more VentureBeat

“Why 2017 will a big year for tech exits” plus 14 more VentureBeat


Why 2017 will a big year for tech exits

Posted: 21 Jan 2017 01:15 PM PST

stocks

I've been talking to some of my banker friends* about their thoughts on the M&A market for 2017 under the new Trump administration. The general consensus is that there will likely be more M&A this year for the following reasons:

1. The Trump administration is projected to be very business friendly and will likely take the following steps that will lead to more cash in hand for larger corporations:

  • Repatriation of cash trapped overseas in low tax jurisdictions. The idea here is that companies have cash in low tax jurisdictions that they do not want to bring back to the U.S. due to our corporate tax rate being higher than where they are generating the cash (in 2016, the U.S. had the third highest corporate income tax rate in the world). If the U.S. lowers its corporate tax rate, the idea is that these companies would bring that cash back to the U.S. and invest it in projects here. If Trump is able to influence corporations to invest that money back into the U.S., some of it will be used for acquisitions.
  • Cheaper to borrow right now. Following the financial crisis, interest rates were lowered in order to stimulate corporate borrowing, this ushering in extremely low interest rates for when companies borrowed cash to make acquisitions. With the improvement of the economy, the Fed is starting to raise interest rates again, which will make it more expensive for companies to borrow money for acquisitions. So companies will look to borrow and acquire now before rates get high. 
  • Reducing regulation. If you look at Trump's nominees thus far, they all seem to be pro-business and anti-regulation. Regulation is effectively a tax on an organization (it costs companies money), and reducing regulation means companies will have more to spend on other things, one of which is M&A. I won’t discuss the long-term repercussions of that here.

2. Venture Capitalists are hopeful for higher M&A and IPO activity this year as always, but this year is critical. Many large VC firms are on a two-year fundraising cycle and raised new funds in early 2016. This means they will be back in the market in 2018 and will need to show significant results before that. Many firms are are already predicting such outcomes for higher IPOs and M&As this year.

3. 2016 tech IPO count was down more than 30 percent from the paltry numbers in 2015. Companies are waiting for the right time, and the pressure is on for some companies that have filed their S-1s but haven't gone public yet. Also, for companies that have raised a lot of capital already, the investors might be getting impatient.

These factors will push up overall M&A and IPO activity in the short term.

*Thanks especially to my friend Sherman Williams for help with this post.

Shruti Gandhi is a managing partner at Array Ventures focused on investing in entrepreneurs working to reinvent today's world of work. She was previously with True Ventures, Samsung's Early Stage Investment Fund, and three other funds where four of her companies had successful exits in less than three years. She is a co-chair of the TiE San Francisco chapter and on the Marketing & Technology Committee of the San Francisco Ballet. Follow her on Twitter: @atShruti.

Tilt Brush artists become animators with update to toolkit

Posted: 21 Jan 2017 12:04 PM PST

Google's Tiltbrush is getting a big update on Steam.

Google's Tilt Brush app is evolving from a new way for artists to create into an important new tool in a developer's arsenal.

Back in October 2016 the search engine giant open-sourced the Tilt Brush Toolkit, a set of scripts that allows developers to utilize .tilt files (your saved creations) in various ways, bringing them into other applications. It was an important first step in turning the software from an enjoyable creation app into something that has genuine use in the content creation pipeline.

Today, Google is expanding the Toolkit with some vital new features. A Unity SDK has been added to the Github that will allow you to take your sketches into projects being developed with the engine. It includes support for staple features like audio reactive brushes and various brush shaders, giving you the ability to animate and give life to your creations. There are also examples of what's possible with the SDK, including a simple racing game and even a full first-person exploration piece with teleportation. Even the markers for movement are drawn within Tilt Brush.

This could be a gateway to getting more people into the development of 3D content, be it games, movies or otherwise. Tilt Brush is a remarkably accessible tool that allows you to make whatever you want by just drawing it in 3D. That's a powerful tool in the context of development.

That idea has helped form Unity's own approach to VR over the past year with the introduction of Editor VR, a version of its development engine that allows people to create and edit experiences from inside a headset.

A big part of Editor VR is tools, which brings in features from third-party creation apps like Tvori. We've already speculated that Tilt Brush might one day be integrated into those Tools. Now that Unity developers can use Tilt Brush creations with the standard editing modes, could we see Editor VR integration follow on?

This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com. Copyright 2017

A quick tour of Eastern Europe’s startup hubs

Posted: 21 Jan 2017 11:05 AM PST

eastern europe

Startups in Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Tallinn, Riga, or Vilnius don’t attract as much capital as the ones located in the top hubs in Europe — London, Amsterdam, or Berlin — but these Eastern European tech hubs are on the rise, and early stage investment in the region has surged from $10 million to $283 million in just five years.

This growth should accelerate even further, since new accelerators, coworking spaces, meetups, mentoring opportunities, and reliable VC companies are acting as catalysts.

There are almost 30,000 startups operating in Eastern Europe. Most of them target the global market and develop their products in English, and many seek most of their revenues from Western European and US customers.

They also tend to specialize in specific sectors. Krakow is a hub for beacon solutions, Prague cybersecurity, while Warsaw is doing a lot in marketing automation.

What they lack most is funding. Only three unicorns (companies with a valuation exceeding $1 billion) were born in the entire region, according to CB Insights data. Those three brands — Skype, Avast, and Transferwise — are known worldwide, but are seldom thought of as being Eastern European.

According to KPMG’s Venture Pulse Q3 2016 report, VC investment in Europe has grown from $5.7 billion in 2012 to $14.1 billion in 2015 and $8.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2016. Data I collected using the Mattermark.com database shows that VC investment has grown thirtyfold over the last few years, from $9.5 million in 2011 to $283 million in 2016.

VC investment Eastern Europe

And while the Western European hubs — London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin — attract the most money and attention, the Eastern European ecosystems try to keep pace with fewer resources, according to Tomasz Swieboda from Warsaw-based Inovo VC fund.

Startups are a huge chance for small Eastern European economies. Their relative importance for the countries’ GPD is much higher than in the US, the UK, or Germany. That is why governments are willing to support tech hubs by building infrastructure, or simply creating public VC funds.

Of the top 50 European tech hubs, according to The European Digital City Index, 12 Eastern European cities rank as having the best ecosystems for startups.

top eastern european startups

And 10 Eastern European cities rank as having the best European ecosystems for scaleups:

eastern european scaleups

Let’s take a closer look at each one of them. For readers not familiar with the diversified Eastern European geography, I have divided it to three subregions: Baltic States, Visegrad Group, and Southern.

