Former Bond Avenue CEO and founder David Haber has joined Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a Common Companion – turning into the primary full-time GP based mostly in Manhattan.
Bond Avenue, as soon as an unbiased on-line lender for SMEs, the Fintech was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2017 with Haber becoming a member of Goldman to assist information the funding financial institution into the digital way forward for lending.
In accordance with a press release by a16z, they’re extremely bullish on the Fintech sector, together with crypto, and Haber will likely be a part of the main focus of investing on this sector.
The VC said:
“It’s uncommon to search out a longtime investor, entrepreneur, and government in a single, a lot much less one so deeply rooted within the NYC ecosystem. Solely hardly ever, if ever, do I encounter a Fintech entrepreneur who doesn’t know David. We’re excited to have him on the agency to assist mentor and spend money on the subsequent era of entrepreneurs as increasingly more areas of finance get eaten by software program.”
In certainly one of Silicon Valley’s newest makes an attempt to sort out our on-line misinformation disaster, Google introduced a brand new characteristic that warns U.S. customers about trending subjects that do not have dependable search outcomes but.
The immediate cautions customers that, “it seems to be like these outcomes are altering rapidly,” additional explaining that “if this subject is new, it will probably generally take time for outcomes to be added by dependable sources,” in response to a picture on Google’s announcement printed on Friday.
The software is designed to detect searches on subjects which are “quickly evolving,” like breaking information or different topics garnering a surge of curiosity, that “a spread of sources” haven’t weighed in on but. Nevertheless, Google’s announcement did not say precisely what could be thought of a dependable supply nor the way it’d assess the reliability of stated sources.
The hazard of on-line misinformation has been a widespread concern levied in opposition to tech firms for a few years now. However tech giants like Google (which additionally owns YouTube) solely started treating it as a urgent problem comparatively lately, largely as a result of COVID-19 misinformation, disinformation round 2020 election fraud, and renewed authorities scrutiny within the type of anti-trust investigations by Congress.
Google says the characteristic has been in testing for a few week now, although just for a small share of searches, in response to Recode. Mashable was not in a position to independently confirm the immediate, regardless of looking out the identical subjects Google’s search liaison gave as examples to Recode. The examples included a question for a advised UFO sighting within the UK.
As of this writing, the UFO question directs customers to a YouTube video in regards to the alleged sighting, UK tabloids the Solar and Each day Star‘s protection, and a Verge article protecting the brand new Google characteristic.
This might partially be because of the subject surfacing 4 days prior, which maybe excludes it from being categorized as a “new” subject that is “altering rapidly.” However it does name into query whether or not the software does a lot of something to assist customers with “media literacy,” which Google Search public liaison Danny Sullivan described as its intention, within the medium time period — as in after a subject begins to development however earlier than so-called dependable websites present deeper context (and on some topics few might ever accomplish that). Different queries listed as examples by Recode embrace, “why is britney on lithium” and “black triangle ufo ocean.” Mashable did not get the brand new Google immediate for these both.
“Whether or not you see one thing on social media or are having a dialog with a pal, you may flip to Google to study extra a few creating problem,” Sullivan wrote within the announcement publish. However, “Typically the dependable data you’re trying to find simply isn’t on-line but. This may be significantly true for breaking information or rising subjects, when the knowledge that’s printed first might not be probably the most dependable.”
Earlier this 12 months, Google launched its About This Outcome panel beta, which provides context about sources of knowledge that floor in its outcomes. The panel exhibits a snippet of a Wikipedia entry a few web site, if out there, to present extra context as to what a web site is understood for.
Each Fb and Twitter launched equally well-intentioned instruments round on-line media literacy forward of the fraught 2020 U.S. election, like labeling posts with “disputed claims” or “deceptive data.” Nevertheless, questions stay about how efficient these prompts, labels, and warnings to customers about doubtlessly unreliable data truly are.
Nonetheless, testing a potential repair is healthier than nothing. However relating to misinformation on-line, cautionary warnings like Google’s new one could also be flimsy bandaids once we’re coping with a gaping wound.
Switzerland’s Instimatch World, a digital platform for institutional short-term cash market buying and selling, is teaming up with Swiss Fintech FQX to enhance its primary providing by offering eNotes™, which is described as a disruptive short-term financing and fee software.
“FQX gives a safe, environment friendly and compliant infrastructure for the issuance and switch of digital Promissory Notes eNotes™. Combining extremely confirmed devices with most up-to-date laws, FQX permits the standardized and globally scalable switch of unconditional guarantees to pay, radically facilitating provide chain and company finance. FQX is a companion of Swisscom for the usage of Certified Digital Signatures. All eNotes™ are saved on the Consensus-as-a-Service banking infrastructure of Swisscom and Swiss Publish.”
