Archive for the ‘Free Software’ Category

As location becomes irrelevant, Greek VCs eye local talent and spread their wings – TechCrunch

According to a recent report on Greeces startup ecosystem by management consultants Found.ation, venture capital and venture debt have continued to grow in the country, although its angel scene remains low-key.

Oddly enough, 2020 was a banner year, with the sale of InstaShop to Delivery Hero valuing the company at $360 million, making it the largest exit for a Greek-founded startup with operations in Greece.

The pandemic has meant Greek investors and startups realize that if they can work from anywhere and hire from anywhere, then Greece is not such a bad place to be. And the Greek VC market benefits as the diaspora returns from the mega cities of the West. The nations startup ecosystem is also attracting more outside investors, who see low capital costs, an educated workforce and the move to remote working/hiring.

Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Venture Partners and FJ labs are all backing Greek startups, and Microsoft completed its first acquisition in the country.

Greek startups and investors are also extending collaboration with near neighbors in Cyprus, Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

Investors in our survey said they were excited by sectors such as infrastructure, agtech, cybersecurity, proptech, efficient software, renewable tech and platforms aimed at helping the recovery of blue-collar jobs.

Were they seeing green shoots after the worst of the pandemic? Yes, but still small.

Investors are spreading their wings outside of Greece as location becomes irrelevant and work-from-anywhere the new standard although the local ecosystem is always a priority.

Heres who we spoke with:

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What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?

Infrastructure, agtech, cybersecurity, efficient software.

Whats your latest, most exciting investment?

Hack The Box (the largest cybersecurity playground in the world).

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but dont? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?

Infrastructure software is far from being optimized and resulting in huge bills. There is a lot to be done to leverage modern hardware architecture to make things cheaper and easier to operate.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?

Industry people fixing their industry.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?

Data management/analytics is oversaturated.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?

More than 80%, we operate in underserved market and enjoy preferential pricing.

Which industries in your city and region seem well-positioned to thrive, or not, long term? What are companies you are excited about (your portfolio or not), which founders?

Shipping is an obvious one but we dont think venture returns can be accomplished in this space.Our portfolio company Netdata is changing IT monitoring. Huge OSS community and $30 million raised so far from Marathon, Bain and Bessemer.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?

Get to know the people first and where they are coming from (culturally).

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?

Yes absolutely, big expensive cities will drain talent to their peripheries (not going very far TBH).

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?

Travel is the obvious answer.

We see a lot of opportunity in software rebuilding, consolidation. There is truly too much software duct taped together. Its expensive, difficult to run and creates silos.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?

It hasnt changed anything really, we just want founders to be able to use exclusively online channels. Companies with a hardware component are more challenged but even they have to innovate on support, which becomes a net positive if/when achieved.Advise to startups: If you can find money sweep it.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.

Remote work could become a great equalizer or at least give more opportunities to people living far from the big hubs.

Any other thoughts you want to share with TechCrunch readers?

I think investing in local/geographical ecosystems is not so much about the law/economies of the ecosystem but rather the culture. Actually I was working on an article about that I wanted to share with TC 🙂

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?Future of work, enterprise software, edtech, AI.

Whats your latest, most exciting investment?

Intelligencia.ai supporting drug discovery with ML and Big Data.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but dont? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?

Edtech is a hugely untapped market, especially in vertical education and non-English-speaking content.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?

Given the stage we invest in (pre-seed and seed), we are always looking to find founders with a unique perspective, market insights and understanding.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?

Although we are an Athens-based fund, we are location-agnostic. Half of our portfolio companies are based overseas, with the majority being in the U.K., where there is a strong community of Greek expats and diaspora.

Which industries in your city and region seem well-positioned to thrive, or not, long term?

Given the size of the local market, which is relatively small, I believe by reality our country is better positioned for B2B and enterprise software ventures. The most recent exit of RPA startup Softomotive to Microsoft (May 2020) validates just that. Two companies Im excited about are Intelligencia.ai, which helps big pharma companies predict and accelerate clinical development of new drugs, and Netdata. Netdata is an open-source system for monitoring applications, servers, containers and devices in real-time.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?

Greece has recently started to get more traction and headlines in international publications, Softomotives exit as mentioned were good news for the local ecosystem, together with a few up rounds for Athens-based startups such as TileDB, Plum and others.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?