The Baltic States — European tech motor at the border with Russia

Three small countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are a unique place for new business. Their combined area is smaller than North Dakota, with a joint population of 6 million. However they have been home to one of the most active tech hubs in Europe. The three countries rank in the top 21 for entrepreneurship in World Bank’s “Doing Business 2017” report. Strong entrepreneurial culture, low taxes, great infrastructure, and business friendly law and policies are the main advantages they offer.

Tallin. Tallinn is the top startup ecosystem in Eastern Europe. The capital of Estonia was home to two unicorns: Skype and, more recently, rising fintech star Transferwise. However, the most successful scaleups in the region tend to migrate to bigger hubs. Skype moved to Stockholm and TransferWise to London, which attracts most of the European fintech companies.

This is a common pattern. GrabCad, which provides online collaboration tools for CAD files used in 3D printing is known as a company from Massachusetts. It was actually founded in Tallinn before being acquired by Stratasys for $10 million. Pipedrive, a SaaS CRM provider that has already raised $14 million, decided to move to New York from Tallinn.

“When local companies scale up, they tend to move their business divisions to where their most important customers are. Be it Northern California, New York or London. However the product team usually stays here, where the talent is,” according to Wiktor Schmidt, founder of Netguru (where I work), a Poland-based software consulting, design, and development company.

YPlan, a curated guide to local events, raised €33.1 million ($35.2 million) and opened offices in London, as did Trafi, praised as the world’s most accurate public transport app, which raised €6.55 million ($7 million). Some notable scaleups that still operate out of Tallinn include Skeleton Technologies, a company providing graphene-based ultracapacitors and energy-storage, with $33.5 million funding, AdCash, an ad-serving platform that has raised $23.65 million, and Lingvist, a language learning software, which has pulled in $9.4 million in four rounds.

Bootstrapped projects are also thriving. Toogl is a great example. Started in Tallinn, the simple time tracking app surpassed a million users last year. Estonia’s e-residency program allows the company to hire staff all over the world. Sentab, which provides video-calling solutions for seniors, is another example. The company has offices in Tallin, England, and California.

Vilnus. The capital of Lithuania has introduced a series of startup-friendly policies recently, such as a “startup visa” program that allows founders from outside the EU to open businesses in the country.

The ecosystem is home to successful scaleups such as Vinted, a fashion marketplace app provider, which has raised €56.97 million ($60.6 million).

Riga. Latvia’s capital, Riga, is the youngest ecosystem among the Baltic State capitals. Its biggest success stories include Ask.fm, a Q&A social network with over 150 million users that was acquired by Ask.com, contact management application CoBook, which was acquired in 2014 by FullContact, and science based nano-technology company Naco Technologies, which was acquired by automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler Group in 2015.

Noteworthy Riga-based scale-ups include software company Infogr.am (which has raised €2.5 million ($2.34 million), action sports videography drone AirDog, the most successful Latvian crowdfunded project to date, which raised €6.1 million ($6.5 million), distributed document-oriented database-as-a-service vendor Clusterpoint , which raised €2.3 million ($2.5 million), and fintech company CreamFinance (€6.8/$7.2 million).

Visegrad Group — the region with the highest growth potential

Four Central European countries — Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia — make up the Visegrad Group. They are linked closely culturally and economically and have a population exceeding 64 million with robust economies. This region is home to several tech hubs with great potential. Cities like Budapest, Warsaw, Prague, Bratislava, and Krakow are big markets with good access to clients and investors and are the most attractive for scaleups.

One of the key competitive advantage of this region is its talent pool. Polish, Czech, and Hungarian developers rank fifth in 10 out of 15 domains in the HackerRank programming challenges. Tech talent is more abundant in Poland than in the UK or the US. The world’s biggest business and tech centers suffer from significant brain-drain, which pushes up the cost of software development and impedes its quality. But in Poznań, a university town, where the company I work for, Netguru, is headquartered, engineers are not sucked up by big corporations right after graduating.

In Poland, 39 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds have university degrees or equivalent. They also tend to have a command of English. What’s more, the local talent pool is supported by foreign talent arriving from Russia and Ukraine.

Budapest. Budapest is ranked as the top Eastern European ecosystem for scaleups due to the city’s availability of capital. The tech infrastructure is exceptional. However English skills are said to be a little bit lower here than in other top Eastern European hubs.

Several Budapest startups have succeeded globally. Ustream, which providing video conferencing solutions, was acquired at the beginning of 2016 by IBM for $130 million. Remote connectivity tool LogMeIn went public on the NASDAQ in 2009. Prezi, a cloud based presentation platform, is another well-known company from Budapest. It has raised over $72 million in four rounds of funding.

NNG a developer of iGO navigation was founded in Budapest in 2004 and now employs over 900 staff in 12 offices all around the world. In 2016, the Hungarian government and NNG inked a strategic cooperation agreement to keep the company’s headquarters in the country. Almotive, a developer of AI software for self-driving cars, has picked up $10 million in funding. AeroGlass, which makes augmented reality navigation for aircraft pilots, is also based in Budapest, as is neuromarketing platform Synetiq. Antavo, a Budapest-born loyalty marketing software firm has moved its headquarters to London.

Prague. The Czech capital is a modern city with great digital infrastructure and close connections to Berlin. It is home to the oldest unicorn, Avast Software, a security software company founded back in 1988. It provides one of the most popular anti-virus solutions and has made a smooth transition to the mobile market. Its cybersecurity competence has since spread throughout the city. Mobile application security provider TeskaLabs is growing fast, and has moved its headquarters to London.

TCP Cloud a company that specializes in managed services for OpenStack, OpenContrail, and Kubernetes was acquired in September 2016 by Silicon Valley-based Mirantis for about $43 million. And B2B web API developer Apiary has raised almost $8 million and moved its headquarters to San Francisco.

SocialBakers one of the world's largest social marketing and analytics solutions providers has raised $34 million in three rounds. Neuron SoundWare, a deep tech startup for self-teaching (which won Vodafone Foundation's Idea of the Year in 2016), moved its headquarters to the UK.

Warsaw. The capital of Poland is the business and political center of the largest country in the region. Many corporations have their regional headquarters here, which affects the startup scene. On the one hand, it means financing is accessible, and there are plenty of clients for companies offering B2B solutions and products. On the other hand, it means the local talent pool is quite drained. Infrastructure is great, with a Google Campus recently opened — one of six in the world.

Warsaw-based rising star DocPlanner, an online healthcare platform enabling patients to book appointments with local physicians, raised two impressive rounds of $10 million and $20 million in last year and a half. The company plans to use the funding to expand globally. Brailny, a social learning network with $24.5 million in funding and over 60 million users, is planning a similar strategy.