At current, the agency helps buying and selling of unsecured money deposits inside a large community of banking establishments, firms, fund managers, insurers, public sector counterparties and different enterprise entities.
By leveraging FQX’s know-how, Instimatch will be capable to help the usage of eNotes™, a sort of digital promissory notes which have been verified and secured by Swisscom and SwissPost on the bank-grade blockchain or DLT community, referred to as Swiss Belief Chain.
An eNoteTM is taken into account an unconditional dedication to pay a certain quantity to a different social gathering at a selected date sooner or later and/or at a specified time (as talked about within the phrases and conidtions).
The eNotesTM could also be flexibly offered and transferred to varied third-parties.
Hugh Macmillen, Founding father of Instimatch World, acknowledged:
“Our partnership with FQX allows us to empower banks to digitize their certificates of deposit applications utilizing FQX’s eNotesTM, a revolutionary cash market resolution. Institutional Traders buying and selling these digital certificates of deposit (eCDs) would expertise absolutely digitised deposit transactions, digitally signed and immutably saved on the Swisscom Blockchain infrastructure. The enforcement regime relevant to eNotesTM is acknowledged in over 165 international locations.”
Stephan D. Meyer, Co-CEO at FQX, remarked:
“The partnership between Instimatch World and FQX kinds the proper synergy by combining Instimatch World’s shopper community and very good digital-only consumer expertise with the strengths of the blockchain-based, simply enforceable and tradeable eNoteTM. This considerably improves the way in which cash market transactions are achieved.”
Mike Pence’s concept of a joke includes a automotive crash, a canine and a cow being euthanized, and a crash sufferer who does not wish to get shot by the responding cop. No, context does not assist in any respect right here.
The previous vice chairman unleashed his concept of a joke throughout a speech earlier within the week, and The Tonight Present host Jimmy Fallon spent a while interrogating that call on Friday’s episode. It’d shock you to be taught that Pence, whose pure look can finest be described as “stone-faced,’ does not have an ideal grasp on comedian timing.
It could possibly be a quirk of the best way The Tonight Present reduce up the video, however Pence’s rambling supply make it seem to be he is retelling a joke her heard as soon as at a celebration, however did not take the time to organize for a retelling; as a substitute, he is simply winging it. Content material is also a difficulty right here, because it’s laborious to search out laughter proper after you are informed a poor doggie with a damaged again obtained shot within the head.
I am gonna say it once more: Context does not assist right here within the slightest. Even the widely chill Fallon struggles to discover a response apart from “WTF???”
NEM Ventures has expanded its early-stage ecosystem after the launch of Image.
As talked about in a launch shared with Crowdfund Insider, the NEM Ignite Incubator Program is now getting ready promising or high-potential blockchain startups for market entry on Image.
NEM Ventures, which is the VC and investments division of the NEM blockchain ecosystem, has managed to efficiently incubate blockchain or DLT startups on Image.
Image is notably NEM’s lately launched blockchain or distributed ledger tech platform. Supported by the NEM Ignite Incubator Program, LCNEM, KarmaPoint, and FactorChain AI acquired “tailor-made help with the event of every startup’s imaginative and prescient.”
Dave Hodgson, CIO of NEM Group and MD of NEM Ventures, acknowledged:
“NEM Ignite fosters connections between cohort contributors, business companions and professionals, giving incubatees entry to the robust and thriving decentralized NEM ecosystem and past. The programme has given us the chance to develop our ecosystem with three tasks. APAC, Latin America and North America are three highly-valued demographics, and we imagine that these startups have the potential to contribute to the imaginative and prescient of constructing a decentralized new financial system motion.”
As famous within the launch, spanning three continents and a number of other completely different disciplines, these various initiatives can be centered on contributing to the continued progress of NEM’s distributed ecosystem and aim of creating and supporting the brand new financial system motion (NEM).
These profitable initiatives embrace:
Japanese startup LCNEM “fosters the expansion of good cities through blockchain, AI and machine studying expertise.” At current, they’re making a ticket administration and monitoring product for the Japanese leisure sector and a stablecoin that’s backed by Japanese Yen.
LCNEM’s highly effective expertise stack “makes good cities the place people can concentrate on creating worth, backed by an completed staff that additionally supplies digital expertise consulting.”
The second initiative in growth on Image is KarmaPoint, a Chilean-based firm. The venture “incentivizes customers to do constructive acts rewarding them with digital tokens.” The system creates “a digital status for folks and establishments in recognition for his or her contributions to society, enhancing collaboration and motivation in a virtuous cycle of constructive worth.” The venture has “lately completed a Beta model testing with nice outcomes,” the announcement revealed.
Moreover, FactorChain AI, a Canadian initiative initially meant for native artisanal meals suppliers and craft breweries, gives “smarter, quicker” credit score into the availability chain. FactorChain entry banking, monetary and operational information “to attain the debtors, and automate the onboarding and underwriting course of.”