Absolutely, as location becomes irrelevant and work-from-anywhere the new standard we expect more founders to emerge from less profound places. Brain-regain will also be a significant driver, as more and more people will go back to their home countries.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?

Travel tech is profoundly negatively affected by the pandemic and while its really early to tell when and how travel will reemerge, I see little opportunities there for the next 12 to 18 months.

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?

For our post-revenue investments, cash flow and its impact on runaway is the biggest challenge. Our pre-market, pre-revenue startups are less affected. Fundraising for the next round is a major concern and challenge for all. We strongly recommend continued monitoring and cost-cutting where and if needed. For their fundraising strategies, we recommend raising more money, effectively extending their runway to 18-24 months. In cases where their ideal fundraising scenario is no longer a viable option, we suggest smaller rounds emergency financing driver primarily by existing investors that will support the companies until the market is less volatile.

Are you seeing green shoots regarding revenue growth, retention or other momentum in your portfolio as they adapt to the pandemic?

We are seeing interesting areas for growth as some of our companies decided to partially pivot their core product offering or market segment focus. A great example is MyJobNow a local blue-collar marketplace startup. Their initial product was targeting blue-collar workers using classifieds. Just before the COVID pandemic, the company introduced a second product, staffing on-demand service for delivery and last-mile transportation. The product faced significant and accelerated adoption by retail clients and e-commerce ventures as the need for last-mile delivery was significantly and positively affected by the lockdown.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.

Most founders showed a mix of good reflexes, empathy and business clarity during the first months of the pandemic.

Any other thoughts you want to share with TechCrunch readers?

A key parameter that will greatly affect the next phase of the local scene is for new first-time founders to be able to attract initial angel and pre-seed investment, as access to 50,000-200,000 tickets is still problematic and limited. We need to enhance the investment numbers on this stage in order to enlarge the footprint of the ecosystem and create a strong bottom-up startup funnel.

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?

I most like to invest in radically better solutions to very basic problems, such as preventing disease, or food provision, or increasing productivity in small firms. This is the social context of the fourth industrial revolution, and where some of the great success stories of the next 10 years will be.

Whats your latest, most exciting investment?

Its a tough choice, but I pick 2bull MeDiTherapy. They have developed a unique blood test for prognosis and diagnosis of aortic aneurysm. These is a very common silent killer, that could only be diagnosed up to now by cumbersome and expensive imaging techniques. Once the test gets the required CE mark, we hope it will be widely adopted as a screening method across Europe and the U.S.

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but dont? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?

In agritech, I havent seen much that would help small farms in rough terrain to increase productivity, secure quality or exploit unique niche varieties. This is potentially a big opportunity in many emerging economies as well as in the Mediterranean.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?

Ideally, a tool that can solve a fundamental production bottleneck across several industries, and that is based on years of research and has strong IP. An example from our portfolio is Navenio, which has location solution for people and equipment in large indoor spaces, that is infrastructure-free and requires no physical mapping. This has applications in hospitals, shopping malls, logistics centers, railroad stations, etc.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?

We see too many applications for e-commerce and service marketplaces. Most are copycats, but even if there is a new concept somewhere, network effects and economies of scale are prohibitive for almost all new teams.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?

By our mandate, we invest only in companies that have a substantial presence in Greece. This usually means an R&D center and/or product development team. Within Greece we have no specific preference for Athens, our home base, but most of the good deals we see are there.

Which industries in your city and region seem well-positioned to thrive, or not, long term?

Greece has strong research teams in biomedical science, and a large number of doctors with international experience and networks. I expect that health tech and medtech will be a big growth sector. Another area is HR tech: Workable (a leading applicant tracking system), Epignosis (learning technology for corporate users) and Bryq (a new bias-free candidate assessment platform) have all started in Athens. The first two already have nine-digit valuations, while Bryq is just taking off.

How should investors in other cities think about the overall investment climate and opportunities in your city?

The greatest advantage of Athens and some other Greek cities is the number of highly skilled Greeks in their thirties, who are working in technology or research in the rest of Europe and are looking to return home. Tech employers can easily attract such talent if they offer an exciting and/or well-paid job. These experienced people can train many of the excellent engineering and science grads that come out of local universities. Almost every company in our portfolio has done this. Investment climate is also rapidly improving under the current government, especially for knowledge industries, via various tax incentives, but also by encouraging the research community to open up to business.