Warsaw is also home to rising marketing SaaS stars. The first such company to go global was Brand24, with its social media monitoring tool. New ideas are following. GrowBots, an outbound sales automation tool founded just two years ago, is attracting funding and has moved its business department to San Francisco.

Bratislava. Bratislava is very closely connected to Vienna, with Slovakia being the only Visegrad country that has adopted the euro currency. According to some local startup event organizers, “In Western Europe, there are often many businessmen and a shortage of developers who would do the actual job. Here in Slovakia, the startup team usually consists of three to four developers, who still believe they do not need a businessman.” It is a rising tech hub, however there are fewer scaleups here than in the other cities, be it for the lack of overall business experience or the small local market. Local initiatives, if successful, immediately go global. That was the case for Prizeo, a fundraising site for charity driven by celebrities. It was funded in Bratislava in 2012 but soon acquired by Los Angeles-based rival Chideo.

Another example, online marketplace Meet’n’learn, now operates in Germany and Austria.

Krakow. The second largest startup ecosystem in Poland, Krakow, is home to renowned universities, with Jagiellonian University being one of the oldest in continuous operation in the world. It is estimated that one in five people in Krakow is a student. There are more than 5,000 graduates from IT-related studies each year. The city’s international atmosphere helps create entrepreneurial startup ambience.

Krakow is famous for several scaleups. Estimote and Kontakt.io specialize in beacon technology and bringing Internet of things to interactive marketing, and have raised $13.8 million and $7.75 million respecively. A complex marketing automation platform SalesManago founded in 2011 has raised $6 million and is now present in over 40 markets.

Just as with Warsaw or Prague, Krakow’s has a talent drain problem. Many IT engineers opt to go to work for big corporations like IBM, Cisco, Sabre, or Comarch.

Smaller Polish tech hubs have access to great talent with less competition from big corporations. The most vibrant are Poznań and Wroclaw. Poznań is home to Allegro, an auction gigant that prevented eBay from spreading to Poland. It’s also home to the company I work for. Wroclaw also a vibrant startup scene. Its most famous scaleup is LiveChat, founded back in 2002 and later copied by the likes of Zopim and Intercom. A third good example is Gdansk, home to one of the leading wireframing and prototyping tools, UXPin, which raised $7.3 million and ultimately moved its headquarters to Mountain View, California.

Southern Central Europe — a very diversified region

This region contains some of the poorest EU countries, Romania and Bulgaria, former Yugoslav countries that still aspire to become a part of the EU like Croatia and Serbia, and a small but prosperous Slovenia with strong connections to Italy. They are catching up after a devastating civil war in the 1990s. They have a much shorter tech business history than the Baltic countries or Visegrad but are growing very fast due to lower costs and available talent.

Ljubljana. The capital of Slovenia is emerging as an important startup hub. Meetups and coworking places are popping up, as are VC funds. It’s ranked very high as a mentoring place. However the town is very small, so limited access to capital and small local markets push it low in the rankings.

Scaleups from Ljubljana are quick to open offices in New York or San Francisco, like Zemanta, a content suggestion engine that evolved into native advertising software and raised $8.95 million. Celtra ($10.2 million funding) offers a web-based self-service platform for creating, tracking, and optimizing rich media mobile display ads. Visionect helps companies build their own electronic paper display products and has raised $2 million in funding.

Startups here are often crowdfunded, like Koto Labs, which makes indoor sensors for healthy intelligent homes, or Chipolo a Bluetooth-based item finder for iPhone and Android platforms.

Other notable startups include Cubesensors, which produces connected devices to assess how rooms affect productivity and health, and Chipolo, which offers a crowdfunded Bluetooth-based item finder driven by a mobile app.

Sofia. Bulgaria’s main advantage is its low cost of business. The income tax rate is only 10 percent. Unfortunately, this comes with widespread corruption, but lean tech companies shouldn’t be too worried. Bulgaria has close relations with Russia, which is fostered by a common alphabet — Cyrillic script.

The cost of living is low. You can find a room to rent for 120 per month and start a business for less then $100.

The local tech specialists are skilled, but access to financing and mentoring is limited. Still, the ecosystem is growing very fast. Nine new coworking spaces have opened recently, including one supported by the government, Sofia Tech Park.

The most recognizable success stories from Sofia include mobile marketing platform Leanplum, which has offices in San Francisco and has raised $46 million, and TV projector app Flipps, which raised €4.5 million ($4.8 million) and has offices in Sofia, Silicon Valley, and New York.

Other startups include desktop and mobile event platform Sponsia, image recognition PaaS Imagga, pCloud, and software maker Storpool.

Bucharest. The capital of Romania is still looking to improve. It offers low costs, a good talent pool, and some acceleration programs. But VC funding is scarce, and mentoring is not available.

Among its notable scaleups there is Avangate, which provides eCommerce solutions and raised $7.5 million before being acquired by Francisco Partners VC in 2013. Online recruitment platform eJobs and online real-estate platform Imobiliare.ro were both acquired by Ringier in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Other local startups include TypingDNA, a typing biometrics company, 3D printing platform Symme3D, and Axosuits, which makes medical exoskeletons for people with disabilities.

Zagreb. The business and political center of Croatia has some advantages. The infrastructure is growing, and so is the number of new companies. Unfortunately, there are hardly any VC investors there, and bureaucratic barriers have to be removed. Still the cost of both labor and living are very low, and there are many active startup communities.

Scale-ups from Zagreb include Bellabeat Leaf, which makes a wearable and app for women. It has raised $4.5 million and was founded by a Croatian team based in Silicon Valley; cloud-based dairy herd and farm business management software Farmeron (raised $4.12 million); and high-performance, lightweight car design and engineering company Rimac Automobili (raised over $8.5 million). Rimac has been nominated the fastest electric car in the world (by Guinness World Records).

Scaleups from Zagreb are also quick to open offices in New York or San Francisco, like Zemanta, a content suggestion engine that evolved into native advertising software and raised $8.95 million. Celtra ($10.2 million funding) offers a web-based self-service platform for creating, tracking, and optimizing rich media mobile display ads. Visionect helps companies build their own electronic paper display products and has raised $2 million in funding.

The bottom line

Eastern European tech hubs have the talent, the infrastructure, the entrepreneurial spirit, and the support of local governments and authorities. They are also primed to enter global markets from the get go. Being a cultural melting pot with English as a lingua franca means Eastern European entrepreneurs are embracing the newest trends set in the world’s leading tech hubs. These are some unique advantages.