The venture makes use of good contracts that monitor the progress of credit score issuance, and underwrite the credit score through different swimming pools of capital, “redirecting DeFi yield from stablecoin backed investments.”
LCNEM, KarmaPoint and FactorChain AI are all creating options on Image, NEM’s Proof-of-Stake+ (PoS+) public blockchain. With enterprise-grade programmability and safety, Image’s technical options “allow a collection of use instances spanning industries together with fintech, healthcare and provide chain,” the announcement famous whereas including that the NEM venture “now contains two chains, with the 6-year NEM NIS1 platform, working in parallel with Image.”
Deal pricing and availability topic to alter after time of publication.
TL;DR: Apply your artistic writing anytime, wherever with theFreewrite Traveler Moveable Writing Software, on sale as of June 26. Use code FREEWRITE20 at checkout to get one for $429 — a $70 low cost.
As any author is aware of, it’s very straightforward to get distracted. Say you’ve gotten a genius thought for a track or story, however as you decide up your telephone to jot it down in your notes, you obtain an e-mail. The e-mail steals your consideration and that good thought in your head is now gone. With the Freewrite Traveler Moveable Writing Software, you do not have to fret about emails or some other distractions maintaining you from getting out your concepts.
Efficiently funded on Indiegogo with greater than $745,000, the Freewrite Traveler is the last word writing software for the simply distracted. It’s half retro and half trendy in that it’s much like a laptop computer in portability and elegance, however eliminates all of the distractions of browsers and notifications. It serves only one objective: letting you sort phrases distraction-free.
See it in motion:
It encompasses a full-sized scissor change keyboard you could arrange in additional than 30 totally different layouts — from QWERTY to AZERTY to DVORAK. The E Ink show makes use of ambient mild that’s straightforward on the eyes and received’t wash out in direct daylight, much like a Kindle, so you’ll be able to write for hours with out straining your poor retinas. And at simply 1.6 kilos, it’s lighter than a typical laptop computer. Slip it in your bag and get your ideas down wherever you go.
With out pointless apps all the time operating within the background, the Freewrite Traveler’s battery can final you as much as 4 weeks. Plus, it may possibly maintain about 1 million pages of drafts and seamlessly again them as much as the cloud — leaving you free to give attention to writing.
eRemit Singapore, a digital remittance service platform that’s supported by Merchantrade Asia and QALA Tech, has teamed up with Hong Leong Assurance Singapore (HLAS) to be able to present a brand new insurance coverage scheme for migrant employees primarily based in Singapore.
The eRemit Singapore’s Wage Protector Scheme has been underwritten by HLAS. The scheme is particularly developed to handle the distinctive protection necessities of migrant employees residing in Singapore.
This new scheme reportedly covers as much as 12x their month-to-month wage with a most cap of SGD 12,000 (appr. $8,930).
The scheme covers on- and off-working hours for many of the occupations and affords vital monetary help if there’s unintentional loss of life or within the case of a everlasting incapacity.
The scheme is being provided free-of-cost to all eRemit Singapore purchasers who’ve been in a position to perform profitable remittance transactions through the agency’s on-line platform.
eRemit Singapore’s administration additionally famous that they’re additional increasing their remittance companies to a business-focused viewers, particularly fitted to native SMEs.
Its new international remittance platform can be supporting faster and extra seamless cross-border transactions to 6 totally different nations throughout the APAC area, facilitating quick, protected and safe cross-border funds.
Srihari Sikhakollu, CEO at eRemit Singapore, acknowledged:
“We’re proud to work with HLAS to carry this Wage Protector Scheme to life, and we hope this may give migrant employees some peace of thoughts in making certain that they and their households are supplied for. In Could this 12 months, we waived our service payment to all 13 nations in order that employees who use our service can ship more cash to their households, and we hope to proceed supporting them with our debut entry within the Insurtech area.”
Kelvin Lim, CEO at HLAS, remarked:
“Everybody deserves to be lined no matter the place they arrive from or what they do, particularly in these difficult occasions. It’s progressive so as to add this service to our intensive portfolio of insurance coverage packages. eRemit Singapore’s intensive fintech expertise and huge adoption among the many migrant employee neighborhood makes them a wonderful accomplice to make sure that our insurance coverage is accessible to them and addresses their wants.”
Deal pricing and availability topic to alter after time of publication.
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Show, which gives an progressive method of proving id by requiring solely a telephone quantity, reveals that it has built-in TransUnion’s TruValidate id verification answer into its product providing in order that it might probably supply a brand new, immediate, digital id service in Hong Kong.