Do you expect to see a surge in more founders coming from geographies outside major cities in the years to come, with startup hubs losing people due to the pandemic and lingering concerns, plus the attraction of remote work?

Yes, I expect that, and we are already seeing this in Greece, as one of the places of origin of such founders, but also as a destination for talent that is leaving expensive and crowded cities.

Which industry segments that you invest in look weaker or more exposed to potential shifts in consumer and business behavior because of COVID-19? What are the opportunities startups may be able to tap into during these unprecedented times?

Travel and hospitality will be hurt. Big Pi has not invested in the sector (by chance, not by design) but some very good Greek teams were in there, and inevitably some will have to move to other things. Great opportunities arise in remote provision of sophisticated services (health, entertainment, education and also equipment maintenance and repair).

How has COVID-19 impacted your investment strategy? What are the biggest worries of the founders in your portfolio? What is your advice to startups in your portfolio right now?

There have been delays in enterprise sales, and in the supply chain for hardware products. We have set aside capital to support longer runways, but beyond that we dont anticipate much damage. Our advice to founders is to focus all resources on achieving targets that will enable them to raise the next equity round.

What is a moment that has given you hope in the last month or so? This can be professional, personal or a mix of the two.

The Greek government designed and implemented in record time a logistics system for COVID vaccines, and, most impressively, a very user-friendly appointment platform for the vaccinations that is working seamlessly. For a state that until recently was very slow and inefficient, this was a great leap ahead and bodes well for future digital public services.

Who are key startup people you see creating success locally?

All six VC teams that were funded by Equifund in 2018 have done a very good job (Marathon, Venture Friends, Uni.Fund, Metavallon, Velocity and Big Pi) and have given a big boost to the ecosystem. Founders from Greek diaspora have been instrumental (e.g., Stavros Papadopoulos of TileDB, Vergetis and Skaltsas of Intelligencia, Masouras of Saphetor).

What trends are you most excited about investing in, generally?

Proptech, fintech and marketplace models, interested in both B2C and B2B startups.

Whats your latest, most exciting investment?Influ2 (Person Based Marketing startup B2B SaaS).

Are there startups that you wish you would see in the industry but dont? What are some overlooked opportunities right now?

Some investors shy away from capital intensive models e.g., that need a lot of debt fundraising and many prefer B2B SaaS startups. We like B2C a lot, we like operational plays i.e., not pure tech necessarily, plus we are comfortable with models that require a lot of debt raising in parallel to equity.

What are you looking for in your next investment, in general?

Founders with global aspirations that execute well a scalable model. The team and the market size are the two most important factors, and then a number of other factors: competition, timing/market trend, short- and long-term defensibility/USP, etc.

Which areas are either oversaturated or would be too hard to compete in at this point for a new startup? What other types of products/services are you wary or concerned about?

Many markets/areas are oversaturated or would be too hard to compete this however can vary on geography as well e.g., we have seen some great opportunities in LatAm for example that are copy cats of other models.

How much are you focused on investing in your local ecosystem versus other startup hubs (or everywhere) in general? More than 50%? Less?

The local ecosystem is always a priority. Also apart from local startups we are looking for Greek founders across the globe e.g., recently invested in a U.S.-based Greek founder. However given the size of our fund and opportunities out there we do not restrict our investments only in the local ecosystem. So far more than 50% has been in the local ecosystem (company or founder) however because we are an international (European mostly) VC more and more of our investments are from outside of the local ecosystem.

Which industries in your city and region seem well-positioned to thrive, or not, long term?

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As location becomes irrelevant, Greek VCs eye local talent and spread their wings - TechCrunch

Mango Animate Offers a Cartoon Character Creator Free to Enhance Ideas – WhaTech

Users can easily enhance their ideas using stunning storyboards and professionally crafted cartoon characters.

Mango Animate has provided an innovative cartoon character creator free for all users. The flexibility of this cartoon character creator empowers users to create stunning storyboards and cartoon characters that complement each other when integrated with the rest of the functionalities. Working with PSD layers and PNG images has never been easier with this software product. It helps to produce vivacious, dynamic artworks that enchant viewers.

To create cartoon effects with the cartoon character creator from Mango Animate, users dont need to master the art of animation. Just by experimenting and tweaking different features, they can achieve the desired result of turning simple projects into masterpieces. The software makes users lives easier as they only need their creativity to come up with unique projects for their needs. Users should expect nothing but a lot of independence, flexibility, and total success with their creations.