On the other hand, the region faces drawbacks mostly related to the immaturity of the area’s startup ecosystems — specifically a lack of capital. But the brands of Tallin, Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw are already recognizable among venture capitalists. Business and tech know-how is spreading throughout the cities with every new success of a local startup. This may be the perfect time to invest or start cooperating with Eastern European tech companies.

Bartek Ciszewski is a business and tech journalist living in Warsaw, Poland. He works for Poland-based software development company Netguru among other startups.

Blackstone’s Jay Leek joins Florida VC firm to manage $300 million security fund

Posted: 21 Jan 2017 10:25 AM PST

Jay Leek, managing director of ClearSky

Rumors have been spreading lately about where Jay Leek, former managing director and chief information security officer (CISO) at Blackstone, will be heading next. His pick? ClearSky, an under-the-radar venture capital firm based in Palm Beach, Florida, where he will be managing a $300 million fund dedicated to cybersecurity.

After stepping down earlier this month from the venerable private equity shop, Leek may raise a few eyebrows with his choice of new home. ClearSky has been cloaked in secrecy since it was founded in 2012, even as it was actively making investments — the company’s website has no information on it — sometimes alongside Blackstone.

"ClearSky has been investing in security for a number of years," said Leek in an interview with VentureBeat. "Blackstone and ClearSky have done multiple security deals together, so our approach to investing is well aligned." Co-investments include Verodin, and both firms are represented on the board of directors of Cylance and CyberGRX.

Raising the firm’s profile is something Leek wants to tackle as managing director, a role he officially took on two weeks ago.

Leek hasn't completely shut the door on Blackstone, though. He will serve as a consultant for his former investment firm. "I am going to continue to work with some of their security investments and participate in and help to coordinate the Blackstone CISO Community across their portfolio companies, along with the Blackstone security team," he said.

Given Blackstone’s focus on large investments and later stage companies, Leek’s new role at ClearSky represents an opportunity to be closer to founders, security innovation, and company formation. And given Leek’s continued connection to his old employer, one could speculate that ClearSky might help provide dealflow for Blackstone once portfolio companies reach later-stage growth. This is unclear at this point in time, however, and hasn’t been confirmed.

In any case, Leek is well-positioned to lead a security-focused VC fund, as he has participated in several notable deals, which include Cylance, Verodin, CyberGRX, and RedOwl. He also participated (independently from Blackstone) in ProtectWise's latest funding round of $25 million, which was announced last week. He is now on the security startup's board of directors.

ClearSky plans on opening an office in New York City this summer.

How TE2 is helping Carnival manage a fleet of wearables on 100 cruise ships

Posted: 21 Jan 2017 09:10 AM PST

Ocean Medallion wearable can unlock your room on a cruise ship.

Carnival Corp. unveiled an ambitious plan to use its Ocean Medallion wearables and Ocean Compass Internet of Things Network earlier this month at CES 2017, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas. It was a very interesting example of a non-tech company embracing technology to provide consumers with ongoing experiences, rather than one-time products.

The wearables can do everything from unlocking your cabin door to allowing you to pay for drinks and receive them anywhere on the ship. One of key players behind that plan to install interactive systems and wearables on 100 cruise ships is The Experience Engine (TE2), a San Diego, Calif.-based company that creates experience platforms-as-a-service. I interviewed Scott Sahadi, CEO of TE2, about how they helped make the software behind the project happen.

“Consumers want this,” said Sahadi. “They want a better experience. Even if it’s a hospital, they want a better personalized experience. There’s a lot of complexity in making that happen in real-time.”

TE2 is about three years old and it was founded to bring personalization that connects the physical world and the digital world.

“We are trying to bring personalization to the physical world the same way that Amazon’s  recommendations made ecommerce over the web much more personal,” Sahadi said. “We wanted to remove friction, create amazing experiences, and build a platform to do it.”

TE2 pitched its platform for use in places such as theme parks, buildings, stores, and cruise ships. Sea World in San Diego was TE2’s first customer. Marketers can look at a map of all the anonymized consumers using a wearable, and then exploit that data. If consumers are about to have a time-limited pass expire, then the marketer can offer that consumer a special deal to renew that pass. The marketer can do other things that help enhance that guest’s experience in the park in real-time.

With Carnival, the idea is to connect the products and services that a brand has to offer consumers. Each Carnival ship will each have more than 4,000 sensors that provide data to the xIOS, or the Experience Innovation Operating System.

The visualization dashboard for the data that TE2 orchestrates.

Above: The visualization dashboard for the data that TE2 orchestrates.

Image Credit: TE2

TE2 had to orchestrate the software to glue the Ocean Medallion and Ocean Compass together and work with those sensors. It had to create systems with identification, authentication, security, and anonymization of data. TE2 worked with hardware provider Nytec, and it had to make sure the back-end was capable of serving around 11 million cruise passengers a year. All of this is invisible to consumers.

“The culmination is what you saw at CES,” said Sahadi, who went on stage to talk about the software with Carnival CEO Arnold Donald during a CES keynote. “We really like the visionaries at Carnival. It’s hard to be innovative as a multibillion-dollar company. Arnold Donald gets it.”

Sahadi believes that the data orchestration platform used by Carnival can be applied to a variety of different vertical markets. The company is working with a quick-service chain now. It will also work in the healthcare, education, and hospitality markets too.

Carnival's Ocean Medallion wearable makes it easy to tailor a guest experience on a cruise ship.

Above: Carnival’s Ocean Medallion wearable makes it easy to tailor a guest experience on a cruise ship.

Image Credit: Carnival

“Everybody wants an elevated guest experience in the physical world,” Sahadi said. “They want a more personalized experience with a mobile device, wearable, or connected kiosk. When you are in the moment having an experience with a brand in the physical world, the question is how do you get more out of the brand in that moment when you have a captive audience. We want to match the consumer with service that brand offers at that time. When that happens, you get a big win.”

For instance, consumers who have a good experience with digital-physical tie-ins will give the brand a higher Net Promoter score, which means they will recommend it to friends.

TE2 has raised $8.5 million, and it is raising more soon. CES represented Sahadi’s chance to start telling the company’s story with its biggest customer.

“Carnival is a leader, and they are setting the bar for how others must compete,” Sahadi said. “If you aren’t making your customers feel like they want to come back, you probably won’t be competitive in the long run.”

The consumer's view of TE2's technology.

Above: The consumer’s view of TE2’s technology.