The launch of the brand new digital id product into this new market is a part of Show’s ongoing enterprise enlargement – which incorporates its Cellphone Id Community. The corporate experiences that its ID verification options are being provided in 60 completely different international locations.
Show’s newest answer ought to permit corporations with a world presence to additional lengthen their digital KYC, ID verification, and authentication companies to Hong Kong residents. With such a excessive degree of cell phone penetration, town will likely be a strategic addition to Show’s Cellphone Id Community, permitting clients to have interaction with an intuitive and safer ID verification answer.
The mixing of TransUnion’s TruValidate id verification function into Show’s Hong Kong product providing ought to help corporations with confidently creating new accounts with purchasers in a digital surroundings.
The brand new answer might assist corporations with higher securing consumer journeys and assist cease or stop fraudulent actions earlier than they really happen. With superior machine studying algorithms, Show goals to supply the suitable know-how to make sure that information is extremely correct and dependable.
Shoppers will even have the choice to entry Show’s Possession, Repute, and Possession (PRO)-based ID authentication options, like one-time passcodes, safe hyperlinks, Belief Rating™, behavioral biometrics, and push authentication, so as to orchestrate end-to-end id and fraud options leveraging Cellphone-Centric Id™.
The enlargement will even intention to enrich Show’s Multi-Issue Authentication capabilities – that are at present being supported in 195 completely different international locations.
Show’s ID verification and PRO™ options might help clients within the monetary, insurance coverage, e-commerce and retail, healthcare, gaming, and cryptocurrency house with ID verification.
A few of the major use-cases of the product embody:
Screening account openings and onboarding clients
Securing delicate transactions with step-up authentication measures
Verifying buyer id whereas lowering buyer expertise friction
Fulfilling PSD2 SCA, KYC, anti-money laundering (AML), and different regulatory necessities
“Because the world turns into an increasing number of digital, at Show, we’re continuously fascinated by how we are able to higher serve our clients on a worldwide scale. Our new Hong Kong providing which integrates TransUnion’s id verification functionality, is one other side underpinning our global-forward technique, and we’re excited to repeatedly innovate and convey the best-in-class options to our clients – at scale, worldwide.”
Jerry Ying, TransUnion APAC’s chief merchandise officer, remarked:
“In an more and more digital world customers anticipate companies to have the ability to defend them and their transactions while nonetheless sustaining handy experiences. By making certain buyer id, companies can kind long-lasting relationships constructed on mutual belief.”
Ravi Bijlani, SVP, Worldwide at Show, famous:
“Our distinctive id method is making a wave of pleasure, resulting in additional collaborations with main manufacturers, the place we influence positively each on fraud discount in addition to decreased buyer friction. This has led to 4x progress 12 months on 12 months and we sit up for inspiring not simply Monetary Providers, but additionally Gaming, Crypto, and Retail markets too.”
The Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence dropped the long-awaited UFO report Friday afternoon, and the 9-page unclassified doc is bound to boost extra questions than it solutions. Titled “Preliminary Evaluation: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,” the report basically throws up its fingers and says that most of the unidentified aerial phenomena analyzed stay simply that — unidentified.
The report breaks the several types of UAP (the federal government’s method of claiming UFO) into 5 classes. The primary, “Airborne Muddle,” is just about what’d you anticipate, and contains stuff like birds and balloons. The following, “Pure Atmospheric Phenomena,” covers issues like ice crystals. The third class, “USG or Business Developmental Applications,” is a elaborate method of claiming secret U.S. navy planes and the like. The fourth, “Overseas Adversary Methods,” is supposed to explain applied sciences developed by overseas governments comparable to Russia or China.
The ultimate class, which is essentially the most fascinating for our functions, is “Different.” It is principally a catchall for what the specialists on the DNI don’t have any method of explaining.
“Though many of the UAP described in our dataset most likely stay unidentified attributable to restricted knowledge or challenges to assortment processing or evaluation, we could require further scientific information to efficiently gather on, analyze and characterize a few of them,” reads the report. “We’d group such objects on this class pending scientific advances that allowed us to raised perceive them.”
Extra plainly put, they do not know what that stuff is and haven’t got the instruments to determine it out.
Oh, and in what needs to be the least shocking facet of the report, it says that “a extra subtle evaluation of UAP that’s prone to deepen our understanding […] would require further funding.”
In different phrases, the DNI is saying in case you actually wish to resolve this complete UFO factor, you are most likely going to wish to throw some extra money at it.
And Friday’s report does not dismiss these sightings out of hand, stating that 18 of the UAP studied “Seem to Display Superior Know-how.”
Sadly for all these hoping to be spirited off this warming planet, that superior tech remains to be very a lot unidentified and never on its technique to choose them up.
Former Bond Avenue CEO and founder David Haber has joined Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a Common Companion – turning into the primary full-time GP based mostly in Manhattan.