Getting the cartoon character creator is your ticket to a successful advertising venture with excellent outcomes, said Ivan Leung, CTO of Mango Animate. With the software, you can connect with many people using dynamic and more shareable content. Cartoon characters have the power to provoke emotions in viewers, which in turn push them to share with others and even take the right initiative.

Cartoon characters are the most fun, informative and entertaining way for users to express concepts and ideas to the world. And Mango Animates cartoon character creator can help to achieve this within minutes with very little effort. Users can design as many projects as they can and communicate to viewers in a manner that catches and retains their overall interest. Cartoons created at Mango Animate can turn any tedious, complex, boring content into interesting videos with just a click.

Mango Animate understands the value of cartoon characters in marketing and other ventures. That is why it developed the cartoon character creator free to help users accomplish their goals. Cartoon characters can be swiftly incorporated in a lot of content including blogs, presentations, and other advertising, training, and entertaining content. While they're versatile, they can also help to boost the success of users' projects.

For more information, please visit Mango Animate.

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Mango Animate Offers a Cartoon Character Creator Free to Enhance Ideas - WhaTech

How the US Lost to Hackers – The New York Times

Theres a reason we believed the fallacy that offense could keep us safe: The offense was a bloody masterpiece.

Starting in 2007, the United States, with Israel, pulled off an attack on Irans Natanz nuclear facility that destroyed roughly a fifth of Irans centrifuges. That attack, known as Stuxnet, spread using seven holes, known as zero days, in Microsoft and Siemens industrial software. (Only one had been previously disclosed, but never patched). Short term, Stuxnet was a resounding success. It set Irans nuclear ambitions back years and kept the Israelis from bombing Natanz and triggering World War III. In the long term, it showed allies and adversaries what they were missing and changed the digital world order.

In the decade that followed, an arms race was born.

N.S.A. analysts left the agency to start cyber arms factories, like Vulnerability Research Labs, in Virginia, which sold click-and-shoot tools to American agencies and our closest Five Eyes English-speaking allies. One contractor, Immunity Inc., founded by a former N.S.A. analyst, embarked on a slippier slope. First, employees say, Immunity trained consultants like Booz Allen, then defense contractor Raytheon, then the Dutch and the Norwegian governments. But soon the Turkish army came knocking.

Companies like CyberPoint took it further, stationing themselves overseas, sharing the tools and tradecraft the U.A.E. would eventually turn on its own people. In Europe, purveyors of the Pentagons spyware, like Hacking Team, started trading those same tools to Russia, then Sudan, which used them to ruthless effect.

As the market expanded outside the N.S.A.s direct control, the agencys focus stayed on offense. The N.S.A. knew the same vulnerabilities it was finding and exploiting elsewhere would, one day, blow back on Americans. Its answer to this dilemma was to boil American exceptionalism down to an acronym NOBUS which stands for Nobody But Us. If the agency found a vulnerability it believed only it could exploit, it hoarded it.

This strategy was part of what Gen. Paul Nakasone, the current N.S.A. director and George Washington and the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu before him call active defense.

In modern warfare, active defense amounts to hacking enemy networks. Its mutually assured destruction for the digital age: We hacked into Russias troll networks and its grid as a show of force; Irans nuclear facilities, to take out its centrifuges; and Huaweis source code, to penetrate its customers in Iran, Syria and North Korea, for espionage and to set up an early warning system for the N.S.A., in theory, to head off attacks before they hit.

Originally posted here:
How the US Lost to Hackers - The New York Times

Google Drive is unifying its two backup and sync solutions to reduce confusion – Chrome Unboxed

Lets be honest, the old Google Drive Backup & Sync option (which still exists) is not reliable. Thats been my experience, at least. It constantly failed to synchronize hundreds of files and continued to get stuck retracing its steps each time I would turn my PC on. Google Drive File Stream is much more reliable and works by streaming your files to you not unlike a Chromebooks Files app does. Now, Google is unifying the two solutions to reduce confusion. My take is that theyre allowing File Stream to gobble up Backup & Sync because its old news.

Thats not to say that the ability to locally store your cloud files instead of streaming them to you will go away. The term unifying is being used because they truly are creating an all-in-one solution for those who prefer one over the other. Backup & Sync was built for consumers while File Stream was built for Workspace users. Ive found that File Stream is a much better solution for me as a consumer and as a business user, so Ive opted for it over the old tool thanks to its reliability and rapid access to my files.