Image Credit: TE2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Xbox One smashes aside PlayStation 4, Blizzard on TV

Posted: 21 Jan 2017 08:00 AM PST

Madden 17 E3 2016 official

The console crushed all it's competitors in terms of digital attention

GamesBeat has partnered with attention analytics company iSpot.tv, which measures TV advertising in real-time, to bring you a monthly report on how gaming brands are spending their TV ad dollars and which commercials are generating the most digital response (iSpot measures actions across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and all major search engines). Below are the top five most-engaging gaming industry brands from December 16 through January 15.

TV commercials for console games owned the conversation during the critical holiday time frame. Overall, during the period measured, 31 brands spent an estimated $65 million running 98 commercials over 21,200 times on national TV, generating over 3.7 billion TV ad impressions.

Xbox leads the pack with over a third of the industry's digital share of voice. It spent an estimated $12.8 million on 13 ads that ran 1,329 times with 430 million TV ad impressions. The most popular spot was the humorous "Madden NFL 17: Karaoke," featuring Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown with music from The Weeknd. This spot accounted for over half (56.2 percent) of the brand's digital activity. Overall, Xbox ads prompted 2,231,675 online views, 26,900 social actions, and 86,027 searches.

PlayStation takes second place with 20.4 percent of the industry's digital response. During the period measured it spent an estimated $19.2 million on 8 ads that aired 2,950 times and generated over 851 million TV ad impressions. The PlayStation ad with the largest digital share of voice (45.1 percent) was "You Won't Believe What's In Store." In total, the brand's spots generated 7,148,321 online views, 37,538 social actions and 49,968 searches.

Blizzard Entertainment takes third place with 16.1 percent of the industry's digital share of voice, solely advertising for its game Hearthstone. The top commercial was "Hearthstone: Take This Inside," with 48.9 percent of the brand's digital SOV. Overall, Blizzard spent $1.1 million on 4 ads that aired 1,626 times and had 111.5 million TV ad impressions. Its ads generated 6,370,240 online views, 21,599 social actions, and 19,666 searches.

In fourth place is King, which captured 13.1 percent of digital engagement by advertising two games: Candy Crush Saga and Bubble Witch 3 Saga. The brand spent an estimated $5.5 million on 2 spots that aired 3,363 times, generating 564 million TV ad impressions. The "Mannequin Challenge, Color Bomb Style" ad for Candy Crush Saga captured nearly three-fourths (74.8 percent) of King's digital engagement for the period measured. As a whole, the brand's ads were viewed online 84,795 times, mentioned on social media 4,603 times, and searched for 168,788 times.

Nintendo closes out the ranking with 4.4 percent of the video game industry's digital SOV. Its most buzzed-about spot, with 45.94 percent of the brand's engagement, was "Super Mario Maker: Play Everywhere. Create Anywhere." In total, Nintendo ran seven commercials 692 times, which resulted in 97.4 million TV ad impressions thanks to an estimated spend of nearly $1.9 million. These ads generated 1,738,797 online views, 1,360 social actions and 9,882 searches.

5 Alexa skills to try this week

Posted: 21 Jan 2017 07:15 AM PST

Amazon Echo

This time a year ago, Amazon's Alexa had a little more than 100 skills. Today, there are more than 7,000, and new skills are being added fast. Last November, Amazon launched the Alexa Skills Marketplace to allow the owners of devices that speak to Alexa to share, shop, and enable skills on Amazon.com.

Here are five skills released within the past week that are worth checking out.

Screen Shot 2017-01-19 at 4.51.42 PM

The Late Night Poet

This skill reads you poems that are then sent to the Alexa app in case you want to read them again later. That may sound like a parody, and it is a bit choppy, but a service for late night poems seems like the sort of thing that could be pretty entertaining and is somehow fitting for a voice interface.

Screen Shot 2017-01-19 at 4.53.08 PM

Civics Practice Test

Civics Practice Test helps you get ready for the U.S. citizenship and naturalization test.

In real life, the citizenship or naturalization test is a 10-question test. The questions are chosen from a list of 100 questions.

To pass, applicants must get six out of 10 questions right.

Roughly nine in 10 applicants pass the text, whereas only one in three U.S. citizens who take the test pass, according to U.S. News.

There are currently about half a dozen Alexa skills in the marketplace for people who want to practice for the U.S. citizenship and naturalization test.

Screen Shot 2017-01-19 at 4.54.37 PM

CareGeneral

This skill helps groups of people, and specifically caretakers, keep track of in-home care. It is accompanied by an iOS or Android app. The CareGeneral Google Assistant action also launched this week, as one of about 60 skills made available.

Screen Shot 2017-01-19 at 4.49.55 PM

Tattle

Tattle requires use of the Tattle iOS or Android app and draws on news outlets like ESPN, Variety, and Billboard for the latest headlines, which it then boils down into audio briefings. Instead of calling on various flash briefings, you can add the news you want to hear into a list and then listen to it with your smartphone or Alexa.

Screen Shot 2017-01-19 at 4.52.07 PM

Reuters TV

This is a flash briefing — a short news brief from the international news agency. Each Reuters flash briefing lasts five minutes.

Nike has found a novel use for AR for marketing shoes

Posted: 21 Jan 2017 03:03 AM PST

Nike is using AR to put different colors on shoe displays.

Augmented and virtual reality are slowly but surely being integrated into shopping experiences worldwide. At CES for example, Gap and Asus teamed up for an AR shopping app that may point toward the future of mobile shopping engagement.

And previously we covered Adidas and their promotion of a new soccer shoe using virtual reality throughout Europe. Now, a Nike store in Paris is letting customers get a look at different shoe colors using augmented reality.

While the GAP application allows customers to get a look at clothing on mannequins that hopefully reflect their own shape, this AR experience from Nike lets you take an actual white shoe and switch between different color styles on the fly. SmartPixels, a French company specifically specializing in augmented retail programs, is responsible for this new development and their work interfaces with Nike's existing online NikeID customization service.

You have to use an in store tablet as opposed to being able to use your own smart device because the display actually projects a hologram onto an actual shoe. Unfortunately, only three styles of shoe are available for AR customization: AirMax, LunarEpic Low, and Cortez. Despite the limited shoe options, this along with our previously reported retail AR and VR initiatives will hopefully serve as gateways into the technology and inspire developers and major retailers to invest more time and money into their work so that options are expanded upon. NikeID has an expansive database already, so it shouldn't be very long before the AR options grow if people show genuine interest in using it.

If you're near Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, France, pop over into the store and give this a shot. It's a cool idea in its current form and hopefully, in the future, there will be some way for consumers to use an app at home to project the entire shoe onto their foot through a phone or glasses display and get an idea of what they'd like to purchase.