If youre interested in previewing the Google Drive for Desktop beta and youre a Workspace user, you can fill out this test application to try to get access to it before it fully rolls out to everyone later this year. The goal with this change is that IT departments will no longer have to guess or work out which solution a customer is utilizing before they offer them support they will effectively be one in the same before long.

The new Google Drive for Desktop as its being called will take the best and most used features from both pieces of software and combine them into one, thus improving performance and adoption across the board. Backup & Sync users functionality and users will be automatically transitioned to the new Drive for Desktop when its ready. When that time comes, Google will provide organizations with a three months heads up so that they can make preparations for the transition. If you want to see the full break down on which features will be taken from both and placed into the unified sync client, you should check out the list.

Workspace EssentialsBusiness StarterBusiness StandardBusiness PlusEnterprise EssentialsEnterprise StandardEnterprise PlusG Suite BasicG Suite for BusinessG Suite for EducationEnterprise for EducationNonprofits customers who currently have users with the Backup and Sync deployed

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Google Drive is unifying its two backup and sync solutions to reduce confusion - Chrome Unboxed

Intel picks and chooses benchmarks as the threat from Apple Silicon grows – 9to5Mac

The first M1 Macs have been out in the wild for nearly three full months, and the fear is setting in at Intel. The company this week shared a detailed slideshow of benchmark results with Toms Hardware (via Six Colors), aiming to show that there are multiple ways in which it still has a leg up on Apple Silicondepending on how you look at things.

One of Intels focuses is on what it refers to as productivity. The company compares its 11th generation Tiger Lake processors against Apples M1 for things like web browsing and using Microsoft Office. Intel says:

Comparing Microsoft Office 365, running native on both Intel and Apple processors: The 11th Gen system performs some functions like PDF export up to 2.3x faster (vs Apple M1)

Comparing the most popular web browser (Chrome), running native versions on both Intel and Apple processors: The 11th Generation system is more than 30% faster overall and nearly 3x faster in the online photo enhancement subtest (vs Apple M1)

Other benchmarks from Intel also focus on things like content creation, using software from Adobe and Topaz Labs, as well as gaming.

Intel also compared the M1 against Intel Evo, which is its second-generation upgrade to Project Athena to make the best portable devices.

There are some bizarre results from testing between the M1 and Evo, with Intel claiming that the M1 in the MacBook Pro failed at things such as using Zoom and PowerPoint. Toms Hardware explains:

Intel claims that the M1 in the MacBook Pro it tested failed eight out of 25 tests it uses, including Switch to Calendar in Outlook, start video conference in Zoom, and Select picture Menu in PowerPoint. Intels workloads dont explain how these are run, but theyre also simple tasks that work quite well on just about any modern processor, so theyre odd choices. (I had plenty of Zoom conferences while testing the MacBook Pro with no issue.)

There are multiple things to keep in mind with this testing. First and foremost, these tests were performed by Intel, and therefore should be treated with skepticism; of course the company is going to pick and choose the specific tasks where Intel chips might still perform better than Apples M1.

For instance, Toms Hardware points out some suspicious choices Intel made when testing battery life:

In battery life, Intel switched to an Intel Core i7-1165G7 notebook, the Acer Swift 5, rather than sticking with the Core i7-1185G7 in the whitebook it used for performance testing. It also tested a MacBook Air. They ran Netflix streams and tabs and found the MacBook Air came ahead with a six-minute difference.

Intel didnt list battery life for the MacBook Pro. In our tests, that beat Intel PCs by hours.

Intels timing with releasing this counterargument to Apple Silicon is also intriguing. Jason Snell at Six Colors points out at the M1 is a low-end chip for low-end system, and Intel only has a small window left for being able to find favorable comparisons:

Inconsistent test platforms, shifting arguments, omitted data, and the not-so-faint whiff of desperation. Todays M1 processor is a low-end chip for low-end systems, so Intel only has a small window to compare itself favorably to these systems before higher-end Apple silicon Macs ship and make its job that much harder.

If youre interested, you can find the full slideshow presentation from Intel over at Toms Hardware.

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Intel picks and chooses benchmarks as the threat from Apple Silicon grows - 9to5Mac