This story originally appeared on Uploadvr.com. Copyright 2017

These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Posted: 20 Jan 2017 11:44 PM PST

Euros - Funding in Europe European currencies

This week, Tech.eu tracked 15 technology M&A transactions and 78 tech funding deals totalling €455.7 million (about $488 million) in Europe, Turkey and Israel.

Here's an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week:

1) Rocket Internet announced the closing of its $1 billion Rocket Internet Capital Partners fund for investing in early-stage and growth startups. This makes it the largest fund of its kind from Europe.

2) Chinese chemical firm Zhejiang Jinke Entertainment Culture has acquired Slovenia-based Talking Tom developer Outfit7 for €1 billion, according to reports.

3) Spanish startup Letgo, which offers a mobile marketplace to buy and sell locally, announced $175 million in new funding from Naspers, Accel, Insight Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, 14W and other investors.

4) SuperAwesome, a London tech startup specialising in helping brands such as Lego and Mattel comply with rules on advertising to kids online, is considering an IPO.

5) Belgian-founded data governance software company Collibra has announced a new funding round of $50 million. ICONIQ Capital led the round with participation from new and previous investors in Battery Ventures, Dawn Capital, Index Ventures, and Newion Investments.

6) Just in time before the 2017 presidential election in France, the current government announced one (impressive) last thing: the French Tech Visa, a new program to attract foreign tech talent.

7) Facebook has announced that it will build a new data center in the Danish city of Odense.

8) TomTom this week announced that it has acquired Autonomos, a Berlin-based autonomous driving technology startup.

9) Irish digital health company SilverCloud Health has raised $8.1 million in a Series A round led by B Capital Group, the VC firm founded by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin and Raj Ganguly.

10) Turkish fintech startup iyzico has raised $13 million in a Series C round, led by Vostok Emerging Finance, to boost its push into Europe and the Middle East.

Bonus link: European tech companies raised more than €16 billion last year, spread across 3,420 deals tracked by the Tech.eu team for all of 2016. This and more in our latest report!

This post originally appeared on Tech.eu

You can subscribe to Tech.eu's newsletter here.

Introducing the European Bots Landscape

Posted: 20 Jan 2017 10:10 PM PST

Europe Tech

Over the past half year, bots have been a widely discussed topic. Experts and the media heavily discussed all the possible benefits, the future, and the value bots could create for businesses and consumers. Arguably, the tipping point was Facebook’s F8 conference in April. Since then, many developers and consumers have massively experimented with bots and tested their limits to find the most suitable use cases for bots.

During this trend, the U.S. market has proven to be highly interested in bots. Several published surveys are showing strong U.S. bot companies, as you can see in VentureBeat’s Bots Landscape. But Europe is not far behind.

Bots Landscape Europe

Above: This article is part of the Bots Landscape series. (Disclosure: VB Profiles is a cooperative effort between VentureBeat and Spoke Intelligence.)

Image Credit: VBProfiles

You can download a high-resolution version of the European Bots Landscape here.

While bots and systems that benefit from artificial intelligence (AI) and recurrent neural networks are not exactly new, in 2016, almost all the big players increased their investments in AI and machine learning systems. Some companies such as Bosch are setting up their own departments for such technologies. The increasing interest and importance is also reflected in the job market, where more and more companies are explicitly looking for machine learning specialists.

The chatbot market in Europe

Even though the U.S. has taken the lead, the future for bots in Europe looks bright too. The European Bots Landscape focuses particularly on the chatbot market to underscore this. Previous landscapes show that the U.S. has been quick to invest in this new chatbot market. Many startups have emerged to build a great array of chatbot services and bots. Yet, despite a somewhat reserved stance in the first few months after the Facebook F8 conference, Europe has recognized the value of chatbots. To shed some light on Europe and get a better understanding of the European market, the European Bots Landscape covers the most popular bots and bot companies active in the European market.

The greatest similarities and differences

This list is self-evident but not exhaustive. There are a lot more bots and bot companies in the market, of course. Almost every week new startups are emerging, and other bot companies might still be in stealth mode. Therefore, we focused on the most popular ones among European users. Comparing this landscape with a few global bot landscapes, you quickly get an impression of some differences and similarities between Europe, the U.S., and the rest of the world and where the path for Europe might lead in this sector.

Fewer personal assistant bots, more productivity bots

Looking at the ratio of bots created in the different categories and comparing them with global landscapes, it becomes obvious that there are fewer personal assistant bots in the European market than in the U.S. That may be due to the quicker market entry of U.S. companies. Especially after Facebook’s announcement, there have been quite a number of chatbots and AI-related robot startups popping up.

But it’s not only startups that see the great potential in the market. VCs and angel investors have also seen the opportunities — and spent a lot of capital. This may have given the U.S. competitors a little bit of a first-mover advantage. At the same time, we see that European companies have focused a little more on chatbots that enhance productivity, security, and communication. The market for this category also seems larger, with an almost endless number of use cases.

An analytics-focused trend and the future of Europe

Taking a closer look at the analytics service providers in this industry, we have seen a great array of European companies entering the chatbot market with a focus on analytics. These analytical services zero in on the end-consumer behavior and interactions with chatbots. The interactions and consumer data (Facebook profiles, e.g.) gained through analytics are incredibly valuable for companies to be able to better segment and target marketing campaigns.

This trend has not come by accident. Already now, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France are among the top 10 commerce markets globally with tremendous growth predictions. In 2013, according to Digital River, 52 percent of the German population purchased goods and services online. Additionally, studies show that up to 20 percent of those German online purchases were made on mobile devices. That’s a huge opportunity.

Moreover, due to the pressure to cut costs, Europe will be “expected to witness a significant demand for chatbots.”

All in all, there are many good reasons for European companies and VCs to invests in chatbots. The ecommerce markets in Europe will experience steep growth curves, mobile devices have become more important for that market than ever, and hence chatbots are a natural outgrowth for serving these customers.

Wherever the path will lead Europe in this market, European companies are showing their potential and are well able to take up the challenge against their U.S. and global competitors.

Fintech firm creates app to monitor Trump’s social media for stock markets

Posted: 20 Jan 2017 08:35 PM PST

Donald Trump.

Just in time for his inauguration, London-based fintech firm Trading.co.uk is launching an app that will generate trading alerts for shares based on comments made on social media by Donald Trump.

Keeping one eye on the U.S. President-elect’s personal Twitter feed has become a regular pastime for the fund managers and traders who invest billions of dollars daily on world stock, currency and commodity markets.

Trump knocked several billion off the value of pharmaceutical stocks a week ago by saying they were “getting away with murder” with their prices. Comments earlier this week on China moved the dollar and a pair of December tweets sent the share prices of Lockheed Martin and Boeing spiraling lower.

That plays to the growing group of technology startups that use computing power to process millions of messages posted online every day and generate early warnings on when shares are likely to move.

Trading.co.uk chief Gareth Mann said the Trump signal generator used artificial intelligence technology to differentiate between tweets or other messages that, for example, just mention Boeing and those liable to move markets.

“It is impact analysis,” he said. “We can let you know when Trump tweets. We can let you know when he mentions a particular stock, or when he mentions a stock and a country. But if he just says he’s riding on a Boeing 747 the system will do nothing.”

(Writing by Patrick Graham; Editing by Mark Potter)

Share price performance for companies after Trump tweeted about them.

Above: Share price performance for companies after Trump tweeted about them.

Image Credit: ThomsonReuters

Francisco Partners Completes the Sale of Source Photonics to Redview Capital and Asia-IO

Posted: 20 Jan 2017 05:35 PM PST

BusinessWire_FeaturedImage

WEST HILLS, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–January 21, 2017–

Source Photonics, a leading provider of optical components and modules, today announced that Francisco Partners has completed the sale of the company to a private equity consortium led by Redview Capital and Asia-IO, with participation from investors including TR Capital, Axiom Asia and Aberdeen Asset Management. Source Photonics is a global provider of communications and data connectivity components and modules in next-generation datacenters, mobile and fixed-line networks.

Source Photonics was originally acquired by Francisco Partners in October 2010 as a carve-out from MRV Communications. Following the acquisition, Francisco Partners recruited CEO Doug Wright to join the company in May 2013.

“It has been a pleasure to work with Doug and the talented management team at Source Photonics,” said Andrew Kowal, Partner at Francisco Partners. “The Source Photonics team made tremendous strides in transforming the company into a leader in its served markets, while delivering best in class operational performance. We believe they are very well positioned for the future and wish them continued success.”

“Francisco Partners was an excellent partner in our transformation at Source Photonics,” said Doug Wright, Source Photonics Chief Executive Officer. “FP provided the strategic support and resources to enable the company to execute on our plan and invest in new technologies. These investments helped us strengthen our product offerings, optimize our operational capabilities, and enter new markets.”

Doug Wright continued, “We now have the building blocks in place to accelerate our growth in the global optical communications market and we look forward to working with Redview Capital and Asia-IO as we continue to execute on our strategic plan.”

“Source Photonics’ technology and capabilities for next-generation datacenters and access networks provide a strong foundation for continued share gain, product diversification, and market expansion,” said Jin Yi, Executive Director at Redview Capital and a member of the board of directors.

“Source Photonics is an exciting case of cross-border mid-cap technology buyout. We look forward to supporting the Source Photonics management team as they enter the next phase of continued growth and investment,” said Denis Tse, Managing Partner at Asia-IO and a member of the board of directors.

Evercore and CITIC Securities served as financial advisors to Source Photonics. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About Source Photonics

Source Photonics is a leading provider of innovative and reliable optical communications technology that enables communications and connectivity in datacenters, metro, and access networks. We invent next-generation solutions to provide customers with enabling technologies to support the rapidly increasing demands of cloud infrastructure, wireless communications, routing, and fiber-to-the-premises worldwide. Source Photonics is headquartered in West Hills, California, with manufacturing facilities, R&D, and sales offices worldwide

About Francisco Partners

Francisco Partners is a leading global private equity firm, which specializes in investments in technology businesses. Since its launch over 16 years ago, Francisco Partners has raised over $10 billion in capital and invested in more than 175 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. The firm invests in opportunities where the firm’s deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential.

About Redview Capital

Redview Capital is one of the two parallel new funds set up by Mr. Jianming Yu in January 2016. Redview Capital focuses on traditional growth capital, on investments in New Materials, Clean Energy, Consumer, and Advanced Manufacturing in China. The other new fund, Advantech Capital, focuses on innovation-driven growth capital, on investments in TMT, E-services, and Healthcare sectors in China. Mr. Yu is also Co-Founder and Managing Partner of New Horizon Capital.

About Asia-IO

Asia-IO specializes in implementing customized Asia/Asia-nexus private equity direct investment programs for large institutional and corporate investors. Asia-IO is headquartered in Hong Kong.

Source Photonics
Jasmin Basal, 818-885-4202
Marketing Communications Manager
jasmin.basa@sourcephotonics.com

Trump’s favored pick for FCC chair wants to destroy net neutrality

Posted: 20 Jan 2017 05:33 PM PST

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Ajit Pai testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Privacy, Technology and the Law Subcommittee hearing on "Examining the Proposed FCC Privacy Rules" on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on May 11, 2016.

Two year old federal net neutrality rules, which prevent Internet service providers from blocking or slowing websites and online services, could be an early casualty of the new Trump administration.

On Friday, Politico reported that the incoming president had decided to elevate current Republican commissioner Ajit Pai to be the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, which adopted the rules. Pai met with Trump in New York on Monday.

Pai, 44, has been outspoken in his opposition to the rules, which defined Internet service as a “common carrier” function, much like traditional phone service. Courts had struck down several earlier attempts to prevent online discrimination, saying the FCC lacked authority to impose regulations without the common carrier designation.

A former lawyer for Verizon, Pai also worked on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department’s antitrust unit.

In a speech in Washington last month after Trump’s electoral victory, Pai vowed that Republicans on the commission would take a “weed whacker” to a variety of rules adopted under Obama appointee and former Democratic chairman Tom Wheeler. Wheeler resigned on Friday and warned Republicans that eliminating the net neutrality rules would be harmful.

Pai, in his speech last month, took the opposite view and specifically critiqued the net neutrality rules, which rely on laws in Title II of the federal Communications Act.

“On the day that the Title II Order was adopted, I said that I don’t know whether this plan will be vacated by a court, reversed by Congress, or overturned by a future Commission, but I do believe that its days are numbered,” Pai said in the speech. “Today, I am more confident than ever that this prediction will come true.”

The rules were adopted to prevent dominant Internet providers like Comcast (CMCSA, +1.32%), Verizon (VZ, +0.69%), and Charter Communications (CHTR, +0.75%) from blocking or slowing access to web sites and services. The intention was to prevent the Internet service providers from hindering the rise of new services, perhaps online video that would compete with their own cable TV offerings, either through technical means or by imposing hefty fees. Netflix (NFLX, +0.14%) CEO Reed Hastings, who has long backed the rules, said this week that his company was established enough now to survive without the protection.

The big Internet providers have argued that the rules were unnecessary and deter them from investing as much in improving their networks to provide higher speed service.

Pai’s fellow Republican FCC commissioner, Michael O’Rielly, also has spoken about moving to quickly reverse Wheeler-era rules including net neutrality and privacy restrictions on Internet service providers. The Trump team has also discussed curbing the FCC’s consumer protection and enforcement activities.

“Next year’s Commission should consider acting quickly to reverse any damaging policies put into place over the last eight years and in the last few weeks of this Administration,” O’Rielly said in a speech last month.

This story originally appeared on Fortune.com. Copyright 2017

Apple files $1 billion lawsuit against Qualcomm alleging mobile phone chip monopoly

Posted: 20 Jan 2017 03:47 PM PST

Qualcomm Logo

Apple filed a $1 billion lawsuit against supplier Qualcomm Inc on Friday, days after the U.S. government filed a lawsuit that accused the chip maker of resorting to anticompetitive tactics to maintain a monopoly over key semiconductors in mobile phones.

Qualcomm is a major supplier to both Apple and Samsung for “modem” chips that connect phones to wireless networks. The two companies together accounted for 40 percent of Qualcomm’s $23.5 billion in revenue in its most recent fiscal year.

In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, Apple accused Qualcomm of overcharging for chips and refusing to pay some $1 billion in promised rebates. Apple said in its complaint that Qualcomm withheld the rebates because of Apple’s discussions with South Korea’s antitrust regulator, the Korea Fair Trade Commission.

“If that were not enough, Qualcomm then attempted to extort Apple into changing its responses and providing false information to the KFTC in exchange for Qualcomm’s release of those payments to Apple. Apple refused,” Apple said in its lawsuit.

Qualcomm did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Qualcomm has patents for chips which include standard essential patents, a term used to describe technology that is required to be licensed broadly and on “reasonable” terms.

In its lawsuit, Apple accused Qualcomm of refusing to license the technology to other manufacturers to prevent them from making the chips.

It also accused Qualcomm of selling chips while requiring Apple to pay a separate licensing fee for the same chips, in a “no license, no chip” policy.

In addition, Qualcomm pressured network carriers to not sell or support Apple devices made with Intel chipsets Apple said.

The KFTC fined Qualcomm $854 million in December for what it called unfair patent licensing practices.

In February 2015, Qualcomm paid a $975 million fine in China, while the European Union in December 2015 accused it of abusing its market power to thwart rivals.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm, saying the San Diego-based company used its dominant position as a supplier of certain phone chips to impose “onerous” supply and licensing terms on cellphone manufacturers. Qualcomm said it would contest the FTC complaint.

Qualcomm was the sole supplier of modem chips for Apple's phones until the release of the iPhone 7 in September. Intel Corp supplied about half of the modem chips for the newest models, said Stacy Rasgon, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research.

Apple made the move around the same time that Samsung, which had switched to using its own internal chips for its Galaxy S6 phones, returned to Qualcomm for the Galaxy S7.

Qualcomm “has been able to manage through (the Apple contract loss) pretty well because they got back Samsung at the same time,” Rasgon said.

Apple is known for seeking multiple suppliers to keep prices down, said Jim Morrison, vice president of technical intelligence for TechInsights, which tears down devices to analyze their parts.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Alan Crosby and Matthew Lewis)

Game developer Brianna Wu is officially running for Congress

Posted: 20 Jan 2017 02:41 PM PST

Brianna Wu, cofounder of Giant Spacekat, plans to run for Congress.

Brianna Wu, a game developer who stood up for women facing harassment in the game industry, has official declared that she will run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

In a blog post, Wu said she would run for the House of Representatives seat in Massachusetts’ District 8 to help create a “bolder Democratic Party.” Previously, Wu declared her intention to run but held back from an official announcement.

She said that she was Hillary Clinton’s headquarters on election night, where she expected a victory party.

“But then, our worst fears came true and Donald Trump was elected president,” Wu wrote. “If this were just another Republican president, someone like Mitt Romney or John McCain – I'd take the loss in stride. But we all know the truth, Donald Trump represents a unique threat to the American system. Not only is he temperamentally unfit to be president, but there are unanswered questions about his ties to Russia and business conflicts of interest.”

She added, “I have respect for so many of our leaders in our great Democratic party. But, the contentious primary between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton revealed a deep divide that must be reconciled. There is a disconnect between those marginalized and our party leaders who vote too often as moderate Republicans. I personally supported Hillary Clinton in the primary, but today I see the vision of Bernie Sanders for America is one we must bring to pass.”

And she wrote, “I believe today's Democratic party is ill-equipped to fight the Trump administration's assault on women, on people of color, on the poor, and on the LGBT community. We do have true progressives, but too often they don't have the support of the party establishment.”

Wu lives in the Boston area and runs the Giant Spacekat indie game studio with Amanda Warner in Boston. She has been an active blogger and podcaster on topics such as sexual harassment, gender rights, and Black Lives Matter.

During the Gamergate controversy, Wu was an outspoken figure, challenging haters on the Internet. Wu spoke at our GamesBeat 2015 conference about receiving 180 death threats during that time. She was also excited about virtual reality.

Wu started Giant Spacekat in 2010 with Warner, and they made Revolution 60, a game with an all-female cast. Wu said that Cory Doctorow, a science fiction author and co-editor of the blog Boing Boing, has agreed to be an adviser on her campaign. Wu said that if she decides to formally announce she is running, she would probably step back from her role at Giant Spacekat.

Wu said that she is not a politician, and is a software engineer and an entrepreneur. She started her first company at age 19 with $250,000. She believes her experience in the tech industry is needed to bring perspective in government.

Wu will run against Democrat Stephen Lynch.

“This man has been on the wrong side of every fight for over a decade,” she wrote. “He voted for the Iraq war, and never really answered for it. He voted against the Affordable Care Act. He's crusaded against women's reproductive health care for his entire career. He once introduced an amendment that would give people that committed hate crimes against the LGBT community a "get out of jail free card." When I think about people that do not represent the Democratic party, I think of Stephen Lynch.”

Wu said she wants to make Boston into the third great region in the U.S. to build tech and biotech jobs, behind Silicon Valley and Austin. She also wants the U.S. to step up its defenses against cyber attack, and help create an omnibus privacy bill with bipartisan support.

“With Donald Trump in the White House, there's no room in our party for people that don't stand with the poor, the marginalized and the unheard,” Wu wrote. “I look forward to earning your trust and proving that I will stand for you.”

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